Fenton Darien: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Fenton Darien: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3095. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DARIEN FENTON (Labour) 
: 
 Thank you very much for the opportunity to have a call on Part 1 of this asset sales bill the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. I particularly want to support amendments in the names of various of my colleagues that will remove these assets from the bill. We are totally opposed to them being included in this bill; in fact we are totally opposed to the bill. As many of my colleagues have said there are a number of problems with Part 1. One is the removal of access to the Ombudsman and the Official Information Act. The other one as my colleague Kris Faafoi was talking about is about the social responsibility clause. 
But also the requirements to be a good employer will no longer have to be met by any person—any employer—who buys these assets and the Government will have no responsibility. Let us talk about what “the responsibilities of a good employer” actually means. First of all it means that there have to be good and safe working conditions. That is gone gone—ditched—from this bill. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Who said they’re gone? What are you talking about? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Well Tau Henare perhaps you should read the bill. Perhaps the member does not understand exactly what his Minister for State Owned Enterprises is doing. The removal of those companies from the State-Owned Enterprises Act means that the employers no longer have to be good employers. It will also remove the need for an equal opportunities employment programme for the impartial selection of suitably qualified persons and for opportunities for the enhancement of the abilities of these individual employees. 
I just want to go back a little and talk about why these assets were built in the first place. They were not built by private corporations and private companies. The State actually developed the electricity companies—in actual fact the State coalmines as well—because of the inability of the private sector to actually be able to provide low-cost electricity for residential consumers and to support the industry. As my colleagues have said electricity is a fundamental and basic right. It is a basic right to be able to have electricity in your home. It is essential for householders and its price is a significant factor in New Zealanders’ health and their living standards. 
These assets that we are talking about in Part 1—Genesis Power Meridian Energy Mighty River Power and Solid Energy—are assets that not only were bought and paid for by our forebears but also were built by our forebears. They were built and paid for by the sweat and hard work of New Zealanders who thought they were going to be preserved for their children and grandchildren. But the assets in this bill on the chopping block are dams wind farms mines— 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: Not on the chopping block. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: They are on the chopping block. 
Hon Gerry Brownlee 
: No they’re not. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: Absolutely on the chopping block and it is very interesting when you look at some of them. Waitaki dam for example is described as the birthplace of the world’s first social welfare system. Manapouri dam is also described as the birthplace of—according to Meridian Energy—our environmental awareness. It took 1800 workers to build that and it was a huge job. It took 1800 workers to do that. 
Hon Tau Henare 
: Oh wowee! Whoop-de-doo! 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Lots of them died. 
DARIEN FENTON 
: And lots of them died. It is very interesting here because the other day I dug out a little book here a little book— 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Is it the union book? 
DARIEN FENTON 
: It is the union book. It is called  
The Determination Order for the New Zealand Workers’ Industrial Union of Workers 
. What is fairly interesting—apart from the fact this was 1960s and 1970s industrial relations when these workers actually got penal rates—is that they had to have allowances for a whole range of things. They lived in camps like I hear they are proposing that the construction workers of Christchurch live in. They lived in camps and they had to have things like separation allowances for married people because they were separated from their families. 
Some of the things that they had to be paid allowances for are horrific when you read them. When you look at the things that they were paid allowances for under this award it gives you some idea of what those builders the people who constructed our dams and our mines actually went through. They got allowances for things like poisons. They were given an allowance for someone actually mixing and applying poisonous spray.