Young Jonathan: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeYoung Jonathan: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9906. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]JONATHAN YOUNG (National—New Plymouth):Following that speaker the Hon David Cunliffe it is very important to understand that through this process there have been a lot of numbers bandied about. We know that Solid Energy ended up in February in a situation where $390 million of debt was carried on its balance sheet yet we hear from the previous speaker that no it is $400 million and then within seconds it is half a billion dollars. How can we trust anything that comes out of those members’ mouths when such exaggeration takes place in debates like this?Page 5 of the report of the Commerce Committee says: “We asked Dr Palmer whether during his time as chair of Solid Energy the Crown had requested that Solid Energy increase its gearing. He confirmed that it had and that the aim of doing so would have been to ‘ensure that there was more cash available … which would ultimately increase the dividend yield.’ ”—through a process. “We asked Mr Palmer ‘Has ever a shareholder asked you to borrow to pay the dividend?’ He replied ‘No. There was no request for that.’ ” The next sentence says: “Labour members do not accept Mr Palmer’s explanation.” So even when it came out of the horse’s mouth these guys would not accept it.We know from further on that they ignore the international economic context. They want to lay all the blame at the Government’s feet. They want to do all of that. They said in their minority view report: “The brief amount of time given to the appearance of the current management of Solid Energy as well as that given to Dr Elder and former chair John Palmer meant that many questions about Solid Energy were unable to be asked by the committee.” They went on to say: “The hearing of just two hours of evidence meant that many questions from committee members were not able to be addressed”. We have the recorded transcripts which show that we had 3 hours of hearings yet Labour members put in their minority view that there were only 2 hours. Answer that.There were “many questions from committee members [that] were not able to be addressed in full.” Listen to this. How many questions do you think the Labour members submitted to the Commerce Committee to be sent to Solid Energy in that review? Two hundred and eighty-five.Hon Member: What?JONATHAN YOUNG: Two hundred and eighty-five. This was the thickest biggest longest select committee report of a financial review probably ever in the history of this Parliament and we had tremendous answers. Yes a straight bat yet the members of that committee from the other side of the Chamber distort the truth. They distort the facts. They come up with all sorts of things that make it unclear for New Zealanders to know exactly what happened.After Mr Palmer and Dr Elder talked about the international global situation regarding coal prices the lead member of the committee from the Labour side said: “Now I want to ask you some substantive questions.”—after we had understood all about shale gas from the United States of America and how that had caused coal companies to collapse after we had heard everything about how in China a 33 percent reduction in steel milling had taken place and after we had heard all about how coal companies in Australia had lost 50 percent of their value when the stock market had increased and how in the United States 42 percent of the value of coal companies had dropped when the Dow increased at the same time. We understood that there are significant global pressures around the price of coal how this had affected the market and how everybody around the globe was taken by surprise at what happened yet all of this is completely ignored—all of this is completely ignored—and we have a tremendous lot of information put in that report from those members’ point of view that is incorrect. I would say that we have seen a very biased attitude and that we have not seen an attitude from some members of this committee who have wanted to look at the facts and report justly so.I think that we need to understand that Solid Energy has been and is going through some very difficult times. I believe that the Commerce Committee has sought to serve this Parliament well in presenting a very thorough report with the exception of those instances that I have raised of blatant inaccuracies and blatant refusals to believe what the former chair brought to the committee. Why? Because it did not suit those members’ agenda. Their agenda was to try to lay—