Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Cosgrove Clayton: Estimates Debate — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 01 August 2012. Volume:682;Page:4188. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE (Labour) 
: 
 We have heard it here and it will go now in the annals of this Parliament as Todd McClay wraps his arms firmly around John Banks—firmly around John Banks—who is the political version of a human pinata in this House being pinged every day for his conduct. He is the walking dead the political version of a cadaver that is hanging this Government together. It is selling our assets that people already own on the vote of John Banks the human political cadaver. Todd McClay gets up and flings his arms around John Banks like a lifeline. Well I am going to enjoy quoting from that speech for years to come. 
Here is the issue with this Budget with these appropriations and with this finance. This Government is responsible for some achievements that is true: exports are down the current account deficit is up unemployment is up and 1000 people a week—1000 people a week—are leaving for overseas. These are all things that the English-Key Government said it would fix. 
I do not want to get on to tourism because we have done it. The only thing I will say as we are talking about jobs is that if one consults page 582 of the Estimates on tourism one will see that we asked the Associate Minister of Tourism about jobs—job creation in relation to the cycleway—because this finance appropriation helps to fund that. He could not tell us how many businesses and how many permanent jobs have been created thus far by the silver bullet of this Government which was to be the cycleway. The Associate Minister of Tourism could not tell us. He could give us a few anecdotes about a fish and chip shop that had opened in Napier and apparently the local cycle shop in Napier is going gangbusters but apart from that he could not name how many permanent jobs had been created. 
We know that 1000 people a week are leaving these shores. I say to Mr Calder that it is not about Greece as Mr Parker has said. Mr Calder spent 90 percent of his speech ironically talking about every other country in the world except the one that he represents in this Parliament. He talked about Greece talked about Spain talked about Ireland talked about the US and talked about every other country except the one that he is in charge of as part of this Government. 
We look at asset sales. I remember a debate during the election campaign the famous “Show me the money” debate. Remember that? I say to this Government because this Government is always quick to hold everybody else’s feet to the fire in terms of fiscal prudence fiscal accountability and costings that we had an example of utter—I cannot say that; it is the “h” word. We had an example of saying one thing outside this Parliament and doing another thing inside this Parliament when it came to the asset sales loyalty scheme. We had a Prime Minister get up at his conference and come out—as if you know everybody loves this Prime Minister coming out at his conference so the National Party people said; people are going to love these asset sales—and announce a loyalty scheme without one dollar of costings having been done. He announced hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of a loyalty bonus shares scheme. When asked in this Parliament how much it was going to cost where the dough was coming from and what the counterfactual was in terms of losses to the taxpayer and the Crown of providing these free shares for those who can afford $1000 or $2000 he had not one shred of evidence or data to back up the policy. If that had been us oh would we have been shredded by the National Party for not costing things! 
It seems it is OK to dish it out but not be accountable when you are in Government and announce a major plank of a policy costing hundreds of millions of dollars so that those at the top again can get a major wealth transfer in bonus shares and those who have their noses presses against the glass who cannot afford the $1000 and $2000 they need to get in to buy back what they already own end up paying for it. So I say to Mr English that I would be really interested as is addressed in the report of the Finance and Expenditure Committee whether he could tell us the costings around the loyalty scheme and whether he could also tell us if his Government is so certain—as it has told us week after week and month after month—first that Kiwi mums and dads will be first in the queue and secondly that they will hold on to these shares ad infinitum because it is such a good deal. I would like him to tell us if he is so confident of that why it is that he needs a loyalty scheme. 
I would like him to tell us when this loyalty scheme is going to mature. Is this loyalty scheme going to mature prior to the next election? Oh no. The stated position on the loyalty scheme is that it will mature after the next election—about 6 months after it I think. The Government said that it would be a 3-year scheme. 
Dr David Clark 
: What a coincidence. 
Hon CLAYTON COSGROVE 
: It is quite a coincidence as my colleague Mr Clark said. Why is that a coincidence? That is a cynical con because that is simply about the Government being able to try to cobble together an argument in the next election campaign to say: “Oh look at all these Kiwis. They’re hanging in there; they’re keeping their shares. We told you so.” Mr Key will say that and then hey presto 6 months after an election campaign the free bonus shares will mature and be delivered and the same thing that happened with Contact Energy will occur when Kiwi mums and dads—those who remain—will sell out the windfall gain. 
Of course those who have got in to get that windfall gain will be those Kiwi mums and dads who can afford $1000 or $2000 to flick on to the old share market. I do not see many of them in Christchurch or around the country. By the way if you are paying 20 percent on your credit card and you are going to get 5 percent maybe off the back of these asset sales then would not the smart thing to do—and I do not think many financial advisers would disagree with me—be to pay off your credit card or pay down your mortgage if you have a discretionary $1000 or $2000 just hanging around in your back pocket? 
The point is this. I know that Mr Goldsmith the member for—no he is not the member for Epsom; I got confused there for a minute—the soon-to-be member for Epsom will be able to afford 1000 bucks or 2000 bucks. I would wager that most people in his electorate would probably be able to have a go and that is the nature of it. But for those people on Struggle Street—those people who do not have 100 bucks to get the kids a couple of new pairs of school shoes pay the school fees or put bread on the table—I cannot see too many of them sitting around with you know mum talking to dad and saying: “Hey we’re going to dig up $1000 or $2000 and do you know what we are going to do? We’re scratching to make ends meet but we’re going to take Bill English’s advice. We’re going to invest in shares that we already own and we’re going to buy them back again.” 
So let us get real about this. This is about a wealth transfer from those who have the least to those who have the most. This is also about an election year con. 
I just ask Mr English again if he is so confident that Kiwi mums and dads will hang on to these shares why does he need a loyalty bonus? There is no answer apart from the fact that he knows the inevitable will happen. Contact Energy it was floated in 1999 had a share register of 225000 individual Kiwi shareholders. Today that number is 78000 and that company is overwhelmingly and predominantly owned by foreign interests most of them in Australia. 
I just say to Mr English that if I am wrong—and he can laugh and cackle—he should stand up take a call and tell the Committee why it is he is promoting a loyalty share scheme if he does believe in his heart of hearts that Kiwis will hang on to these shares and that it will not be the case that in say 3 years just after the loyalty scheme expires the share register is turned on its head because the Kiwis go out with their windfall gain and the foreign investors move in. That has been the precedent after precedent with asset sales historically. 
 Eighty percent of New Zealanders do not want it. Mr English has botched this from stem to stern. He has inflamed Maori interests. He has not spoken. We had Tuwharetoa come to the select committee lawyered up saying that they had gifted back water resources to the Crown for the public good but now the rules had changed and they wanted a slice of the action. What was the Government’s reaction to that? Well according to Mr Ryall in this House it had planned for all this. So it had planned for a dust-up with Maoridom it had planned for a Waitangi Tribunal hearing and it had planned presumably for the inevitable court action that will follow and therefore for the delay in the initial public offering. Only a fool—to quote Mr Key—would float an asset would do an initial public offering with court action and tribunal action hanging over their head. 
I say this to Mr English. He will go down in history as the person who dudded—to use an Australian expression—the Kiwi taxpayer by selling assets that they already own dudded them because the least in our community could not afford to buy them dudded them because he transferred the wealth to the most and then dudded them with a loyalty issue that should be unnecessary if he believes in his heart of hearts that Kiwis will hang on to these shares. “Dudded the taxpayer” will be his legacy and that is what we will go to the next election about.