Goldsmith Paul: State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Goldsmith Paul: State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill — First Reading 
[Sitting date: 29 August 2012. Volume:683;Page:4895. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
PAUL GOLDSMITH (National) 
: 
 It is my pleasure to speak on the State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment Bill. I have to admire the indefatigable nature of Mr Cosgrove. There is no doubt that we fought an election on this very issue where it was front and centre right throughout the election. They lost so the legislation for the mixed-ownership model programme was brought before the House. Mr Cosgrove fought very valiantly at every stage at every step and through the select committee process. Now having failed in that area we have this bill. I of course do not want to engage in any ad hominem attacks and like I say I spent the weekend listening to the Remuera lunch club when they raised the matter of the House engaging in all sorts of attacks and that we need to work together. So I want to focus on the broader issues of this bill and the broader constitutional issue about how often we should be constraining ourselves in this way. 
It seems to me that this bill which is requiring 75 percent support for the Government to sell such things would want to freeze-frame the current situation the current status and the current asset list of the Government for ever and a day. The Government is creating new assets all the time every day and if we were to pass this bill we would certainly be reducing the flexibility of the Government and our ability to respond to circumstances as they arrive. I do find it hard to imagine that Mr Cosgrove would be introducing such a bill if indeed he was in Government. So I will be very interested to see. I am a little bit nervous that this bill will not pass this time round but I will keep a copy of it and I will be very interested to see whether in 10 years’ time or 9 years’ time when Mr Cosgrove does get another chance to be a Minister he reintroduces this bill. I do not think he would like to have it constraining his activity when he is in Government. 
Indeed I have been hosting these 40 or 50 young people in this building at the moment and they are trying to work out whether the country needs a new constitution and whether we need to change our constitutional arrangements. This very issue of whether Governments should be shackled by entrenched legislation is one of the ones that they are wrestling with at the moment. There are only two pieces of legislation I understand that are entrenched in this way and they relate to some very fundamental aspects of our governmental arrangements so to throw this one into the box alongside them does seem rather bizarre. 
But it is worth restating before I finish just why we are involved in this mixed-ownership model process and that is all about building a more competitive and productive economy based on savings and investment and moving away from debt and borrowing and relying on foreign lenders. In essence this programme is about freeing up some of the capital that we have held up in minority stakes in these large companies and allowing the Government to purchase new assets without borrowing more on financial markets at this difficult time. That is a very sound and sensible policy. The Opposition I accept does not agree with it but unfortunately it lost the argument so here we are debating this bill. The Opposition is filling the ballot with all sorts of strange pieces of legislation at the moment. I am afraid that I will not be supporting it. Thank you very much.