Brownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Brownlee Gerry: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Volume:656;Page:5517] 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE (Minister for Economic Development) 
: 
 I think I should make a few responses to the comments made by Clayton Cosgrove as we discuss Vote State Owned Enterprises. Mr Cosgrove’s frustration was evident in his speech. I guess it was his frustration that caused him to be so confused. 
Very few people in this country who know anything about business would automatically confuse the price paid for a product with the overall performance of the business. Yes it is an important factor but no one should assume that simply because the price is high the performance is as optimal as it could be. That is the very point that the Government has been making to the State-owned enterprises: make sure performance is at its optimal level before the price goes up for consumers. I ask what is wrong with that. 
Do members know what the amazing thing is? Since the Government has embarked on this course of action and since for example we have put in place the review of the electricity sector there has not been a price rise that was not planned under the previous Labour Government. That is the hard cold fact of it. That is what the board minutes will show. The Labour Government thought a price rise meant that the State-owned enterprises were doing well. So for 9 long years of suffering by consumers the retail price of electricity went up by 86 percent and Steve Chadwick Clayton Cosgrove Winnie Laban Ruth Dyson and all the rest of them were absolutely chuffed because they thought that meant the State-owned enterprises were performing well. Well a price rise does not mean that. The attitude of those members shows a terrible blindness on their part. 
I will also speak about Mr Cosgrove’s fixation with the idea that our demanding that the State-owned enterprises perform well for the people who own them means that they are being prepared to be sold off. I can only assume that he is going on the experience of a former Labour Government that managed to sell off 21 Crown-owned companies in one afternoon which was an extraordinary effort on that Government’s part. For him to come into the Chamber today and start talking about job losses in the State-owned enterprise sector is utterly laughable when measured against that sort of record. 
National has made it very clear that no State assets no State-owned enterprises are for sale until the people of New Zealand say it is OK—if they are ever asked. That is the hard part for Labour members because asking New Zealanders what they want asking New Zealanders what they think and asking New Zealanders how they feel about things is not the way they operate. Their 9 years in Government were 9 years of saying “You must do this.”—not you Mr Chairperson Barker; well they probably did tell you what to do; in fact there is no doubt about it. They told New Zealanders what they had to do how they should do it and how they should feel about it. That is why they got slung out of Government last November. That is why Labour is so down in the dumps in the polls at the present time and the speech tonight from Mr Cosgrove typifies the problem that Labour has. All that Labour members are doing is going from one end of the country to the other pouring out their paranoia. They are driven by a huge frustration: they were so good according to them but so very bad according to the voters. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: Hundreds are turning up to those meetings. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: Ha! One does not normally recognise an interjection in a debate like this but the Labour junior whip Steve Chadwick said that hundreds of people turn up to Labour Party meetings to hear Labour speakers. Well I know of a meeting that was held in that member’s electorate where the Hon Phil Goff was due to speak. Great advertisements were put in the paper billboards were erected all over the town and radio advertisements were aired to say “Phil Goff is coming.” Guess what? Phil Goff turned up and Steve Chadwick bought a ticket. One ticket! There we have it: Labour members talk about the performance and value of the State-owned enterprises and Steve Chadwick tells us that she does not know how many noughts should go after a number when measuring crowds. Rather than one she tells us there were 100. That is utter rubbish. 
Let us get back to the purpose of this debate which is to ask how the State-owned enterprises are performing. There are 27 State-owned enterprises. They have a big task to play in lifting performance and productivity in the New Zealand economy and we have asked them to do that. There is nothing unusual about that. Rather than telling them what they have to do and how they have to operate rather than controlling them by putting all one’s manky mates on the board and rather than leaving them in a position where they do not know whether they are coming or going— or as Clayton Cosgrove would say not knowing whether they were “Willy” or “Nilly”—this Government has decided to work with those boards in very very difficult economic times. I predict that the results will be very very positive for the taxpayer’s income base. 
I will highlight one State-owned enterprise that I think is doing a really good job in the energy sector. 
Hon Steve Chadwick 
: One of how many? 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: The member over there after 9 years in Parliament after promoting herself as an expert on State-owned enterprises and after chipping into the debate all night asks how many of the 27 State-owned enterprises are energy companies. Well I suggest to Ms Chadwick that she look at the Estimates book in front of her and counts them for herself. Mind you when she has confused one and 100 I doubt whether she will come to the answer very easily. 
The company is Mighty River Power which is worth thinking about. It is a company that without any direction from the Government and without getting excited about things has decided to invest heavily in the renewable energy technology of geothermal production. One of the good things about that is that in the 1950s this country was recognised internationally as being the world’s leader in geothermal electricity production. Mighty River Power is putting us back into that space day by day. I think that is extremely good for a country like New Zealand because the flow of technology from it is extraordinary. We should be congratulating that company on that rather than the Opposition when Ministers highlight the success of a company like that saying that Ministers are talking the company up so that they can get a bigger price when they hock it off. Those Opposition members should say congratulations to all the people in those companies which are doing a great job. 
Steve Chadwick 
: Oh we’ll see. 
Hon GERRY BROWNLEE 
: That is what one gets from Labour members. They have an abhorrence of the idea that anyone should be thanked for working. That is why for 9 years they concentrated on making ordinary New Zealanders such extraordinary beneficiaries of the State. Well this Government is not taking incomes away from people but by gosh we are going to make sure that the economy grows even in these difficult times in a way that gives New Zealanders an opportunity to earn a living in the natural way that New Zealanders like to do with a high degree of pride. 
As this debate progresses tonight we will hear more and more Labour speakers running the same theme—privatisation etc. They know that it is utter rubbish. They know that they are fearful of their own record in this area. I will say it again: they sold off 21 Crown companies in one afternoon. They cut a quiet swathe through the balance sheet of the Government under the guise of Labour doing the right thing for the ordinary people of New Zealand. 
I will make one other comment. I have noted tonight that as we have gone through these estimates party votes are being called on each one of them. The extraordinary thing about that is a party vote takes up time; it soaks it up. This debate is time-weighted so that tells me that the Labour Party does not have enough speakers to fill up the time it has been allocated in this debate. That is utterly tragic. This is a Committee stage debate and Labour is failing miserably.