Peters Winston: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — Second Reading 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Peters Winston: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — Second Reading 
[Sitting date: 14 June 2012. Volume:680;Page:3011. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS (Leader—NZ First) 
: 
 I would never have thought that anyone on this side would be thinking now “Bring back Rodney Hide.” He was an economic lunatic but he made more sense than the last member Paul Goldsmith. After all the sales of State assets how thin is the sharemarket now? It was always so but there is the mantra repeated over and over again by people like the last speaker. At 7.30 p.m. next election night the bewildered members of the Government over there will remember this debate. Our simple message to the National MPs is “Don’t trash the ministerial homes and don’t dent the LTDs.” because soon they will be out of them out of a job and John Key will be sunning himself in Hawaii. This bill the Mixed Ownership Model Bill makes that an absolute certainty.  
You know here they sit like at a former time in history—fiscal soundness to the left of them economic sanity to the right of them and national sovereignty in front of them. Theirs not to reason why theirs but to do politically and die and into the valley of political death rode the bewildered. Mr Joyce got up the “Minister for Everything” and he said that this bill is about three things and he is right. It is about treason it is about treachery and it is about betrayal. This is the “Benedict Arnold Bill”. This bill was rammed through the Finance and Expenditure Committee and is here over a month before the 16 July reporting time which this House asked for. Do you know what they thought? They thought: “Well if the van’s got a full load we may as well load up a bit more. We have had such a tragic time of it—week after week disaster after disaster.” So they thought: “We can disguise this we’ll get it out of the select committee take it to Parliament and hope that by the next election people have forgotten it.” Remember this at 7.30 next election night. Those members will remember this debate because they will be gone. Mr Key—“Mr Spray and Walk Away”—will be in Hawaii because all he was ever interested in with his ever-mighty ego was some addition to his CV. Does the Prime Minister really want his legacy to be that he led a Government determined to impoverish New Zealanders? Is that what he wants? Because the Government’s intention to drive this bill through in the face of overwhelming public opposition and overwhelming economic analysis that shows that it is damaging to New Zealand’s economic interest is incompetence on a grand scale.  
Hon Dr Nick Smith 
: Treasury support it.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: Oh no. Treasury said that this pathway leads within 10 years to overseas ownership. Treasury said that this does not make fiscal or financial sense. It costs. That is what Treasury said—hardly the epitome of left-wing thinking or socialism. Even Treasury has warned them but no the bewildered decided they would go for broke regardless.  
On one level it is truly incredible that this bill is before Parliament—incredible in the sense that it makes no sense. Here we are in 2012 yet this Government is locked into an economic model that was discredited a long time ago. It is still in thrall to outdated flawed economic policy. And why? Because the bewildered over there do not realise that the National Party is run by its financial sponsors—people like Macquarie Bank—the banks and the people whom Mr Key pays far greater heed to than to all the people who have meetings in all the halls trying to sustain National. But Mr Key is not interested in that. He is interested in helping out his mates. [ 
Interruption 
] I have been around long enough to know what a nervous gaggle looks like—and they are nervous. They are nervous. You take Melissa Lee over there. Melissa is a one-way visa to political oblivion. I am very helpful to Asian people. I want the Korean people to be successful. I want the Korean people to be successful but here comes the one person the Korean people put up in Parliament and she will be gone like lightning. This is not good for our international relations for goodness’ sake. They have learnt nothing from past experience in the sale of New Zealand State assets. They are about to repeat all the mistakes of the past. It is this and future generations of New Zealanders who will pay a massive price.  
Now let us have a moment’s silence for Telecom. That was sold for $4.25 billion and it has seen $9 billion going offshore to other markets in dividends and capital repayments. That represents a disastrous transfer of wealth and it is about to be repeated again. The Government has tried to sugar the bill with its euphemistic wording of the bill: “Mixed Ownership”. It sounds nice and innocuous. It has so-called safeguards that other members have referred to and they are bogus. Make no mistake: if this bill is passed it will be only a matter of time before the assets will be totally owned overseas. That is of course their purpose. They all know that.  
Hon Amy Adams 
: You know that’s not true.  
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: No no. I know that it is true unlike that member who is so wet behind her ears that she is happy to sacrifice her whole constituency just for the chance of being promoted to Cabinet. I suppose that was a prospect that was way beyond her ambitious reach but that is why she is prepared to do it—never ask the real questions just go along with it! But at 7.30 on the next election night that member will know as will her constituents—perhaps she will survive but her friends will not; they will be all gone. You will look back in agony. You will look back in anger because frankly that is where this bill takes you.  
What possessed them to once again sell State assets? Who were they working for? Whose interests were they serving? For it was not the ordinary New Zealander about whom we speak. Those are the three questions that they will be asking themselves at 7.30 next election night. So do not dent the LTDs do not go trash the ministerial homes and do not go and spoil it for the next Government coming in. What we want you to understand is that being the masters of your own political destiny you have plainly stuffed it up. This madness may be due to a wilful ignorance and incompetence or something more sinister. How do we explain the intention to sell assets? How do we explain the intention to sell assets that delivered dividends that were almost $900 million last year to the New Zealand taxpayer? How do you explain that? 
Mike Sabin 
: Is the member in New Zealand? 
Rt Hon WINSTON PETERS 
: We are in New Zealand—that is my very point Mr Sabin. Up north is the most impoverished part of this country when it comes to Europeans and Maori—the most impoverished part of this country. Mr Sabin needs to go back and explain up there in Hokianga and Kerikeri—if he ever visits them—or in Moerewa or in Dargaville why he came down and sold his people out. That is what he will be asked. He will not be holding any public meetings. Oh no no. What is more he will not be engaged in any public debate because he will get thrashed. The fact of the matter is under this Government’s madcap thinking we will sell high-performing assets delivering excellent dividends at the same time the Government has to borrow money offshore. No sane financial manager will do that.  
I want to remind those members again that sometimes in politics a bill comes before your caucus an idea comes before the caucus and you know that when they begin by saying “This is a non-controversial innocuous bill.” on go the red lights the alarm bells start to ring. This is such a moment. This for them is a harbinger of things to come and it is all bad. I remember the National Party when it used to believe in the word “national” when it had a sense of national purpose when it was led by people like Holyoake people who would never sell the country out. “Kiwi Keith” he called himself. Of course he did not pose as being somebody elitist. But this new bunch—oh no no! This new bunch is different. It has no national purpose no sense of sovereignty happy to be on the international stage with a confetti bowl of trade agreements selling out the country’s soul at any given time. They hope that one day they can get away with it. You will remember this day. You will remember this debate at 7.30 on the next election night. I am going to phone all those who lose and say: “Remember you were warned.”