Genter Julie AnneJULIE ANNE GENTER (Green): I am pleased to take a call on the second reading of this bill. Despite what the previous speaker Mr Bishop said I do not think this bill is entirely a stunt at all. I think it is actually quite germane to what is happening at the moment because although the National Government has found it politically difficult to carry out its ambitions of privatising Kiwibank that is its intention. That is because it does not see the purpose and the benefit to New Zealand of having a New Zealand - owned bank a Government-owned bank that can help achieve greater competition in the banking sector for New Zealanders and that is exactly what Kiwibank has done. The Green Party supports the bill particularly with the excellent amendments from the Hon David Parker.I will note again in clause 3 of the bill there is a very clear purpose: The purpose of this Act is to ensure that Kiwibank continues to be owned by the New Zealand people unless and until it is absolutely clear that they no longer wish to own Kiwibank." I think it is fair enough for the Labour Party to introduce such a bill given the history of what has happened in the last few terms of Parliament when the public actually made it very clear that they did not agree with the partial privatisation of the energy companies and yet the Government went ahead and did it anyway with its one-vote majority even though a significant portion—I think even the majority of its own voters—did not support that policy. The Government still went ahead and did that.Of course that privatisation did not make any economic or fiscal sense. There were a lot of arguments put forward that we needed to do it to pay down debt. Of course that is not what happened. We ended up flooding the market with shares in energy companies receiving a much lower value than what they were worth and now the cost of selling them has almost been the benefit. The money that we received from selling those shares has actually almost been exceeded by the cost that we have forgone by not receiving the dividends from those companies. Of course once you have that partial privatisation it means that private shareholders who have an interest in maximising their returns do not necessarily have in mind the interests of the New Zealand people when they are looking at policy. When you have an oligarchic situation which is very—[Interruption] I raise a point of order Mr Speaker.The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Before you take the point of order I will ask Mr Robertson to stay on his backside thank you.JULIE ANNE GENTER: I just found it unbearably annoying to listen to Mr Seymour interject in everybody's speeches this evening and I did not get up to do a point of order because I did not want to interrupt other members' speeches but I am going to interrupt my own speech to ask you—The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Sure and I know because I have—being a foolish person—been in the car and been listening to Parliament on the radio for some time and I could hear Mr Seymour interjecting. I could hear Mr Seymour interjecting and there is a convention here that people are more reasonable interjecting from the cross-benches especially to colleagues on the other side who are near them. I ask Mr Seymour to respect that convention and to keep his interjections occasional and preferably witty.JULIE ANNE GENTER: Thank you Mr Assistant Speaker. It is a very similar situation and I think it is entirely relevant and fair that the Labour Party brought this bill to the House given that we already have a similar situation where we have effectively an oligarchy in energy markets and yet the Government went ahead and partially privatised shares in the energy companies.Now what we have in the banking sector is definitely an oligarchy. We have nearly 90 percent of all banks in this country dominated by the four big Aussie banks. That lack of competition has even been noted by Standard and Poor's which called it oligopolistic. Just for the benefit of Mr Seymour in particular who I know is very ideological and has a blinkered understanding of economics in standard economic theory an oligopoly is a bad thing because it means there is a lack of competition and you get excessive profits which are actually not efficient because of course when you have excessive economic profit it means that the price that people are paying for a good or service is greater than the marginal cost of production of that service.Excessive economic profit is inefficient and bad for New Zealand in particular because those profits are flowing offshore. We are paying up to $4 billion a year to foreign-based shareholders in these banks and that is not getting us better services. It is not getting us better banking services and it is not getting us better mortgages; it is actually quite inefficient.When Kiwibank was introduced in 2001 it was very effective at lowering bank fees and ensuring the New Zealand public whether they banked with Kiwibank or one of the big four banks were actually getting a fair deal in terms of the price they paid for banking services and were more likely to receive fair mortgage interest rates. It is entirely reasonable and important that the New Zealand public are assured that there will not be a sale of Kiwibank unless there is a parliamentary majority in favour of that for good reason. It would be very difficult for me to understand what the purpose of selling Kiwibank would be because it is incredibly beneficial to New Zealanders to have a Government-owned bank that is there to compete with the big four Aussie banks.Of course the Green Party supports strengthening Kiwibank even further so that it can do more to compete with the big four Aussie banks. We support legislative changes that would help the credit unions and other New Zealand - owned institutions grow and be more competitive with the big four Aussie banks. That is one of the ways that we can ensure that we will not be paying too much on mortgage interest and it means real savings for New Zealanders—I mean up to $600 or $700 a year—on their mortgages if we have a more competitive banking sector not to mention ensuring that we have lower rates and fees.Of course the National Government has come up with its own solution. Rather than investing in Kiwibank and enabling it to compete with the big four Aussie banks it has found a solution which is effectively a back-door route potentially to privatisation. Rather than more directly providing the capital that Kiwibank needs the board has had to make the decision to raise capital by selling shares—probably at an undervalued rate—to Government institutions with no assurance that those shares will not be onsold to private investors. If at one point the Crown did intend to buy them back in a period of 5 years it could end up costing taxpayers up to $800 million. It makes more sense I think for the Government to put $100 million directly into the bank allow it to grow its business—[Interruption]The ASSISTANT SPEAKER (Hon Trevor Mallard): Order! Thank you.JULIE ANNE GENTER: I suppose it just speaks to the very limited understanding of the overall social and economic benefits that Government can provide to its citizens on the part of this National Government that it looks at short-term ways of finding a surplus and it has a very accounting-focused approach to evaluating benefits rather than looking at the overall picture of what is going to be better for New Zealand households. Why does it make sense to have a New Zealand Government - owned bank if we are not going to use that bank to deliver greater benefits to the New Zealand public?So of course the National Government's approach just as it is with public television or public energy companies is to run them on commercial grounds and to eventually potentially sell them off. Of course although you might get some very very short-term benefit from that from the point of view of trying to achieve a surplus eventually there will be enormous costs to the New Zealand public of not having a well-established New Zealand - owned bank that can compete with the four big Aussie banks. The Green Party very much supports retaining public ownership of Kiwibank strengthening Kiwibank so it can do more to benefit New Zealanders."