Robson Matt: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Robson Matt: Debate on Crown Entities Public Organisations and State Enterprises 
[Sitting date: 10 June 2003. Volume:609;Page:6111. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon MATT ROBSON (Deputy Leader—Progressive) 
: 
 What a delight it is to speak on State-owned enterprises because we are ending a period that began in 1984 with Roger Douglas and David Lange when a period of madness entered upon New Zealand and like some demented Hare Krishna sect—with all due respect to people in the Hare Krishna movement—we started chanting mantras such as “private good public bad; private good public bad”. It was so hypnotic that it even took over the then almost sane Labour Party caucus until only a few people were left there who were sane such as Jim Anderton and those who have come through and now form the core of this wonderful Labour Party that is here today. It is so sensible that it has formed a coalition with the Progressive party. Jim Anderton and I welcome those 52 Labour MPs to work with us on this. We realise that 26 of them need to equal one of us and that we could save the country a lot of money with just the two of us running it but in the interests of democracy we will work with them because we have now returned to this period of sanity. 
But still a few demented followers of “private good public bad” still exist and even in this House a number of them are around. So let us run through exactly why we have entered such a sane period. The announcement to the country on rail produced great jubilation. Just as we cheered Sir Edmund Hillary 50 years after the ascent of the Himalayas we are now cheering the fact that on the economic front we have returned to a system where we look for balance in our State-owned enterprises. 
In 1993 we had a National Party Cabinet determined to assist the asset stripping of New Zealand and to give it to any overseas bidder regardless of the consequences. We had an administration that by its sheer incompetence arrogance and ideological narrowness ran down the public infrastructure of the country regardless of the known economic and social consequences. A decade ago we had at the Cabinet table what can only be loosely termed the intellectual elite of the current National Party including one of its candidates for leader the Hon Dr Lockwood Smith. We also had the public relations king and chief strategist of the current National-ACT alliance—a term that I once used proudly—the Hon Murray McCully. Those gentlemen together with the associate transport minister of the day Maurice Williamson were hell-bent on selling the public railway system. They were not driven by empirical evidence or impartial advice. On the contrary the National Government which sold rail 10 years ago was urged by Treasury at the time to at least retain the line network as part of a Kiwi share arrangement in order to ensure New Zealand’s interests were protected during the asset sales process. It rejected that advice and the resulting plundering of the rail system and the running down of the assets were the logical outcome of that mismanaged privatisation which was the loss of control of the network. 
Now the taxpayers of the country have to pick up the tab for National’s policy errors. The mismanagement of the sale of New Zealand Rail was enormous and heads should roll over on that side of the House. But what a difference a decade makes. Now we have a centre-left coalition Government that is ready to meet its responsibilities to the regions of New Zealand. The need to reinvest in rail including the repurchasing of the rail network is necessary for New Zealand’s future. This Government is not paralysed by being constrained within an ideological straitjacket. Because of that we are able to rationally look at the actual and real economic social and environmental needs of the regions of the country and step up to take our responsibilities should the market fail to deliver in New Zealand’s interests. New Zealand’s future success in the critical economic industry and regional development areas explains why the coalition Government has announced it is prepared to buy the rail network for $1 and take a 35 percent stake in Tranz Rail. 
Of course if the invoice I gave to Sir Michael Fay for $100 million when he last arrived on our shores to celebrate the America’s Cup which he was hoping a Swiss syndicate would take was paid we would have $100 million more to put into this fund. Sir Michael and his friend David Richwhite true patriots of New Zealand collected their share of New Zealand Rail and being the patriots that they are they now live in Switzerland and Ireland. 
The ministerial ad hoc committee studying this issue of rail on which the Progressives are represented by Jim Anderton understands that regions need strong transport networks and the continued presence of rail is vital to assist regional growth and development. The coalition’s preparedness to stand up and fulfil its obligations will allow this and future Governments to have a role in ensuring that transport solutions involving rail can be applied to Northland and the East Coast to cope with the upcoming “wall of wood”. It will protect the ability for coal mined on the West Coast to be exported and to be shipped to the North Island for electricity generation. 
Then there is that other State-owned enterprise that we can be proud of—New Zealand Post Ltd. A decade ago the National Government wanted to sell off New Zealand Post to any overseas owner. Back then it was all talk of gloom and doom. New Zealand Post was in trouble National said and it had better be sold off. The New Zealand public decided they had better sell National off so we did not have to sell it at all. The public may not have minded if a foreign-owned New Zealand Post succeeded but they were determined not to see their post offices sold off for nothing. A successful New Zealand Post is what we now have owned by the people of New Zealand. That is why it had to wait for the centre-left coalition before the roadblocks in front of New Zealand Post could be lifted. We lifted the roadblocks in front of New Zealand Post’s longstanding business proposal to establish a retail banking arm to service the regions of New Zealand and now with a Kiwi card one can get a service owned by the people of New Zealand for the benefit of New Zealand in any centre in New Zealand. The news from New Zealand Post these days is dramatic and optimistic in contrast to the bad old days when National was in the Beehive. 
In the news today it was reported that Kiwibank will become an important source of revenue for New Zealand Post over the next decade. New Zealand Post is also confident it can keep a tight lid on costs and hold the price of a standard letter at 40c for the next year. Kiwibank was reported this week to have said that looking forward a decade we should expect its Kiwi banking business to be about the same size as the traditional core business of New Zealand Post. The chief executive officer said this: “Kiwibank is important because its financial success will help underpin the financial success of the New Zealand Post group.” He reports that the bank is still growing fast with new customers joining at a rate of between 300 and 350 a day—yes each and every day. The problems of Kiwibank are not as predicted by National and ACT; the problems are the precise reverse of what those discredited anti-business parties forecast. Kiwibank’s problems are those of growing pains. It has been far more successful than anyone predicted. Its faster than planned growth has strained New Zealand Post’s profit targets because taking on new customers has substantial costs but the targets will still be met. 
And now there is a sad part to this speech—it is to talk of the death of the grand coalition of the centre right. But I will not ask for a minute’s silence; it is not worth that. Developments in New Zealand rail and Kiwibank this week highlight the collapse of Richard Prebble’s grand coalition of the centre right. New Zealand First deputy leader Peter Brown told Parliament earlier today that his party supports the coalition Government’s investment in the rail network—dramatically breaking ranks with National and ACT. It is interesting that New Zealand First would go much further than the centre-left Government. It would negate or nullify the property rights purchased by private investors in 1993 when New Zealand Rail was sold by the then National Government. That party would expropriate the property rights of private investors. The coalition Government does not favour that sort of Bolshevism but we do accept New Zealand First’s general support of this important issue. 
If I have one prediction it is this: that even the ACT party—that sensible party in terms of matters of finance—will soon find that its members need to go to a State-owned enterprise to get the best interest rate for their credit card because Kiwibank has announced that its credit card interest rate instead of being at outrageous prices pushed by banks that ACT first favoured and that perhaps funded its campaigns is now 12.5 percent. I know that ACT being a truthful party will tell the rest of the country that that is a credit card that should be supported through that particular State-owned enterprise.