Cunliffe David: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cunliffe David: Urgent Debates — State-owned Energy Companies Sales—Delay of Mighty River Power Sale 
[Sitting date: 11 September 2012. Volume:683;Page:5063. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon DAVID CUNLIFFE (Labour—New Lynn) 
: 
 Put aside the fact that the sale of State-owned enterprises is the wrong thing to do. Put aside the fact that contrary to the claims of the last speaker Mr Finlayson polls made it clear at the last election that most New Zealanders did not want the assets sold. Put aside the fact that the Crown and the taxpayer will actually lose money and increase the national debt as a result of the sale because the dividends that they earn and the returns that they earn are greater than the cost of capital from the Government financing. Put aside all those facts and what have we learnt today? The Government cannot even do a bad thing well. It could not organise a booze-up in a brewery. It cannot even do a bad thing well. 
We have learnt today from Mr English some very interesting statements. He said the Government has been aware of the Treaty issues around water rights for the whole 4 years it has been in office and that it was clear about its obligations. Why then was there no effective Treaty clause in the original design of the sale and when the Government inserted one why then did the taxpayer pick up 100 percent of the risk for only 50 percent of the return? And if the Government was clear about that over the last 4 years why did nobody go to it and point out that it had Treaty issues before it banked the money in the last two Budgets? Forget for a moment that it did not bank the loss of dividends only the $6 billion - odd it thought it was going to get in cash. Why did someone not say to the Government: “Hang on. You haven’t sorted the Treaty rights issue.”? Mr English told us today that the Government is clear about those obligations. That is not what the Waitangi Tribunal has said. It is not what the Maori Council says and it is not what iwi up and down the country say. It is not even what the Land and Water Forum says. 
What an interesting statement from Mr English in this debate about “shares plus”. He said that the Government consulted on the Treaty and then rejected “shares plus”. Then the Waitangi Tribunal has come out recommending that the Government consult on it—so it still rejects it but it is going to “consult”. In ordinary language that is a sham. That is not real consultation. Real legal consultation is when one listens and is prepared to learn. It is not when one pretends to listen to dot the i’s and cross the t’s which is what Mr English admitted it was doing in the face of “almost inevitable” legal action. No attendance at the national hui: does that sound like genuine consultation? Is the Labour Opposition the only group in Parliament that believes that this is a complete nonsense and is inevitably going to fall foul of the law? 
We can be grateful to Geoff Bertram of Victoria University who has pointed out that if this sale goes ahead the consequence of these water rights issues will be to drive down prices and completely undermine the valuation of Mighty River Power amongst others. The book value bears no relationship to the market value. The only person in the world who thinks the price is going to go up as a result of this complete nonsense is Mr Joyce who says: “Wonderful! We’ll be able to print another glossy brochure and inform New Zealanders how wonderful it is.” Well that is not what Professor Bertram says is going on. He says that the assets are already overvalued because of a particular valuation method. Let me quote him: “If wholesale prices were 10 per cent lower … the discount rate 0.5 per cent lower and operating costs 10 per cent higher … [it] would wipe $1.2 billion off Mighty River’s $5b book value.” That is $1.2 billion—let alone the Treaty rights issues. 
This is a house of cards that is coming down around the Government’s ears. It is the one policy it sunk political capital into because it was going to transform our economy. Well that was a nonsense from the outset. National cannot even do a bad thing well. It could not organise a booze-up in a brewery and now it is up the Waikato River without a paddle.