Hughes Gareth: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Hughes Gareth: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:3024. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
GARETH HUGHES (Green) 
: 
 Kia ora. Nga mihi nui ki a koutou. Kia ora. I rise to take a call on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill which must be one of the most unpopular damaging pieces of legislation introduced by this Government in this term. What this bill is is intergenerational theft. This bill is simply failed ideology back in action. This bill is going to see our electricity prices increase. But the madness is that this bill just does not even make economic sense. It is this Government that got us into the fiscal hole we are in right now and it is this Government that wants to flog off the people’s assets to pay for its poor fiscal decisions. Of course if you give $2 billion worth of tax cuts to those who need it the least if you are throwing $1.5 billion at greenhouse gas polluters and if you have $14 billion to throw at uneconomic roads of course you are going to find yourself in a fiscal hole. The best advice this Government can take is to stop digging but instead it wants to sell the spade as well. It is the Government that got us into this mess and now it wants to sell up our assets to get us out of it.  
The Government is rushing this ideological legislation through under urgency because it knows how unpopular this is. 
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: It’s not under urgency. That is rubbish.  
GARETH HUGHES 
: Oh if this legislation is not under urgency the process around it has been an urgent process where the Government has not listened to people. It has rushed it through because it knows how unpopular this is. Kiwis remember what happened the last time Labour and National Governments sold off our assets. I urge the National Government if it wants to listen to the people to put it to the people and put it to a referendum.  
Hon Chris Tremain 
: So the election doesn’t count! 
GARETH HUGHES 
: There is no mandate from the election. We saw a half-arsed campaign from the Labour Party and it is good to say in this House that the election was not a mandate on asset sales. You want a mandate? Put it to a referendum. Listen to the people. It does not make sense. It is economically stupid. These assets are returning healthy dividends to pay off debt that costs less than the cost of borrowing for that debt. We look back to when the last Government sold Contact Energy BNZ and Telecom for $7 billion and subsequently there has been $21 billion worth of dividends that Kiwis have missed out on. Business and Economic Research Ltd did an analysis of the legislation and the Government’s mixed-ownership plan and what we know is that the Crown accounts are going to be permanently worse off as a result. What we know is that electricity prices are going to increase. Analysis of the Ministry of Economic Development’s own data shows that private electricity generation is 3.3c per kilowatt more expensive than that of the State-owned enterprises. 
Let us look at one member in particular the Hon Peter Dunne who is making this bill possible. He will go down in history as the only member of this House to be part of two Governments that have sold off State assets in such a manner. Peter Dunne is going to live in infamy. I hope he is sending out his CV because I do not think he will be returned.  
But it does not have to be this way. We can actually keep these assets and use them. They can be at the forefront of selling our expertise in renewable electricity generation—things like geothermal which we are doing a job of exporting around the world. We could be using this to transform to a clean green economy. We could be building jobs but instead this Government wants to flog them off to make up for its own failed fiscal policies. It wants to keep that hole from its own mistakes.  
We would like to thank the submitters. We heard an overwhelming message from all those submitters not to do it. It is a bad decision. We will see you in 2014.