Parker David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In CommitteeText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeParker David: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises — In Committee[Sitting date: 14 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:9898. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]Hon DAVID PARKER (Labour):You know the National Party is on the wrong side of an argument when Government members stand up and say that the only way that capital markets can succeed in New Zealand is if we let them trade what the Government created. That is the National Party’s economic plank for these 3 years—sell off what the Government has created in order that the capital markets can succeed and trade.Dr Smith has had 24 years in politics and 15 of those years have been since his colleague Max Bradford intervened in the electricity market. Since then electricity prices have gone up every year by twice the rate of inflation and National is still doing it. Dr Smith sits there and still defends it as if it is correct. What the Government says is: “Oh look Labour you should have kept these plans to yourself. You should not have told New Zealand investors. You should have actually done that. If you wanted to do it just do it in the future.” Because to do it now according to Dr Smith is economic sabotage. What that would have been doing would be underhand. We have actually been open to people and we said: “Look enough is enough.”What have the commentators said? New Zealand Herald Bernard Hickey says that robber barons in the power industries are not going to get away with it this time. What have the other commentators said? A lot of them have acknowledged that we have not got a competitive electricity market. We know that. What is this Government trying to do? It is trying to cement in these excessive profits from the old hydro stations by capitalising them into the balance sheets of the likes of Mighty River Power. That is what we are discussing right now. What does the National Business Review say in respect of Might River Power’s future profits Dr Smith?Hon Judith Collins: Who cares?Hon DAVID PARKER: What does it say? “Who cares?” says the National Party. Well I care because if Mighty River Power’s profits go up it implies yet more increases in the price of electricity. So what did the National Business Review say last week on 10 May: “Mighty River Power projects in its prospectus a jump in its profitability in the current year to $94 million up from $67 million last year. In the 2014 year it’s predicting those profits go up to $160 million.” Well there are a couple of points there. If this is so fantastic why is it that we have got to give that to the private sector that the Government has created and secondly—Simon O’Connor: Labour hates profits. They hate the private sector.Hon DAVID PARKER: Actually I do not hate the private sector. I actually want to do lots of things that improve the private sector. I want to have a decent investment signal into the economy through a capital gains tax so that we have less speculative investment in Auckland housing that the Government tickles along. It really likes it really. I want to have a neutral investment signal so that we have investment in productive enterprises not in speculation. I want a universal KiwiSaver so that we have deeper capital markets. I want to change monetary policy so that we can actually earn our way in the world from our exports with the currency. But National does not want any of that—no no no.National has got this old-fashioned merchant banker view of the world. We should not be surprised; that is what John Key is—he is a merchant banker. He is not interested in growing jobs or growing the real economy. He could not care a toss about that because he looks at the world through his merchant banking lens that is the same as it was 20 years ago which is what led to the global financial crisis and yet what have we got the Government doing? Here we go: the answer to New Zealand’s woes is to sell off what already exists. It does not want to increase New Zealand’s output one iota. It is not worried that New Zealand has now got the biggest current account deficit in the developed world—bigger than Greece’s. Is that not an atrocious thing? Last year this year and according to the IMF not just next year but the year after that and the year after that. We have the worst current account deficit in the world and the Government’s central economic plank for these 3 years is to sell off Mighty River Power Meridian Energy and Genesis Energy.What a pathetic narrow vision this Government has. No wonder since National took office we have had 200000 people going to Australia. “Wave Goodbye to Higher Taxes. Not Your Loved Ones.” is what National said and what have we had instead? We have had 200000 people going to Australia. We have got incomes—except for the people at the top—dropping as shown by what has happened with the Inland Revenue Department’s PAYE figures and all those members say is “Flog off Mighty River Power and put up power prices.”