Walker Holly: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Walker Holly: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 20 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3208. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
HOLLY WALKER (Green) 
: 
 Thank you very much Mr Chair and thank you to those honourable members for supporting me in taking a call on the title and commencement of this bill. I tried to take a call in Part 1 and I tried to take a call in Part 2 and I am very pleased that I finally get to take one on the title and commencement. And what is the title of this bill? The Mixed Ownership Model Bill—“MOM”. Is it not appropriate: motherhood and apple pie? What a lovely euphemistic title the Government has come up with for this bill. And is it not appropriate that that euphemistic title that misleading title which disguises the true purpose of this bill which is the sale of public assets should have the word “mom” in it when we have heard so much about the mum and dad investors—those mythical mum and dad investors who are going to benefit from the sale of State assets that will result from this bill? Apparently they are the ones who are going to benefit. But we know that this will not be the case. We know two things. We know that 95 percent of New Zealanders will not be purchasing shares in these assets when they are sold. And we also know that 100 percent of New Zealanders already own these assets. They are public assets and they are owned by every mum and dad and also every mum and mum every dad and dad and every other kind of New Zealander. They already own these assets. 
So I think a better title for the bill would be the “Privatisation of Public Assets Bill” because that is what it does. It is nothing to do with mums and dads or moms or Americanisms or euphemistic misleading titles; it is simply the privatisation of public assets. But speaking of mums and dads and speaking of families I want to bring a young person’s perspective into this debate—something that has been somewhat lacking I feel so far. I want to talk about the intergenerational impacts of this bill because it is not just about mums and dads it is also about children and it is about grandparents—it is about the intergenerational impacts of this bill. For that reason I suggest another alternative title which is the “Intergenerational Inequity Bill”. 
I want to speak briefly to a Supplementary Order Paper that is on the Table in the name of my co-leader here Russel Norman. Supplementary Order Paper 70 talks about the commencement: delaying the commencement of this bill and making it ineligible to receive the Royal assent until such time as the country has held an indicative referendum on the question of whether the public supports the sale of State assets. I have been out collecting signatures for this petition for this citizens initiated referendum and I can tell you some very interesting intergenerational trends in the people who have been stopping to sign that petition. I have found in my experience out on the streets of Wellington collecting those signatures that there are two types of people who are very likely to stop and sign. Those are older people and they are young people. I think that that shows and demonstrates the intergenerational impacts of this bill and the fact that opposition to the sale of State assets bridges the gap of generations. Indeed you can see that in the fact that both Grey Power and the New Zealand University Students Association are two of the core coalition members who are organising and campaigning for this petition. 
When I talk to the older generation when they stop to sign this petition they talk about having seen the mistakes of the 1980 and 1990s having seen the damaging consequences of the sale of State assets for the whole country—economically socially for consumers at the household level and for the nation at the Government level and at the country level. They say to me: “Don’t make the same mistake again. Don’t make the same mistake twice.” That is what the older New Zealanders are saying to us and to the parliamentarians in this House and to the Government: “Don’t make the same mistake again.” That is why the bill should be called the “Intergenerational Inequity Bill”. 
Then I talk to younger New Zealanders people like me. I was born in 1982. I grew up in a New Zealand that was fundamentally shaped and changed by the sale of State assets in the 1980s and 1990s and the neo-liberal economic policies of that time. My generation and the generations younger than me are daring to imagine that in fact we might not have to make the same mistakes again that we might be able to do it differently and that we might be able to put up an alternative vision.