Goff Phil: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goff Phil: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3083. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon PHIL GOFF (Labour—Mt Roskill) 
: 
 I wonder whether I could begin by giving my young friend Gareth Hughes a gentle reminder about history. From 1999 to 2008 there was something called the fifth Labour Government. That Labour Government sold no assets. That Labour Government created Kiwibank because we had had a gutsful of $2.5 billion of money from our banking sector going across the Tasman to Australia. That Labour Government bought back Air New Zealand because the so-called very efficient private board had bankrupted Air New Zealand. We bailed it out and got it back on its feet. And that Labour Government bought back KiwiRail because the so-called efficient private sector had asset-stripped New Zealand Rail run it into the ground and made it impossible for it to fulfil its role as part of the transport sector. That was the fifth Labour Government. 
Mr McClay had a problem with amnesia as well. He forgot it was the National Government in the 1990s that sold assets. You know the difference between us and them is that we learnt the lessons of history and we are getting it right now. I remember Bill English as the Minister of Finance who sold Contact Energy in 1999. I have been in this place long enough to know the time when we passed legislation under the Muldoon administration to build the Clyde Dam. Bill English and the National Party flogged Contact Energy off and what were the consequences of that? The consequences were that over $1.5 billion in dividends went out of New Zealand and across the Tasman to the Australians once again. The consequences were that Contact Energy charged more for electricity prices—higher prices. But this National Government has learnt absolutely nothing. 
The first thing is that this National Government has no mandate for this Mixed Ownership Model Bill—no mandate at all. If it had the courage of its convictions it would take this to a citizens initiated referendum. Why do I say that? I say to the National Party members: these are not your assets to sell. They are not yours to sell. These assets were built by our parents’ generation and our obligation in this House is to pass on our most successful our most efficient and our most valuable assets for our kids and their kids after that. I say to this National Party here: when you flog these assets off what are you left with? Nothing—nothing. You know in 10 years’ time the dividends from those power companies would be the same as the price that you get from flogging them off but the difference in keeping them is we would still have the assets and they would still be providing the dividends year after year for our kids and our grandkids. 
Maggie Barry 
: So will you buy them back Phil? 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: I say to Maggie Barry you know if flogging off your most valuable assets was a great idea why have the Norwegians not sold their oil wells? Because they are a bit smarter—and the Finns too Mr Brownlee. They are a bit smarter than this thick National Government which thinks it is a great idea to hock off our most valuable assets. 
You know even Treasury God bless it gave that advice in the Budget Policy Statement. What did it say? It said that the cost of keeping those assets is around $266 million a year but the dividends you get from them are $100 million more than that. I ask the National Party members which one of them if they were faced in their family or their business with a difficult economic challenge would decide that the answer to that challenge was to flog off the best assets that they had and the most remunerative. Well maybe Tau Henare would—maybe Tau would. But actually none of them would do that because it simply does not make sense to sell off the assets that are so valuable to us and keep producing dividends for us. 
I remember the time when John Key on the other side of the House was asked the question—I asked it—where the money from our State-owned enterprises goes. He said: “Why it goes to pay for our hospitals and our schools.” Well I say this to Mr Key. First of all it is going to cost him $120 million to flog the assets off. That is the fee we pay to the fat cats and the banks. You know that $120 million? Mr Key that would actually pay for what you were going to spend the money saved from increased class sizes on. We could use that money instead of tipping it down the drain and giving it to the banks—$120 million. 
But I come back to it: there is no mandate for this legislation. There were 1421 submissions heard by the Finance and Expenditure Committee that were opposed to this legislation. Does anybody from the National Party know what percentage of the submissions they were? It was 98 percent. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: Phil does. 
Hon PHIL GOFF 
: Phil Heatley knows. He is good at maths. He could tell us the weighted average—he could tell us the weighted average. Ninety-eight percent were opposed and do you know there were nine submissions in favour—0.6 percent. There has not been a public opinion poll in this country that has ever shown less than a 2:1 ratio for New Zealanders’ opposition to the sale of these assets. National members are flogging off something that is not theirs without the mandate to do so. 
And then they have the effrontery to say that these assets are going to go to the mums and the dads. You know what I like about our power stations? It is that 100 percent of them are owned by the mums and the dads and everybody else in this country—100 percent. Do you know who National members want to flog them off to? They want to flog them off to a few wealthy mates some big corporates and overseas interests. You know John Key said this during a debate that we had during the election: “We’re giving people a commitment that 85 percent to 90 percent of the entire company”—he means all the power companies—“will be owned by New Zealanders. That is my commitment to them tonight as Prime Minister.” I say to John Key: where in this bill tonight is anything at all to back up that commitment? New Zealanders will be at the front of the queue National said. Where is there anything in this bill to say that that will be the case? 
The losers in this legislation are all New Zealanders. The winners are a few wealthy people and the foreign investors who will jump at buying these shares up. This is typical of a National Government that governs for the few and not the many. I am proud in this Committee tonight to be standing here with the Labour Opposition standing up for the many New Zealanders who are opposed to the outrage of what this bill intends to do. It will make our internal deficit worse. It will make our balance of payments deficit worse as the money flows out of this country. It will push up the price of power—and New Zealanders will be thinking about this right now. The average cost of power because of the sell-off of these assets for a New Zealand family will go up between $200 and $300 a year. Maybe that is not much to John Key or Steven Joyce or the people who sit over there but it is a hell of a lot to the people I represent in this House who tonight will be sitting there with their overcoats on because they are looking at the cost of the power that they are paying for. 
 It was our parents who built those assets our parents who got those dividends that can be returned to New Zealanders and that can ensure that in a market that is not competitive there will at least be reasonable prices for power. [ 
Interruption 
] Tau Henare can say what he likes. He used to be part of New Zealand First and now everything he says in this House is the exact opposite of what he said once in this House. So Mr Henare you be quiet and I will give you the charity of my silence. 
There is another question and that is about accountability. This bill takes away the accountability of the power companies to the Ombudsmen and the Ombudsmen said there is no argument for doing that—no argument at all. It takes away the accountability of the Official Information Act. If it is commercial and secret it is covered anyway under the Official Information Act. But this bill removes accountability from New Zealanders. It removes—