Dalziel Lianne: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Dalziel Lianne: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee 
[Sitting date: 21 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3231. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL (Labour—Christchurch East) 
: 
 I want to speak on this particular motion which has just been moved by the Minister in the chair the Minister for Building and Construction. I hope he takes the opportunity to respond to the issues that I want to raise at this time in the debate because this has been a very long debate that we have had on this particular bill and I know that every member on this side of the Chamber has been expressing the concerns felt by most New Zealanders that this bill should not be traversing through the House in this manner. The notion— 
Louise Upston 
: Point of order. 
The CHAIRPERSON (H V Ross Robertson) 
: I know what the member is going to raise. Can I just inform members that this is a very narrow debate. I want to refer members to Speaker’s ruling 120/5. In fact this is one of the narrowest debates we could have. To quote from the Speaker’s ruling it says this: “A debate on a motion to divide a bill is a very narrow debate. It is not an opportunity to recanvass all the principal issues contained within the bill. It is strictly related to the proposal that the bill should be divided.” What the debate here really is this afternoon is whether this bill should be split into the State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill and the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill. So the member can say whether she believes it should be split into those bills and give reasons why for or against. It is a very narrow debate. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Thank you for your assistance Mr Chairman. I want to ask the Minister a series of questions about the motion that he has just moved in the Committee which is specifically in relation to dividing the Mixed Ownership Model Bill which we have been debating over the last few days into two separate bills one of which would be enacting the State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Act 2012 and the second of which would be enacting the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act 2012. I understand that the reason why the Government wants to divide the Mixed Ownership Model Bill into these two separate bills is that it wants to have the first part of the bill—clauses 1 and 2 and Part 1—as the State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Act 2012 because it takes four separate State-owned enterprises out of the coverage of the State-Owned Enterprises Act. 
As I understand it and I would like the Minister to confirm this this would mean that the four State-owned enterprises—and just to recap they are Mighty River Power Meridian Energy Genesis Energy and Solid Energy—the four energy companies that I have just mentioned would no longer be State-owned enterprises. So that is the question I have for the Minister. Is the reason why clauses 1 and 2 and Part 1 are being separated off into a separate bill that those four energy companies will no longer in fact be State-owned enterprises? 
Grant Robertson 
: Who would stop them from being SOEs? 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well I do not know. I would just like the Minister to stand up and confirm whether or not I have correctly understood the purpose of separating off clauses 1 and 2 and Part 1 into a separate bill. So that is the first question. 
I understand that the second question would relate to the separating off of the remaining parts of the bill which is actually just Part 2 and that that would then take them into the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act. I just wanted to question the Minister as to the reason why this legislation would be called the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act. Is that because the decision was made by the Government to call the privatisation of public property a mixed-ownership model rather than a former State-owned enterprise or a privatised State-owned asset or you know one of those different ones? I know we did debate those and it would be inappropriate of me to raise the actual topic of the debate in the context of this motion but is that the reason why the public finance amendment Act requires the words “Mixed Ownership Model” to be in brackets as part of the title to that Act? And is that why it needs to be separated out from other elements of the Public Finance Act? 
That is something that would not actually be required if the companies were in fact still State-owned enterprises because—again as I understand it—if they were State-owned enterprises then we would not need the first part of this particular piece of legislation. They would not have to be split into two separate pieces and—[ 
Interruption 
] It is a serious question and I think that we have really taken the opportunity on this side of the Chamber to ask all of the questions that the public has wanted to put to the Government. [ 
Bell rung 
] Mr Chairman thank you for the opportunity to continue down this path. I am disappointed that the Minister has not taken the opportunity to respond to these questions and perhaps he simply has not taken advice in preparation for participating in this debate. He may in fact be surprised that we are debating what is not normally debated in this House but because this is such an important piece of legislation I think it is important for us on this side of the Chamber certainly to raise all of these questions. 
I do not know about other members on this side of the Chamber but I have been inundated with a large number of inquiries from the public perhaps not necessarily about this particular motion because they may not have been aware that this motion was going to be moved by the Minister today but I do know that all the other elements of the legislation have been the subject of a significant number of approaches to members on this side of the Chamber certainly. Actually I suspect members of the Government have received a lot of feedback from constituents and from their own supporters very concerned about the decision— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: There was an election Lianne. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: Well it is interesting that the Minister interjects from the other side of the Chamber and says that there was a general election. There was one last year and that is true but there is also the point that was made by my colleague Grant Robertson—a very good point—which was that when you add up the numbers of people who voted against— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: Against Labour. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: —against National or voted for parties—well I am responding to the interjection from the Minister; I think it is only fair— 
Hon Nathan Guy 
: OK I’ll listen. 
Hon LIANNE DALZIEL 
: If you add up all of the people who voted for parties that were opposed to the sale of State assets then that was the majority decision which is reflected in the polls today. I am getting a signal from the Chair that I am to keep this to the narrow parameters of the debate. But I think he has accepted that it is appropriate that when I am interjected on by someone as important as a Minister it is important to place that interjection on the record and to respond to it and I thank the Minister for the opportunity to do so. 
The Minister in the chair though still has not taken the opportunity to explain why we are dividing this into the two separate bills. I really think it is important to this Committee that we receive the confirmation that we are looking for and that is around the decision to have Part 1 and clauses 1 and 2 now known as the State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Act 2012 and for Part 2 and schedules 1 and 2 to be separate legislation the Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act. 
 The fact is that the Government has decided to split this legislation into these two bills and it needs to explain the reason why it has chosen the name “Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Act”. That is the question that I do think the Government does need to respond to in this debate this afternoon but also—and this is more important—it needs to explain the decision to use the “State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Act” description as the coverage of clauses 1 and 2 and Part 1. I think that the main reason that really needs to be dealt with is the confirmation that there are four State-owned enterprises today that are not going to be State-owned enterprises when the State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Act 2012 becomes law. I think that is probably the most important question that the public would expect the Government to answer in the Committee this afternoon as we come down to the very final parts of the Committee stage of what is going to be formerly known as the Mixed Ownership Model Bill if this motion is agreed to by the Committee. 
I should say that I understand that Labour will not be supporting this motion and the reason that we are not supporting this motion is that we have not really found any reason to support any element of this legislation. It is not supported by the general public and actually there is no reason to separate out this motion from any of the other motions that have had to be challenged on this side of the Chamber other than the very good set of amendments that we have put forward in respect of this matter. We did not put forward an amendment on this particular motion and that is because technically the motion had not been moved when we were still debating within the broader Committee stage.