Norman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers 
[Sitting date: 12 March 2013. Volume:688;Page:8376. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
1. 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
 to the  
Prime Minister 
: Does he stand by his statement that “I think we got a mandate” for asset sales at the last election given a majority of New Zealanders voted for parties that opposed his Government’s asset sales policy? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH (Acting Prime Minister) 
: 
 Yes and the Prime Minister stands by his full statement where he said: “An election campaign is all about the contest of ideas. One of the most hotly debated issues was the mixed ownership model and the contrast between that and increasing New Zealand’s debt. And in Government we lifted our party vote.” In respect of majorities there is one majority that matters in Government and that is the majority in this House. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is he comfortable for that majority to rely on the discredited vote of John Banks? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government is comfortable with a majority based on the duly elected members of the Parliament. I know that the Greens do not respect the parliamentary majority or the election result but the rest of New Zealand does. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: How can he claim a mandate to sell our assets when the majority of New Zealanders voted at the last election for parties opposed to asset sales and the vast majority of New Zealanders continue to oppose asset sales in every poll on the issue? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As has been said in this House many times before the National Government laid out in detail at the start of 2011 its programme for the partial sell-down of Government companies. That was debated vigorously including by that member right through election year. In fact the dominant issue of the election campaign was asset sales. Every New Zealander had the opportunity to decide what weight to give that issue in their vote. The result of the vote was a majority in this House for a Government that had pledged to carry out that plan and now we are doing what we said we would do. 
Louise Upston 
: How many New Zealanders have pre-registered to apply for shares in the first partial share float in the Government’s share programme and over what period has that been achieved? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As of early this afternoon the number of New Zealanders who have pre-registered to apply for shares in Mighty River Power has reached more than 290000—more than 290000—signatures which is in 1 week a bit short of the number achieved in a year with paid parliamentary staff bailing up schoolchildren for the petition that is now put before the House. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Prime Minister deny that 51 percent of the votes cast at the last election were cast in favour of parties opposed to asset sales? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No the Prime Minister asserts that the result of the election was that a party that laid out its plans in detail and allowed 10 or 11 months of intensive debate including a whole election campaign based around asset sales was duly elected as the Government of New Zealand and in a contest of mandates—his dodgy petition or the voice of the people—we go for the voice of the people. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Given his acknowledgment that asset sales require a mandate from the public will his Government pledge not to sell any assets until that mandate can be unequivocally and directly tested in the coming referendum? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: No the Government will stick to its plans. That member just needs to accept that with a whole year to debate this issue with New Zealanders and allow them to make up their own minds and express that through the ballot box he happened to lose the argument because people took this issue not on its own but in the whole of economic management of their aspirations for New Zealanders and of their fear of debt in a global financial crisis. He simply lost the argument and the Government is going to continue with its plans. 
Louise Upston 
: If the Government did not reorganise taxpayers’ assets through the share offer programme what alternative approaches would it have to pay for new assets? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The member is quite right that it is reorganising the assets. We will sell shares and in return for those shares obtain cash—actually somewhere between $5 billion and $7 billion cash. If we did not do that we would have to borrow the money from volatile global financial markets pushing up New Zealand’s debt or of course we could pay for new assets by printing money which I think is what Opposition parties are advocating. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Is it not the case that Treasury in its Budget Policy Statement stated that the net cost to the taxpayer of the asset sales programme was $441 million over 5 years and on top of that there is another $100 million cost in running the asset sale programme so the total cost to the taxpayer of his petty little policy is over half a billion dollars? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: As we have pointed out before in the House in respect of those estimates first there are a number of different ways of measuring the impact over 4 years. Some of them show the Government a bit ahead and some of them show it a bit behind. But all those measures are based on an assumption that these businesses would continue to make the profits they have made and pay the dividends they have paid. As we have learnt from Solid Energy those assumptions can be blown away by the reality of the market and commercial pressures. So the Government is reducing its exposure to risky commercial businesses and is deploying the money it gets from that into long-term social assets. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does the Prime Minister have so little respect for the people of New Zealand that he will casually dismiss the 393000 Kiwis who have signed the Keep Our Assets petition as children tourists and dodgy and continue with this disrespectful attitude once the petition has been certified as legitimate by the Clerk of the House? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: The Government had sufficient confidence in New Zealanders to lay out its plans in detail. I recall at the time Opposition parties saying that the Government would certainly lose the election because it had laid out its plans for asset sales. New Zealanders had the full opportunity to debate the issue and then there was an election. In respect of the petition process the petition process belongs to Parliament and of course that process will be respected. Parliament has a petition process and people can express their point of view but as the member knows Parliament has also said those referenda are not binding. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does he agree with Bill English that National would like to sell Kiwibank “eventually but not now” in the words of Bill English and does this not show that National’s asset sales agenda does not end here—it wants to privatise more? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: I can confirm that no the Prime Minister did not agree with that statement by Bill English and he made it pretty plain at the time. The Government’s asset sales programme has been set out in detail. We have started a series of floats of the companies that have been listed by the Government and when those are completed the programme will be finished. 
Dr Russel Norman 
: Does he agree that the question in the petition in the referendum which is “Do you support the Government selling up to 49% of Meridian Energy Mighty River Power Genesis Power Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?” accurately and neutrally states the policy choice facing New Zealanders? 
Hon BILL ENGLISH 
: Yes. In so far as it addresses the sale of those companies it does in exactly the same way that the Government set out accurately and in precisely those terms its plans at the beginning of election year 2011. New Zealanders had the opportunity not just to consider it as a single-issue vehicle for Opposition parties but to consider it as part of the overall management of the economy through some pretty difficult times. On balance they voted sufficiently for a group of parties that were able to come together to form a majority Government. In a democracy that is the true test of a mandate and we passed it.