Hauiti Claudette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeHauiti Claudette: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 02 July 2014. Volume:700;Page:19116. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]2.CLAUDETTE HAUITI (National)to the Minister of Finance: What steps has the Government taken to turn around the Treasury’s forecast net Government debt?Hon BILL ENGLISH (Minister of Finance):The initial forecasts of Government debt prior to the 2009 Budget showed that net Government debt would soar to over 60 percent of GDP by 2023 and never come down. Under this Government’s management net debt is now expected to peak at 26.4 percent of GDP and fall below 20 percent by 2020. That is despite an extra $15 billion contribution to the rebuild of Christchurch. We have been able to turn round those earlier debt forecasts by spending taxpayers’ money more effectively—for instance in education where the extra money has gone on achieving better results not just on maintaining spending.Claudette Hauiti: Approximately how much less net debt does the Government expect to have on its books in the early 2020s compared with Treasury’s projections 6 years ago?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The difference will be significant including using money freed up from the share offer programme to invest in public assets. The Budget 2014 projections show that by 2023 net Government debt will be around 13 percent under the Government’s current policies. That is well below the forecasts from 2009 where net debt exceeded 60 percent of GDP. That means that in dollar terms it will amount to around $150 billion less debt for taxpayers by 2023 under this Government’s responsible policies compared with the policies we inherited.Claudette Hauiti: Having successfully completed its share offers as part of its wider programme to get debt under control—Hon David Parker: I raise a point of order Mr Speaker. The Standing Orders require that questions are questions not unfounded assertions.Mr SPEAKER: Order! A correct interpretation of the Standing Orders is that a question should be a question so I invite the member to ask the question without the lead-in comments.Claudette Hauiti: Having completed its share offers as part of its wider programme to get debt under control has the Government observed any changes to dividends received from the share offer companies?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Yes. The share offer programme has increased the requirement for the floated companies to perform better and that is flowing into higher dividends than if the companies had remained in 100 percent Crown ownership. This is particularly noticeable with Genesis Energy. Despite selling just under half of the shares in the company the Crown expects to receive nearly twice as much in dividends from Genesis Energy this year than it did in the best years between 2001 and 2012 when the Crown had 100 percent ownership. The Crown is also forecast to receive more in dividends from Genesis Energy this year as a 51 percent owner than it received in 2012 when we were 100 percent owners. So with half the ownership it looks like we are going to get about twice the dividends. This is just one of the benefits of a very successful share-selling programme.Hon David Parker: Could I have the same figures in respect of that other State-owned enterprise Solid Energy?Hon BILL ENGLISH: Solid Energy is not being sold because it is not viable to do so.Claudette Hauiti: What other benefits has the share offer programme brought to the Government’s finances particularly in helping to keep debt lower than it would have otherwise been?Hon BILL ENGLISH: The $4.7 billion raised through the share offer programme is meeting all discretionary capital spending over three or four Budgets. That has allowed the Government to have no new capital allowance in those years. That capital allowance would have had to be met through additional borrowing. I am pleased to see support in other fiscal packages accepting the Government’s previous measures to curb spending and control debt by using proceeds from the share offer programme to invest in new public assets. I was I have to say surprised to see that Labour and the Greens having opposed the assets sales for a number of years have budgets that rely on spending the proceeds of those sales.