Franks Stephen: Standing Orders—Sessional 
Franks Stephen: Standing Orders—Sessional 
[Volume:614;Page:10333] 
STEPHEN FRANKS (ACT) 
: 
 This motion that Air New Zealand be a public organisation for the purpose of the Standing Orders is a sort of motherhood motion. It is the kind of move that is very difficult for a parliamentarian to criticise because of course we like to think that the scrutiny we give to any organisation is very necessary and we want to be proud of our sniffing for abuse of resources looking for waste and for corruption. 
However this is actually an abject admission of failure. This is the last stage in recording that this has become a renationalised public asset or liability. The $800 million that was first put in is just the start. I have forgotten but I think there has already been another $140 million since then. If the board of Air New Zealand is to be believed and if the Minister is to be believed this is not a viable airline unless it is allowed to go and sell itself to Qantas. If they are to be believed this will end up as the New Zealand Parliament sniffing around the skirts of an Australian-controlled organisation and trying to understand the strategy implemented by an Australian-dominated board. 
The New Zealand board at present may protest that it will not be so and that it will be some kind of alliance. Anyone with commercial experience knows when a minnow and a giant get together in a so-called partnership who ends up calling the shots. 
This is sad also because of the pathetic way in which commercial organisations get scrutinised by Parliament. We are politicians. When we look at State-owned enterprises and at companies we do not give the credit for the mistakes that have to be made. Any constructive business will make many mistakes. Any constructive business will incur many losses. Any constructive business will run all sorts of risks that politicians do not know about and never want to run. 
With political scrutiny of a business one gets the focus on the things that went wrong—the stuff-ups—whereas commercial scrutiny of a business focuses on what the outcome was. Did the company make money? Overall were the risks that were incurred made worthwhile by the benefits that were achieved? For politicians those defending will simply try to point to the politically obvious high points those attacking will look for the errors the inevitable errors in a commercial operation and say that the risks have not been worthwhile. 
We will of course get the special pleading. We will get Mark Peck complaining that the number of flights to Invercargill is too small. We will undoubtedly get the Labour Party whip complaining about the service to Dunedin. We will get MPs who probably fly Air New Zealand who do not worry about whether their trip is useful because it is money going in a circle complaining about the temperature of the coffee. That is about the level that politicians can understand when they are dealing with business. That is about the only level that Labour Party members none of whom have ever made a buck or contributed to anyone’s wealth can use when they assess a commercial operation. 
 Of course it was that naivety that has ended with Parliament having to consider a motion like this. It was naivety that had the Government put in $800 million to bail out Brierley Investments when it could have picked up Air New Zealand for nothing; when it could have let it go to the wall which is what it said was about to happen and not paid a cent in goodwill to anyone and then have rescued it if that is what it thought had to be done the day after it had gone into receivership. 
But the political naivety and the embarrassment of the Minister after the Prime Minister had jerked the market around and breached the Securities Amendment Act with her insider trading and market manipulation! The Minister then of course had to rescue Air New Zealand because the Government could not afford to let the normal scrutiny take place which would have occurred if it had collapsed. 
We had the Minister throw $800 million of taxpayers’ money into Air New Zealand. Fortunately in commerce the Government still found some very good directors and a very good chairman who were prepared to give it a go but I am sure on the basis that they would run it as a commercial operation. 
The next step of course will be much more toady-like. When they have been through two or three sessions of the purported examination by a select committee and the useless debate that covers commercial issues in this House in the report back people like Ralph Norris and John Palmer will say that they have better things to do with their time. They will have better things to do with their time than to argue about the selection of aircraft and what sorts of influences have been brought to bear. 
This is an early stage of the return of “Stan the man”. Hardly anyone here would know what that refers to but he was the full-time lobbyist who used to ensure that Air New Zealand bought only Boeing. 
Dail Jones 
: I remember that. 
STEPHEN FRANKS 
: Dail Jones would remember “Stan the man”. That is how airlines are run when Governments are involved in them. That is exactly the future. That is all he did and that is exactly where this airline is heading for. The minority shareholding in public may be a slight hurdle or a slight obstacle to the full-scale renationalisation and recorruption of an airline. The minority shareholders will be able to object when the Government starts to require that rugby league teams and netball teams be carried at reduced rates otherwise life will be hard in the select committee and otherwise appointments as directors will not be renewed. 
When the Government gets its finger into that kind of direction the minority shareholders will have a legitimate grievance but how will they know? They will be jerked around by the political requirements the Minister’s desire to look good and the so-called democratic—what is the other term used by Mr Brownlee? He talked not about public service or public good but used some buzz-phrase of the moment like “triple bottom line”; anything that measures a business other than on what it should be measured on—in other words whether it is getting a good return on assets running efficiently and whether the market is saying that those people are doing better with those assets than the next people would and avoiding takeover. 
Of course there will be an opportunity for people like the Greens who I know applaud this move—they will be able to ask why they are not using organically produced ethanol instead of kerosene whether GM-free food is in first class. They will have a wonderful time in this House looking at the really critical issues for Air New Zealand! We can see that. 
We might well have New Zealand First wondering whether the stewards are free from contamination in their overseas stops. Some of them might have been to a mosque; who knows! The really politically important issues will be covered in this House once Air New Zealand is back under the tender scrutiny of democratically elected representatives trying to pretend that they are business people. 
It really is strange how many wannabes one sees in the House; how delighted they are salivating at the thought of interrogating the upstarts who think they can run businesses better than the democrats from the left. Those people have never ever made any money to contribute. They have always been employees and now are so delighted to be back in control of an airline and so delighted to be able to play with the trains. 
It is odd how each time technology develops a new leading edge the State wants to get in there be able to fly around on it and put the logo on the tail. It is like the Minister of Police choosing the décor for police cars. I suspect that the Minister for State Owned Enterprises did manage to avoid dictating whether it would be Frodo or Bilbo on the Air New Zealand plane. But that degree of freedom for Air New Zealand will not last long. That degree of freedom for Air New Zealand will soon be seen as excessive by a Labour Government that is thoroughly enjoying getting back into throwing taxpayers’ funds into competing with the private sector. 
For companies like Origin Virgin and all those other airlines that will have to compete with the bottomless pocket of Air New Zealand they too will get drawn into the political process. They will have to organise all their commercial campaigns through Parliament. In other words our entire transport sector will get drawn into politics instead of business. To have that trumpeted by the Minister and applauded by the Greens and New Zealand First is an instance of how sad it all is.