Cosgrove Clayton: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3292. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 The truth of the matter is that the member Todd McClay chaired a select committee the Finance and Expenditure Committee that abused and truncated the contribution of submitters. And that member as instructed by the Minister for State Owned Enterprises by his own admission—in fact he admitted it in the meeting—instructed Treasury to produce a report on submissions. Do not shake your head. He should not shake his head. If he reads the minutes he will be shaking all right but it will not be his head that is shaking. He instructed Treasury to prepare a report on submitters before they had finished submitting. Then in this House he and his ilk tried to stop the official minutes of the Finance and Expenditure Committee being let out and put on the website so that journalists and others could see their record of blocking the contribution of submitters. That is the truth of the matter. That chairman has made history in this place. He was led like a lamb to the slaughter led by the nose by his Minister to do exactly what he was told. And they were so afraid of the truth getting out that even when we asked Treasury officials questions that chairman instructed the committee to block our request to have those answers tabled at the committee before we lodged our minority reports because they did not want the answers. 
There is a saying—Edmund Burke I think said it—that those who do not learn by their history are in danger of repeating it. I place on record the comments of Trevor Mallard and others that yes in our time in Government in the 1980s we sold assets but we learnt. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: When the member was at primary school. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: When I was 14 and apparently according to the Minister for State Owned Enterprises totally responsible for all the ills of the 1980s Labour Government. We sold them but we learnt. This mob under the Bolger Government sold the assets and they are doing so again as quick as they can after they were returned to office under the Key Government. They learnt nothing. 
There is a person in this House—because this is a day of shame for this House and a day of infamy for New Zealanders as this bill goes through if it goes through by a wafer-thin majority—who has never contributed anything to this debate. He has contributed not one speech not one whimper—well maybe a wimp—and not one contribution. That person is Peter Dunne. He is the man of course who would not even see his own constituents and talk through the issues the man who has made no contribution and has hidden at every stage of this debate and the man who will have the unique place in history as the man who gave the Government the vote it required to sell every New Zealander out—the generations of New Zealanders who built these assets; the generation of New Zealanders their grandkids and their kids who have benefited from the revenue of these assets; and the future generations who will not benefit from the revenue of these assets. 
The truth is that this Government has failed to convince New Zealanders of the worth of its proposition. We know that consistently polls have said that 80-plus percent of New Zealanders are against the sale of assets which they already own. The Government uses as its justification the fact that it won an election but what it forgets to tell New Zealanders is that it booked the proceeds from the sale of these assets in the Pre-election Economic and Fiscal Update but did not book the loss in dividends. What the Government fails to tell New Zealanders is that yes you save $266 million in debt-servicing costs but you give up $360 million per annum in dividends. That is a loss to the New Zealand taxpayer of 100 million bucks. What these people think is that Kiwis are silly and that after this bill—if it goes through—is passed and after the Governor-General gives it Royal assent like many issues in this Parliament once the legislation is through Kiwis move on. 
The problem this Government has of course is that all this legislation does is put the bullets in the gun. It enables this Government to sell assets and then every year at least for the next 4 to 5 years this Government’s programme by its own admission is to assent to sell a major asset. The Government says the first one will be Mighty River Power. The day the power bills go out with the large increases etched on the memory of every Kiwi will be the words “With the compliments of John Key”. Those power prices will be visited and those increases on Kiwis—ordinary Kiwi mums and dads—who have no guarantee in this legislation that they will be first in the queue to get anything because most of them do not have the thousand bucks they are going to need to look after their families let alone buy a parcel of shares. They will know that those power prices are the direct responsibility of the John Key Government. And next year we will have another one and the next year—which hey presto happens to be election year—there will be a third. That will be a weeping sore for this Government a reminder—and Kiwis will not forget—that every year another bit of the family silver goes. They will remember and my prediction is that they will visit retribution on these members. Peter Dunne will be and is a political cadaver over this issue as we speak—the walking the crawling dead. The body bags will be out for that member as the man who gave this Government the power the vote it needs to sell out ordinary New Zealanders. 
The Government says that it expects 85 to 90 percent of these shares to be held in Kiwi hands. Well let us look at the factual history of that. We have Contact Energy which in 1999 on float had 225000 individual shareholders. That has now decreased by 65 percent to 78225. That was without a loyalty bonus. And let us get to the loyalty bonus because the loyalty bonus simply means this—here is the prediction—it simply puts off the fateful day when ordinary Kiwis will do what is best for them. I respect their right to do what is best for them to survive in the economic archaeology that these people are leaving us. Kiwis will sell those shares because they will have a windfall gain and if they do I respect their right to do so. But here is the deal: firstly that costs this crew money and secondly what I predict will happen is that the offer will expire or take effect from just after the next election so that Mr Key can prance around like a sort of cock sparrow and say that 95 percent of New Zealanders or whatever it is are still in the scheme. Of course they will be because they will wait for that loyalty bonus they will take that windfall gain and then they will do what is right for them in terms of their economic survival. Shares will be onsold and there is no control in this legislation as to who—foreign or domestic—will be the recipients of those sold shares just like there is nothing in this legislation as we were told at the select committee to stop the proverbial bus being driven through the 10 percent cap and nothing at all to guarantee that Kiwis will be first in the queue. 
So I say to the Government that it has ridden roughshod over public opinion and in its arrogant way believes that it is right. And in our society— 
John Hayes 
: Not true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is not true? So it is wrong? 
John Hayes 
: Not true. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: Well make up your mind. In our democratic society we have a thing called an election and a Parliament and those who have the numbers can push things through. That is the nature of our sweet little democracy. But the people also have a say and the people also have a memory. The people have said that they do not want this to continue and the people are now out on the streets—not just as John Key said arrogantly the Labour Party and its members the Green Party and New Zealand First. Oh no. You have got Grey Power—which the last time I checked I thought would have a few members who are a bit blue—the New Zealand Council of Trade Unions and a whole series of community organisations that are galvanised to stop this happening. 
The next test for the Government will be when this referendum gets up and is triggered. The Government will stand and be humiliated as 80 percent from a few opinion polls—in fact a lot of opinion polls—becomes formalised to I would predict 80-plus percent of the voting public in a referendum who say this Government is wrong. Then we will have the ultimate sanction in 2½ years’ time as members of the public go into the polling booth and give their verdict in respect of this Government’s conduct. They will remember the rush. They will remember the arrogant statements. They will remember and they will stand firm on their principles which is to say that they own these assets they have always owned these assets they want to continue owning these assets and they do not want these assets flogged off by any Government of any shade. 
I invite Mr Dunne—wherever he may be in this Chamber; I am sure he is somewhere cowering under a desk—to think very very carefully on that as he casts his vote. The year 2014 colleagues ain’t that far away.