Dunne Peter: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — First Reading 
Dunne Peter: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — First Reading 
[Volume:678;Page:1010] 
Hon PETER DUNNE (Leader—United Future) 
: 
 Can I begin by acknowledging the flattery of the member who has just resumed his seat David Cunliffe. But just as he was inaccurate on my weight he was inaccurate on many other things in what he had to say. I want to make it clear on behalf of United Future that we will be supporting the Mixed Ownership Model Bill because we think it is sensible we think it is what New Zealand requires and we think it is in the best interests of this country in the long term. During this debate many things have been said many epithets have been thrown around and many sobriquets issued. Most of them are utterly irrelevant and utterly erroneous and grossly overstate what is happening at the moment. We are not selling our heritage or our assets. We are selling a partial share float in 3 percent of the Crown’s assets and 97 percent will remain in the control of New Zealanders if that be the phrase that is so important. 
What is really critical here is how we ensure that these State trading companies which these members opposite are so proud of continue to work for the benefit of New Zealanders. In a rapidly changing international and technological environment when we want to get smart green technology in place for example it costs. It costs and it has to be paid for. Here are the options. They are very simple. If the Government of the day wants to boost the growth of those companies it has about three broad options open to it. It either borrows more to fund them and we are in debt as it is and seeking to reduce that level of debt; it allows the companies to raise charges to the public and we have heard the bleats already about the fear of increased power prices so that is clearly a no go; or it raises taxes. They are the three options. When you start to fiddle with the tax system you set off a whole chain of other events that reduce New Zealanders’ capacity to be part of a productive growing economy.  
So the conundrum the Government faces—and the same Government previously in office faced exactly the same conundrum and chose to do nothing—is that you either let things stagnate as they are or you seek more innovative ways of boosting the capital base of these entities. The mixed-ownership model which will allow the sale of a limited shareholding a minority shareholding is in my view a novel way to do that provided there are adequate safeguards put in place. Those safeguards need to be a very clear statement as contained in this legislation that the Crown will always maintain 51 percent as a minimum control of these entities. So the argument about overseas shareholders or other shareholders coming in and having their way simply fails on the grounds that they will not have the majority. The majority shareholding the Crown as the protector of the public interest will always be in a position to protect that public interest. 
The second point that gets overlooked in this debate when we talk about selling out to foreigners or to other dubious types in New Zealand who will take over is that the legislation makes it absolutely clear—at United Future’s insistence and I am proud of this—that no entity corporate or individual can hold more than 10 percent. So the idea that somehow this is a wholesale sell-out simply is not borne out by the facts. The challenge we then have to come back to is what is a respectable vision of the way in which we develop our power companies in the future. I am hearing interjections to my right. I suspect they come from the Greens who are always telling us—with some validity I might add—about the need to improve production technologies to go to smarter more efficient ways of energy use. We are going to have to invest in those technologies and that will cost and the choice that a Government has to make is where that investment comes from. I think that the opportunity for individual investment in a minority capacity and the opportunity for some smart investment are ones that a wise Government would not throw up. 
I notice that what is being proposed here is not a radical new solution. It is the solution that several mainstream Labour Governments in other parts of the world like the Blair Government like the Keating Government in the 1990s in Australia and even the like Carr Government in New South Wales have long since adopted. It is the solution that Labour itself as late as the end of 2010 was proposing when it was talking about mixed-ownership models for the assets of State-owned enterprises. It is the solution that New Zealand First used to talk about up to a maximum of 24.9 percent. So the reality is that all we are arguing about here are the numbers: 51 or 49 or 24.9. Everyone has been around the park on this issue. Everyone has advocated a version of this policy at some stage or another and now because it is being implemented and circumstances see some people on one side of the House and some on the other those who used to advocate it now find they have to oppose it. That is not in the public interest of New Zealand. 
I want to make one strong final point and it is this: a lot of people have said in public commentary that because allegedly my vote is critical—it is actually no different from anyone else’s vote—I have to exercise moral courage or some sort of higher standard. What is important in this as in any other issue is integrity. What the public of New Zealand really do not like are politicians who say one thing before an election and do something else after it. I invite every member of this House to look at every statement United Future made prior to the election and every statement made subsequently and try to draw a difference between them—because there is no difference. What we said right throughout was that we did not support the wholesale sale of assets—that is not on the agenda. We did support the limited sale in respect of the energy companies and Air New Zealand provided there were controls in terms of the minimum Crown participation and the maximum individual participation—and that is in the legislation. And then the same people who preach integrity have the gall to say to me that having achieved everything that we said— 
Hon David Cunliffe 
: Goodbye. 
Hon PETER DUNNE 
: Goodbye to you Mr Cunliffe. You have already gone. I say to the people who preach with some gall that I should exercise integrity that I have done that. I will continue to do that and that is why we are supporting this legislation.