Norman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeNorman Russel: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 28 May 2013. Volume:690;Page:10395. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]5.Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) to theMinister of Finance: Has he received any official advice since the sale of Mighty River Power on how many retail investors are expected to buy shares in Meridian Energy; if so what is the forecast for the number of retail investors in Meridian Energy?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance): No there is no official forecast and in any case the number would be difficult to predict. This Government has confidence in the ability of New Zealanders to examine the information about investing in Meridian Energy and to make up their own minds about where to invest. It is a good thing that they now have greater choice as to where they put their savings and we will be happiergetting money from New Zealand retail investors than getting it from the foreign bankers for whom that member advocates.Dr Russel Norman: So is the Minister telling us that he proposes to sell billions of dollars in public assets without any knowledge of how many Kiwis are likely to buy them?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Well as I said there is no prediction or forecast for the number of retail investors but it is likely that they will look at the information presented through the offer document which has to be factual and transparent and will make up their own minds. If you can use Mighty River Power as a yardstick then there were 113000 investors who took part in the public pool there and there may well be more taking part in the Meridian Energy pool. Either way we hope to replicate the experience of Mighty River Power where we got $1.7 billion in the bank Friday 2 weeks ago whereas that member would have either printed the money or got it from foreign bankers.Dr Russel Norman: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. These have been two very straight questions. The first one was on notice; it was a very straight question. The Minister used both his answers to attack me as the questioner. I do not see why you are not ruling those answers or those parts of the answers out of order. How are they relevant?Mr SPEAKER: I do not think the answers in any case were attacking the member. They were political but this is a political debating chamber. The first question was on notice and it was very clearly answered with: “No that information is not available.” The member then raised a supplementary question which effectively was a repeat of the primary question.Dr Russel Norman: Given that his Government forecast that 250000 Kiwis would buy shares in Mighty River Power according to the Treasury documents and only 100000 did why would subsequent sales attract a larger number of investors?Hon BILL ENGLISH: First of all 250000 was not a forecast. It is a number that the logistics people thought they needed to be able to cater for because of course if we could not have catered for the numbers then that would be the point of criticism. Secondly the reason it will attract more retail investors is that fewer and fewer people think that the Labour-Greens policy is credible and even fewer people think that they can now win an election.Dr Russel Norman: Is it still the Government’s plan to sell both Meridian Energy and Genesis before the end of the year?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The Government has not made decisions about that. It has simply made the decision that it will float Meridian Energy with the objective of widespread New Zealand ownership. We would expect that it will give New Zealanders the opportunity to invest in a large New Zealand company and tens of thousands of them are likely to do so. We will get several billion dollars of cash in the bank which is not a bad thing and then we will be able to use that to purchase other public assets. We will be doing that instead of borrowing from foreign bankers whom that member continues to advocate for.Hon David Parker: Can the Minister assure the House that Mighty River Power is still at least 85 percent New Zealand - owned?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I cannot give that assurance and the member knows why. What we always said is that at the float it would be. Actually the record of a number of New Zealand public companies is that New Zealand proportional ownership is growing and that may well occur with Mighty River Power.Dr Russel Norman: Given his earlier admission in this House on 9 May that the cost of selling Mighty River Power alone was $100 million how can the Governmentpossibly keep to its limit of spending 2 percent of the asset sales revenue—or about $120 million—on the entire asset sales programme?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The costs are published every 3 months so it is quite a transparent process. It was always going to cost a bit and there have been some extra costs such as the Supreme Court case which was not something that was necessarily anticipated. The member’s announcement of his policy designed to scare off the very retail investors he now pretends to advocate for meant that we had to give a lot of investors the opportunity to withdraw their application and refund their money and that was an extra cost.Dr Russel Norman: What advice has he received on the cost of selling Meridian Energy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: I do not know whether I have received specific advice on that but we have said that the programme will cost 1 to 2 percent of the proceeds of the whole programme. We believe that is a cost worth incurring in order to give New Zealanders the opportunity to invest in large New Zealand companies rather than borrow the money off foreign bankers as the Opposition seems to want us to do.Dr Russel Norman: So to recap is the Minister telling us that he has no idea how many retail investors are likely to buy Meridian Energy he has no idea how much it will cost to sell Meridian Energy and the whole failed asset sales programme is just on a wing and a hope?Hon BILL ENGLISH: No that is not the case. But I would anticipate that now the member has indicated he is keen to see widespread New Zealand ownership rather than narrowly based New Zealand ownership he will be in full support of getting the mums and dads interested in investing and will not try to stop them as he did last time. That member should pay more attention to trying to get enough signatures on his referendum—Mr SPEAKER: Order! That is quite a sufficient answer.