Cosgrove Clayton: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First ReadingText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeCosgrove Clayton: Keep Kiwibank Bill — First Reading[Sitting date: 14 October 2015. Volume:709;Page:7260. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour): I move That the Keep Kiwibank Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Finance and Expenditure Committee to consider the bill. I accept from the outset that there is a major philosophical divide between the major parties of the Opposition and the Government and the minor party of the Government—Mr Seymour who has been the subject of intense scrutiny tonight—in respect of the retention and/or sale of public assets. This bill is precise and surgical in what it attempts to do. It attempts to protect what is a jewel in the Crown of public assets—that is Kiwibank.I note that the history of Kiwibank is one where the incoming Labour Government in 1999 promoted the concept and then put it into operation under sustained opposition I have to say from the National Party members who I think used terms like “communism” and other things in relation to the establishment of Kiwibank. They said it would not work and that it would be an encumbrance to the public purse. On all counts the National Opposition was wrong.On coming into Government the National Party had a road to Damascus experience and realised that Kiwibank was a public entity with huge support from the public—not just in a philosophical sense but in terms of the thousands of customers who lined up to participate in Kiwibank. And I note the history of Kiwibank in terms of interest rates. It was the first time for many many decades that a bank occasionally went against the tide and struck an interest rate that was slightly lower than the benchmark of all the other competitors and in that way it actually created some true competition. So the notion that the State should not have a role in a bank or in certain entities was put asunder.The Keep Kiwibank Bill as I said seeks to protect Kiwibank as an entity. As Kiwibank is a wholly owned subsidiary of New Zealand Post Group the board of New Zealand Post Ltd could sell all or part of Kiwibank without recourse to Parliament. I acknowledge that the chairman of Kiwibank is one Dr Michael Cullen from my tribe.Hon Todd McClay: A good man.Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE: A good man. I think it was a good decision by the National Government to appoint him. I know where Dr Cullen sits on these issues. He sits firmly—as he did when he was the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance—in the camp that is in favour of the retention of these assets. But if the board was packed with National Party cronies with a mandate to flog it off one man standing alone on the board—one man doing a “Custer’s Last Stand”—could not prevent it. So this bill seeks to put in some basic safeguards.The bill would ensure that any proposal to partly or wholly privatise Kiwibank would require the support of 75 percent of all members of the House of Representatives or alternatively support from a majority of voters in a referendum in order to lawfully proceed. That last provision I think seeks to respect the thousands of customers that Kiwibank has now gained and retains and continues to grow.I note with interest that the week this bill was drawn from the ballot was very apt. That was the week that finally and sadly and tragically Solid Energy came a complete gutser in respect of its future at the hands of National Ministers and a National Government that saw it like a sinking ship just sliding into the sea over many many years. I remind members of this House of the mixed-ownership model and the promise by Prime Minister Key that that mixed-ownership model would get us $7 billion to $10 billion which was then revised down to $5 billion to $7 billion. The actual returns as we know were short of $5 billion at $4.7 billion.I would have thought that if Mr Scott and a few of the other eminent business people over there had forecast that—[Interruption] Well that member talks about economics. Solid Energy was an export award-winning company under a Labour Government. In fact we resurrected it again after the last National Government tried to hock it off and drive it into the ground. It was an export award-winner returning solid returns to the taxpayer and under this Government’s watch—and I mean it was “watched” literally—it came a gutser.Solid Energy was watched while the Government got advice—thousands of pages of advice—warning that things were going wrong. The Government was warned that Solid Energy was being too expansive that it could not agree on valuations and that the board believed that what went up would never come down in terms of the coal commodity price. When every other mining company around the world was immediately circling wagons to protect themselves as their commodity price went down this Government sat there and did nothing and that asset has absolutely come a gutser. And now of course in the week that this bill was drawn from the ballot we find out that the sort of last remnants of a deal to save a few jobs for a few months or a year or so is to hock off the remaining commercial parts in an asset sale.We also note that this Government has talked about capital recycling. It is an interesting term. I think it may have authored it or invented it. Certainly it has reinvented it because now of course we know the Government is looking around for $1 billion to $2 billion and that may indeed see further asset sales going ahead. I simply did not believe with respect the Minister of Finance when he said: “That’s it.” If that was it Solid Energy would not have been in the position it was. I would also say to this House that despite all the conjecture every opinion poll that I have seen over the years in respect of whether people are in favour of or against asset sales has shown overwhelmingly that they are against the sale of assets. I suspect that if you polled people specifically on Kiwibank there would be greater than an 80 percent—80 percent in the last poll I saw—or 90 percent support in respect of retaining Kiwibank.This piece of legislation is straightforward. There is no impost on the Crown. It simply puts another check and another balance in place so that if the board decided that it wished to hock off Kiwibank as it can do legally without any parliamentary intervention or ministerial intervention it would require as I say a 75 percent majority of this House or alternatively a referendum.To conclude where I started I accept there is a divide and a philosophical divide—perhaps an ideological divide—in respect of State assets but I would wager that it would be an extremely dangerous proposition for any Government to propose the sale or disposal of this asset. We have been through a global financial crisis. We do not know whether there is going to be another global financial crisis or whether the economy is going to turn again—we do not know. We know that New Zealand Post itself is struggling as a group because of the changes in technology. We know it is attempting to combat that. The physical mail in terms of non-parcel mail is deteriorating. Its books are under a certain pressure—and presumably will continue to be under pressure—as technology moves. That could indeed provide motivation for or necessitate the hocking off and selling of a major asset within that group that is Kiwibank.It would be quite a prize to sell off. It would presumably get quite a good and nice price given its profitability given its stability and given its huge growth over the years. This bill simply seeks to put in safeguards and if the Government is true to its word that it does not want to dispose of Kiwibank I would assume that it would see no reason to stand in the way of this bill. I urge the House to support it.