Shearer David: General Debate 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Shearer David: General Debate 
[Sitting date: 18 July 2012. Volume:681;Page:3630. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
DAVID SHEARER (Leader of the Opposition) 
: 
 It is always good to follow the former Minister of Education Anne Tolley quoting Dr Seuss. Probably her bedtime reading was  
Green Eggs and Ham 
 and there is a reason why she is now the police Minister and not the education Minister. She failed her own national standard and that is why she is there. This week has seen an enormous train wreck of a Government that purports to have brought us strong government and stable government. These are some of the ideas it has come up with in the last few months: the mining of our national parks an utter failure; a financial services hub—whatever happened to that financial services hub? And there was a convention centre funded by pokie machines. But the big kahuna of an idea was always going to be the asset sales. This was going solve the debt crisis. Spending in schools on health services on children—the entire gamut of Government expenditure was going to be solved simply by selling off our State-owned assets against the will of the public and the reason that the benefits started to grow and grow and grow was that the public did not actually believe for a minute that the sale of assets was going to do that.  
But now as a result of these asset sales we now have a complete train wreck where there once was a shiny bright great idea by the National Party. The shiny bright idea—the brighter future that was supposed to be brought by selling assets—is now languishing and likely to be delayed. The Prime Minister said that there is a possibility of it being delayed and then the next day he came out and said that the delay is actually about as likely as a meteorite hitting the Earth. 
Hon Annette King 
: What’s true then? 
DAVID SHEARER 
: Well what is true? One day he says something and then the next day he says something else but I can tell you one thing: the thing that is coming down faster than a meteorite is the share price of these assets because I can tell you right now that not many people are lining up to buy these shares when they believe that they are going to actually fall in value.  
Not only that but we actually find out this week that the Government despite what it says is actually thinking about listing them on the Australian Stock Exchange. This goes right against all the promises that the shares are going to be held by New Zealanders—against the promise that New Zealanders are going to hold these. What is going to happen is not that mums and dads are going to buy these shares—no. What is going to happen is that the mums and dads are going to have to put their hands in their pockets to pay for the compensation that this train wreck is going to bring about. It is the people who are not going to buy shares who are actually going to have to fund the compensation and all the damages that are going to result from this flawed policy this ridiculous policy of selling off our State-owned assets.  
 So here we have it: a kahuna of an idea that has just flopped into a train wreck. We have the Maori Party threatening to walk away and destabilise the Government we have the ACT leader who may have to face charges brought by the police and this Government says that it will bring strong and stable government. It has a big idea that has flopped its Budget is in tatters there is complete instability from its coalition partners and this is what it says is going to be strong and stable government. I can tell you that 6 months out from the election this Government is in tatters in absolute tatters and I cannot see how it is going to recover from this. This is a shambles.