Banks John: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — First Reading 
Banks John: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1006] 
Hon JOHN BANKS (Leader—ACT) 
: 
 This debate today on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill is the inevitable consequence of living well beyond our means—well beyond our means. We have deficits debts and diaspora. New Zealand public and private debt over the past 15 years has gone from 82 percent of GDP to 134 percent of GDP. As a nation we have not paid our way since 1973. As a Labour Party front-bencher said earlier in the debate how can you pay your way if you are not exporting enough to pay for the stuff you are buying offshore?  
Last year this Government needed to borrow $18.8 billion from the savings of other citizens of other countries mainly the Chinese. That is the fifth-largest deficit as a percentage of GDP in the OECD. Treasury says we will need to borrow another $12 billion this year. I suppose the good news is that this sale of these assets will produce at the top end of the green $7 billion and that will pay the Crown account deficit for 7 months. But therein lies the challenge for every single member of this Parliament. And it is no good carping on about Government cutting into structural spending when in Opposition you have no idea how you are going to fund that spending if it is not cut. Therein lies the challenge for the Opposition. Our mounting debts and deficits are met with New Zealanders seeing the writing on the wall as I hear in this Parliament today the flapping of the wings as the chickens come home to roost.  
I predicted early in the first entry into the global recession some 6 years ago that unless we urgently cut our cloth we would find ourselves borrowing an insurmountable amount of cash from the savings of others mainly the Chinese. So many of our people—one every 15 minutes—are fleeing this country for new opportunities in Australia and that is what this debate should be all about. How do we get the half a million well-educated highly motivated New Zealanders who live in Australia back to the South-west Pacific to raise their families here? In the year to January we set the dubious record of 38100 New Zealanders having fled this country.  
Those on the other side of this Parliament who worry about selling things need to ask themselves a real hard question: how does New Zealand pay its way? This is the question I and other Ministers from the National coalition in this Parliament are asking in the Cabinet committees every day. I want to put some heavy-duty pigment into the lighter colour of the National Party’s recent reflex blue. We have got to move away from spending borrowing and hoping to a place where we deal with the serious current account deficit.  
Economic growth prosperity and jobs will come from research and development innovation and science and technology along with workplace skills training and opportunity for so many people who are looking for an opportunity to contribute. For too long ACT has watched as successive Governments abandoned fiscal prudence—successive Governments have abandoned fiscal prudence. In the last 5 years of the Labour Government in this country Government spending as a percentage of GDP went from 29 percent to 35 percent—the highest of any country in the OECD. That is why we fought so hard to have ACT’s Spending Cap (People’s Veto) Bill introduced into the Public Finance Act to control Government expenditure and keep politicians on a budget. It is like with housekeeping—and you know a lot about housekeeping Mr Assistant Speaker Tisch as all members know about housekeeping. The country cannot keep borrowing for the housekeeping. That is a statement of fact.  
This bill is only part of the solution to our wider economic puzzle. When we consider the policy of privatisation we must remember that it is private enterprise that creates all of the wealth and social prosperity for the citizens of this country. As the World Bank famously wrote privatisation is now so widespread that it is hard to find countries not using this approach. Over 30 years these privatisations have been studied to death. Overwhelmingly privatisation has increased the productivity of the privatised enterprise. So if we are not sitting in this Parliament today talking about selling these assets so that we do not have to borrow more money from the Chinese what proposition is the Opposition putting up to pay our way in the world as we come out of the second tranche of this global recession?  
It is worth noting that the New Zealand Government holds assets worth $245 billion. If we take the figure of $7 billion as a percentage of $245 billion we are talking this afternoon in this House of less than 3 percent of our structural asset so that we do not have to borrow and pay the interest on that borrowing.  
I want to remind the New Zealand Labour Party that the Labour Government privatised Telecom. Would Labour buy back Telecom? The Labour Government privatised more assets than have ever been privatised by this Parliament and this country. Bob Hawke of the Labor Government in Australia privatised Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. Even Julia Gillard is not talking about buying back Qantas and the Commonwealth Bank. Jean Chrétien privatised Canadian National Railway in Canada. The Canadians are not having a debate about the State re-owning that asset.  
It cannot be repeated too much: this country finds itself in a financial mouse wheel. We are at the crossroads. Four years ago it was $2 billion worth of debt this year it is $50 billion worth of debt and in 3 years it will be $75 billion worth of debt. And today we are talking about selling at the top of the green 3 percent of our total economic infrastructure base in these transactions. It makes more sense than just borrowing and spending and hoping. I want to hear from the parliamentary Labour Party exactly where it proposes to curtail Government expenditure so that one day we will not wake up come into this Parliament and say: “What else can we sell? What else can we sell? What is there left to sell?”.  
This Government needs to cut its cloth. I have told the Government that we need to lift the age of superannuation from 65 to 67—that is why I would not take it. And that alone would save $1.5 billion a year. A small interest rate on the $12.2 billion worth of student loans would save $550 million a year. We need to cut our cloth; we need to live within our means; we need investment growth and jobs; we need to grow the economy; and we need to pay our way. And I am here to support this Government so that the Opposition is not sitting on this side of the House come 3 years less 100 days.