King Annette: General Debate 
King Annette: General Debate 
[Volume:674;Page:20041] 
Hon ANNETTE KING (Deputy Leader—Labour) 
: 
 I move  
That the House take note of miscellaneous business 
. The rain has been pouring down. There is snow in the south and gales in the north and winter is well and truly settling around New Zealand. Kiwis are battening down the hatches and it has made me think of my 89-year-old father. I picture him at this moment sitting at home trying to keep warm. He will not have his heater up very high and he will not want to do what he calls “run up a power bill”. But I know that he will not be on his own. Thousands of older New Zealanders will be doing exactly the same. They will be worrying about how they will get through this winter and how they will pay their bills. 
They are also wondering why John Key wants to sell our assets—our power companies—and they are bemused as to why John Key thinks selling something they already own and getting a one-off chunk of money will make New Zealand better off. They know it is a done deal by this National Government. They know that the money from the sale of their assets has already been banked in the Government’s Budget documents. They know that the consultants have already been engaged and are rubbing their hands with glee as they hear “ker-ching ker-ching”. The cheques are flowing and dozens of officials are getting the assets ready for sale as we speak. All the while the Prime Minister John Key is using those honeyed words and sleight of hand to reassure New Zealanders that they get to choose whether the assets are sold at the election. Well “you can’t fool all the people all the time” and you certainly cannot fool older New Zealanders. 
John Key might think that those in Grey Power and those who are retired do not quite understand are out of touch and do not count but I think he has made a terrible mistake. Older New Zealanders know that they paid for those assets that he wants to sell. They know that they own them already so it is no surprise to me that Grey Power which has a membership of over 77000 has come out very strongly opposed to the State asset sell-off. It has made very clear in its recent Grey Power magazine that it is opposed to it. Grey Power had this to say: “How the Government can imagine that selling off more of our assets is going to improve anything is beyond reason and totally unacceptable.” That is from the major organisation representing older people in New Zealand. Older people know that the rhetoric about them getting to buy a piece of the assets is nothing more than hogwash. They know that according to Statistics New Zealand 81 percent of older New Zealanders live on the pension alone and they do not have other money to go out and buy what they already own: our power companies that they went out to work and paid taxes for and bought over time. 
They know there is no such thing as the mum and dad investor a term that is being sold to New Zealanders as a ploy by the National Government to sweeten the sale of assets people do not want to sell. They also know that those who are going to buy these assets are the big overseas investors. They know that because they have watched the sale of Contact Energy and have watched their power prices go up far more under that privately owned company than under the State-owned companies. They know that Contact Energy is not owned by mum and dad investors today. In fact it was bye-bye mum and dad investors and bye-bye New Zealand ownership. If there is one thing that older New Zealanders want it is to retain the things they paid for in their working life here in New Zealand. 
I am very pleased that National in this House today pooh-poohed the idea that Grey Power does not want to sell our assets. It tried to make out that Grey Power was very happy about the mixed-ownership model. Well I ask National members to think again because they will hear plenty from older New Zealanders in the very near future.