Hague Kevin: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hague Kevin: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3093. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
KEVIN HAGUE (Green) 
: 
 I appreciate the opportunity to make my first contribution in this debate on Part 1 of the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. There are several more specific points that I will be wanting to make later on in the debate but I thought I would begin by just reminding the Committee about this basic point: opinion polls consistently demonstrate that the vast majority of New Zealanders oppose the bill that the Government has in front of the Committee tonight. That is not only New Zealanders in general but also the majority of National Party supporters. So the claim of a mandate is tenuous at best. I think the last opinion poll result that I saw was that 80 percent of people are opposed to this as were 98 percent of the submissions received by the Finance and Expenditure Committee and by now there are many many signatures on the petition—over 80000 already I am told—to try to force a citizens initiated referendum on it. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: The taxpayer paid a dollar each for those signatures. 
KEVIN HAGUE 
: The Leader of the House makes an interesting point that the Green Party has invested in enabling New Zealanders to have access to their democratic rights. The small amount of money we have spent to ensure that that occurs pales against the at least $120 million that the Government is spending to promote the asset sales agenda. I would like to offer a more precise figure for the Government’s spending to promote the asset sales agenda to New Zealanders. Sadly I cannot because the Minister of Finance repeatedly refused to answer the questions in the House today. 
I have advanced data for New Zealanders who oppose the asset sales agenda and the Government responds to those numbers by saying: “Well look we’re the Government. We’re the Government and therefore we have the mandate.” That is kind of a logical flaw is it not? What the Government intends to do is essentially to use the election result—and it is the party I concede with more votes than any other party—as effectively a referendum on every single issue. Well actually that is not how it works. That evidence from the opinion polls which says that even the majority of those who voted for that party actually oppose its asset sales agenda gives the lie to National’s claim. If we actually look at the reasons why people voted for that party there are many different ones. 
I want to come back to Part 1 of the bill because I appreciate that I am speaking in quite a general way. I want to look at what the reasons are for those New Zealanders who oppose this agenda and oppose this bill. The first one which I hear again and again at public meetings up and down the country is that New Zealanders understand that what the Government proposes here is economic nonsense. It is just stupidity. It is a move that by the Government’s own account will actually worsen its fiscal position by approaching $100 million a year. That is right. It does not make any sense does it? 
I campaigned in the campaign last year with Chris Auchinvole from the Government side. He tried to explain the Government’s economic thinking to audiences in this way: he said that as a former business person himself his practice was to get assets to a point of maturity where they were generating really good profits and that was the right time to sell them off. Well I have been in business myself and that is kind of the polar reverse of the business strategy that I pursued. If I had assets generating good returns as these are for the New Zealand taxpayer selling them off is the very last thing I would want to do. I would want to focus on the bottom line: how can I actually get the best return for the New Zealand taxpayer? The best return is generated by retaining these assets. 
New Zealanders also know that the hole that the Government says it is trying to fill by this strategy—a strategy that in fact makes the hole deeper—is actually one of the Government’s own making as well. It is a hole that is caused by the Government’s tax changes in 2009 where those wealthiest New Zealanders got tax cuts.