Shearer David: Standing Orders — SessionalText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeShearer David: Standing Orders — Sessional[Sitting date: 26 September 2013. Volume:693;Page:13801. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]DAVID SHEARER (Labour—Mt Albert): I want to take a brief call on this Government motion No. 1 as well. It is pretty extraordinary that we have got to this point where we have to pass this today because it was forgotten to have been done some time before. It is easy to forget accountability really is it not? At the end of the day it is just about whether we can keep a check on Mighty River Power and our other power organisations. It is also a bit of a joke to actually put this under the category of a public organisation because it certainly is not a public organisation any more. It was but now it really is a privatised organisation and not a public organisation because Mighty River Power is half-owned by just 2 percent of New Zealand’s population. The rest of New Zealand the other 98 percent were not able to take a share in Mighty River Power. So now we have Mighty River Power which is worth $2.25 a share but was floated at $2.50 a share. It has gone down 10 percent already and what a failure of an investment that has been for that 2 percent of the population who has joined in that.On the basis of that success of that brilliant move by this Government we are now going to float an even bigger power organisation Meridian Energy. So we have failed on Mighty River Power and now we are going to launch off Meridian Energy. Who will invest in Meridian Energy? Well 34 percent of people said before Mighty River Power was floated that they would invest in Mighty River Power and it ended up being 2 percent. When the pollsters asked New Zealanders this time about Meridian Energy only 14 percent said that they were going to invest in Meridian Energy. Obviously this caused some panic amongst the Government because it then started acting a little bit like Harvey Norman—buy now pay later. So you are able to buy those shares now and pay later. As my colleague Clayton Cosgrove says they will throw in a box of steak knives along with it just to sweeten the deal up a bit. They will probably offer a trip for two to Las Vegas where you could have the same sort of gamble but more legally over there. This is to try to get this float across the line.What will we get for the money? Well we were promised $7 billion to $10 billion then it was $5 billion to $7 billion then it was the low end of $5 billion to $7 billion—and these are all quotes of either the Minister of Finance or the Prime Minister—and now we are scratching to get $5 billion across the line. What will we spend that money on? Well there has been a wide variety of issues that we can spend this money on. First of all of course it was to avoid the credit downgrade—avoid that. That was in 2011. I do not suppose people remember that. Then it was to help Kiwibank. Then in 2012 it was to pay down debt. That was MrRyall’s suggestion. Then it was to build newschools and hospitals. That did the rounds for a while because it was very popular. And then it was to bail out KiwiRail. Then it was to irrigate lots and lots of farm land a little bit like the Tukituki River which we are hearing so much about. What an appalling idea that is. It is so appalling that the Government has to doctor the results of its tests in order to be able to get it across the line. Then it is the rebuild of Christchurch. Then it is the Auckland rail loop. The list goes on and on. If you add it up it comes to $80 billion. So the $5 billion being raised goes into $80 billion. I am not sure how that works.What I do know is that the mums and dads who were promised the shares in this are a joke; it is just 2 percent of our population. We will not get anything like what we want for the power companies and as my colleague Moana Mackey just said power prices will go up. We lose all the way down the line unless you are in that 1 percent and 2 percent upper-income level. This is a disgrace and this Government motion No. 1 is a testament to that.