Clark David: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Clark David: State-Owned Enterprises Amendment Bill Public Finance (Mixed Ownership Model) Amendment Bill — Third Readings 
[Sitting date: 26 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3302. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr DAVID CLARK (Labour—Dunedin North) 
: 
 This legislation which arises from the Mixed Ownership Model Bill has been described as a “Dunne deal”. Many people have pointed to the opportunity the member for Ohariu has to stop this deal in its tracks. I want to say that it is more than just a “Dunne deal”; it is a “Dunne-y deal”. This is a deal that flushes a big chunk of New Zealand’s economic sovereignty down the toilet. This is a dunny deal for New Zealanders. Today is the third reading of this legislation. It has been an atrociously rushed process. We had in our Finance and Expenditure Committee despite what members opposite have said a rushed process. Five minutes was the limit for many submitters. We were allowed to ask one question—one question. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: Undemocratic. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: It was undemocratic as the member says. We reported back 5 weeks early despite no time pressures and we had rushed teleconference arrangements which meant many people could not make their contribution. There were no visits to my home town. Many people felt aggrieved by these rushed processes. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: I thought they promised to go to Dunedin. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: They talked about going to Dunedin but they never went there. 
Unfortunately this process still gave the Government an overwhelmingly negative message. It still fed back to the Government that nobody likes this deal this “Dunne-y deal” for New Zealanders. Just 0.6 percent of the submissions that we heard were in favour. Of the over 1400 submissions just 0.6 percent of people wished to speak in favour of this legislation. But the Government had cotton wool in its ears. 
It has no mandate. We have heard various members opposite try to argue for one. They will try and try but they will fail. More votes went to parties in the election just gone that opposed asset sales than to parties that supported asset sales. You cannot rewrite history I say to members opposite. The mandate is not there for these sales. Only 0.6 percent were in favour. Over 98 percent were against these sales. We had people voting for parties that opposed these sales not parties that supported them in overwhelming numbers and we had a rushed process designed to take the heat out of this issue. Well it will not happen. The issue will not go away. New Zealanders know that this is a bad deal. 
Mighty River Power is the first asset that National wants to put on the blocks. It is owned by all of us now; National wants to make it owned by a privileged few. There is a citizens initiated referendum out there that is gathering momentum. We know that it already has got 100000 signatures and we know that New Zealanders will be out there campaigning as it goes on. More and people are collecting these signatures. We know that number is going to grow. We know that the necessary number of signatures will be reached probably before this year is out. So the New Zealand public is giving the Government a clear message. It still may not hear it but it would be a very foolish Government that ignored a citizens initiated referendum. I would not put it past this Government but I would say it would be a foolish Government that would ignore it. 
We heard Bill English at question time today shedding some crocodile tears over salary increases for chief executives and directors under his watch. There were crocodile tears that the salaries had risen under Labour’s term. Well there can be no way that those crocodile tears mean that increasing them still further is a good idea. Yet we have heard that directors’ salaries have gone up again. And how are they going to be paid for we ask ourselves? How are those directors’ salary increases and chief executives’ salary increases going to be paid for as these companies are prepared for private sale? How are they going to be paid for? We know. We know that those salary increases will be paid for by higher power prices. This is something that we had submitters tell us through the select committee process. We asked the Government to do some research on it to have its Treasury officials do it but unfortunately it had already asked the Treasury officials to write the report before we had heard all of the submissions. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: No! 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: No I am deadly serious. Treasury wrote its report. It was against democratic principles. 
Hon Clayton Cosgrove 
: It was that Todd McClay. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: It has been a rushed process. Mr Todd McClay was involved; it started from the chair. It is outrageous. These chief executive officer and board salaries are like the farmer fattening up the pig before it goes to the slaughterhouse. A recent  
New Zealand Herald 
 survey found that the chief executive officer pay of the four energy companies rose 26.3 percent between 2010 and 2011 compared with general chief executive officer salaries going up just 0.4 percent overall. Those directors’ fees have risen and who will pay for them? We know. We know who will pay for them. It will be us. It will be the consumers of power in New Zealand. 
There are also Treaty issues that have not been put to bed. Again the select committee process gave room for these issues to be addressed but they were put to one side. The chair dismissed them and said they were no problem. Well we glossed over them in the select committee but Tuwharetoa have not yet let go. They said that they were contemplating action that would undo the asset sales legislation. If the Government wants to use the water resources that Tuwharetoa say they gifted for public good without working through the Treaty issues it is running a big risk. We know that when Richard Prebble tried to sell off State-owned forests in 1989 the Maori Council took the Government all the way to the Privy Council because the Government was about to sell land that was subject to unresolved Treaty claims. And it won. It won and Tuwharetoa will use that as a precedent. The Government will lose. It has not learnt from history. The Labour Party has learnt from history. The National Government refuses to learn from history. 
Hon Trevor Mallard 
: That’s right. Some of us learnt with our jobs. 
Dr DAVID CLARK 
: Mr Mallard said earlier that he lost his seat and his colleagues Mr Goff and Ms King lost their seats as a result of the asset sales that took place in the 1980s. They spent 9 years in the wilderness and they learnt their lesson. The National Government did as many asset sales as it could in the 1990s but here it is back at it again. It does not bode well for National’s future election chances for it to ignore the will of the New Zealand people but on it goes. It is not willing to listen to the will of the people. 
What did John Key promise as we went into the last election campaign? He promised and these are his words—the words of John Key—“We’re giving people a commitment that 85 to 90 percent of the entire company will be owned by New Zealanders. That is my commitment to them tonight as Prime Minister.” He said that in the leaders’ debate. Well we wonder now what those words were worth because we now know that those words are not given effect in the legislation. It is like the Prime Minister promising not to put GST up. We know where that led. That led to tax cuts for the wealthiest New Zealanders while the rest of New Zealand—middle New Zealand—struggles on. So we know that those words may well not be honoured because they are not worth the sentence that they make up. There is nothing in the legislation to ensure it. 
The other point to make is that this is about mums and dads being at the front of the queue so the rhetoric goes but we know that New Zealand mums and dads already own these assets. The sale of these assets makes no sense. Most mums and dads do not have any cash to spare once they have paid their electricity bill at the end of the week. They sure as hell will not have the money to stump up to buy these shares. 
John Key says that the typical individual bundle of shares is about $5000 worth. So if you want to keep your shares in Mighty River Power in Meridian Energy in Genesis in Solid Energy and in Air New Zealand Mr and Mrs Consumer out there are going to have to fork over a total of about $25000. It is not the mum and dads I know who have that cash floating around. Most Kiwis cannot afford to pay $25000 to buy something they already own. 
This is made even worse by the economy which National has been neglecting. Rather than promoting policies that would promote growth in our country—pro-growth tax policies decent savings policies research and development policies and other policies that would support our exporters—National seems to be interested just in selling off those assets we already own. It is not interested in supporting exporters. We had submissions in the select committee that this policy would increase costs and red tape. The National Government was not interested in doing its homework. It does not actually care about New Zealand businesses. It does not actually trust New Zealand businesses to grow our stock market. It thinks we have to get Government assets on to the stock market because it does not think New Zealand business people are capable of growing our capital base. That is the message that it is sending and it certainly has lost touch. That is the thing we need to note from this. 
To conclude I want to just say that these asset sales make no sense. New Zealanders know that the citizens initiated referendum is going to bring that home to the Government and it will proceed with these sales at its peril. This is a “Dunne-y” deal. We are flushing more of New Zealand’s sovereignty down the toilet. It makes no sense.