McClay Todd: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeMcClay Todd: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 16 April 2013. Volume:689;Page:9343. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.TODD McCLAY (National—Rotorua) to theMinister of Finance: What progress is the Government making in its share offer programme to reduce debt and free up capital for priority spending?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): Yesterday the Mighty River Power share offer opened to New Zealand investors. This is the first offer in the Government’s $5 billion to $7 billion programme. The Mighty River Power offer period is for New Zealand retail investors only. This ensures New Zealanders will be at the front of the queue for shares and encourages widespread ownership so that 85 to 90 percent of Mighty River Power shares are owned by New Zealanders. New Zealanders have until 3 May to apply to buy shares. Shares are expected to be listed on the NZX on 10 May.Todd McClay: How many New Zealanders pre-registered for shares in Mighty River Power?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There were 440000 New Zealanders who pre-registered for shares in Mighty River Power. Those who pre-registered may get an allocation preference of up to 25 percent if the offer is oversubscribed. We have yet to see just how many of those who have pre-registered will actually apply for shares. New Zealanders with applications for up to $2000 worth of shares are guaranteed not to be scaled back and New Zealanders who hold their shares continuously for 2 years will receive a loyalty bonus.Hon David Parker: Why did thousands of pre-registrants for the Mighty River Power share offer receive emails last night with their names and reference numbers blacked out? Is it because the Government’s track record on privacy is so bad that it has swung too far the other way?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I understand that the provider of the email service detected some kind of error in the system after the emails had gone out. That has been corrected. But I can assure the member that that will not dampen the enthusiasm of those 440000 New Zealanders who have shown an interest in Mighty River Power shares. They are making serious decisions about their personal investments and that does not suit the Labour Party which wants them to—Mr SPEAKER: Order!Todd McClay: What are the benefits of the mixed ownership programme?Hon BILL ENGLISH: There is a range of benefits. In fact the benefits are significant enough that the Opposition parties have not promised to buy these companies back. These companies will be subject to the disciplines of financial markets where they are likely on average to perform better than under public ownership. Funds raised from this partial sale will be reinvested through the Future Investment Fund. These investments will be in infrastructure hospitals schools and the rebuild of Christchurch as part of a $19 billion capital expenditure programme by the Government over the next 4 years. We expect that the sale of shares will raise $5 billion to $7 billion or around 3 percent of the Government’s balance sheet value. The alternative is to borrow more on volatile world financial markets.Todd McClay: As part of the Government’s wider programme to improve the electricity sector what progress has been made in making the market more competitive for hard-working New Zealanders?Hon BILL ENGLISH: When the National Government came to office in late 2008 we considered it was urgent to do something about the runaway electricity price increases under the previous Government which had added up to a 72 percent increase or around 8 percent compound increases in the electricity prices under the LabourGovernment. So we commissioned a technical advisory group to review the market and as a result the Government passed the Electricity Industry Act to re-allocate assets among the State-owned enterprises to increase competition in wholesale and retail markets created the Electricity Authority and made it responsible for promoting competition—a change from the Electricity Commission—developed a liquid hedge market and created the What’s My Number campaign to promote consumer switching. All of these actions have had some impact on the runaway 8 percent per year price increases under the previous Labour Government.