Norman Russel: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume 
Norman Russel: Mixed Ownership Model Bill — In Committee Speaker Recalled In Committee 
[Sitting date: 19 June 2012. Volume:681;Page:3107. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.] 
Dr RUSSEL NORMAN (Co-Leader—Green) 
: 
 I rise to speak on Part 2 of the Government’s proposed privatisation bill the Mixed Ownership Model Bill that is before the Parliament tonight. We have a number of Green Party amendments. There are a number of amendments in my name to this bill. I was not able to get the call again to talk to some of the amendments in the truncated debate on the previous part which I thought was most unfortunate. Here we are debating this very serious bill in front of Parliament but we were not able to have sufficient debate so that you could even get a chance to talk to your amendments. But I guess that is the way this Government likes to work. 
So I want to try to get to at least two of my amendments tonight to talk to them but I think it is important that we actually have an extended debate on this bill in the Committee tonight given that it is a fundamental bill. A very important part of New Zealand’s assets is being privatised and there is enormous public interest in this legislation. There is enormous public opposition and I would really call on the Government and the Chair to enable maximum debate on this bill because there is maximum interest. 
Before I talk about a couple of the amendments it is worth countering some of the arguments of the Minister who graced us for a few minutes with his arguments around privatisation and why it is such a good idea. Of course it was the debt argument that Mr Ryall reached for which of course has now become the Government’s favourite argument around privatisation. Of course it was also the favourite argument that was used by Roger Douglas when he talked about the privatisation programme. As Roger Douglas later admitted it does not make any economic sense to use the debt argument around privatisation but it makes political sense and that is why the Government is now trying to use the debt link to privatisation argument. But of course in the long run it adds to Government debt because it adds to the Government deficit. 
In terms of the Minister’s argument there was a very interesting I thought slip of the tongue in his argument when he talked about the country’s debt rather than the Government’s debt. Normally when the Government mounts this argument it tries to talk about it purely in terms of Government debt but he actually talked about it in terms of the country’s debt. Of course the reality is that this privatisation programme to the extent that the shares are bought by New Zealanders makes no contribution to New Zealand’s net international investment position. The only way that it actually assists with our net international investment position or rather in terms of debt in particular is to the extent that there is overseas purchase of these assets. 
In terms of the domestic sector within New Zealand if there is simply a transfer of these assets between the Crown and the private sector and then the private sector in return pays for those assets overall the country is no better off. But when you look at the actual debt projections of the Government which of course the Minister did not want to talk about the net international investment position overall in the years ahead is that it gets worse. Regardless of the privatisation programme that we are debating tonight when you look at the Government’s actual economic forecasts both those contained in the Budget and those projected by the Reserve Bank New Zealand’s net international investment position gets worse. 
So when the Government tells us as the Minister did when speaking to his bill just now that this is part of its plan to reduce debt it is not. The Government’s plan is to increase debt. The Government’s plan is to increase the current account deficit. The Government’s plan is to increase the net international debt of New Zealand because that is in its own projections and that is the lie to the argument around debt. 
I did want to talk to the amendment around the referendum. What I have put up here is an amendment to clause 16 for a prohibition on the disposal or issue of shares before the referendum. The basic point of this amendment is to make sure that there is no disposal or privatisation of the shares prior to the citizens initiated referendum either taking place or expiring the amount of time that we have to collect the signatures. This has been I think a very important part of the democratic process of New Zealand. 
On the one hand the Government says it has a mandate even though the Government did not get a majority in the House and as we have been seeing in the votes on the bill tonight the vote on this bill is as close as it could possibly be. It was 61 votes to 60 on the last vote on Part 1. So the vote is as close as it could possibly be in this House. There cannot be a closer vote a more narrow majority than 61 votes to 60 as we had on Part 1 in this Committee just now. Yet the Government is claiming a 61 to 60 vote the narrowest possible vote as a mandate for the privatisation of assets. It is no such mandate. 
What this amendment seeks to do if the Government is so confident of its position on the privatisation of electricity companies is to put the question and enable this process to go forward with regard to the citizens initiated referendum. This referendum gives New Zealanders the opportunity to force a referendum. It is true that the referendum is not binding on the Government and we are not proposing to make it binding on the Government through this amendment. But what we are saying is that what is binding on the Government with this amendment is that the actual sale of the shares cannot proceed until the referendum is held. 
I believe that once the referendum has taken place we will find that the vast majority of New Zealanders will not support the Government’s privatisation programme. I was told tonight that the National Party itself is receiving resignations from members of the party as a result of this privatisation programme. Amongst National Party members and voters there is not support for the privatisation of their assets. National Party voters understand like the voters for all the other parties in this House that this is a very stupid idea. So National Party voters do not support it. 
That is why the polls show a majority of voters from probably pretty much every political party except possibly ACT are opposed to the privatisations. This amendment is about giving those people ordinary mum and dad New Zealanders mums and dads in New Zealand and single people as well—I do not know why the Government thinks single people do not count and it is always mums and dads but anyway—ordinary New Zealanders the right to have their voice on this issue. I would ask the Government and I would ask Peter Dunne to support this amendment because all it takes is one vote. 
Everything on this bill is so finely balanced because there is only one vote in it. We need only one person from the other side of the Chamber to see sense and support an amendment like this and we can go through a process whereby there is a referendum. If we are unable to collect the 350000 signatures that we need to force a citizens initiated referendum then the provision would lapse. It would not apply. But I am very confident that we will collect the signatures we need to do this because New Zealanders are up in arms about this asset sale programme. 
 I would just like to talk about another part of the Mixed Ownership Model Bill. This Part 2 which we are looking at at the moment essentially seeks to set up these mixed-ownership model companies. The thing about it is that the impact of setting them up will be that people are going to be colder. I mean that is the truth right? We should just admit the truth about what this means. We are in the middle of winter people are freezing cold all over the country and they are struggling to pay their electricity bills. What this bill really means is that mum and dad and children New Zealanders—ordinary people and families—will be colder in upcoming winters. 
This winter will be OK while the companies are still owned by the Government but in future winters mum and dad New Zealanders will be colder as a result of this bill. It is the “You Can Get Colder and Can’t Afford Your Electricity Prices Bill” because that is what the establishment of these mixed-ownership companies under Part 2 of this bill will effectively do by driving up power prices. That is the result of it. 
Of course although this Government is very keen on bashing beneficiaries the beneficiaries in this case will be the overseas owners. The Government is not very keen on bashing overseas owners who are going to be buying up a good chunk of these overseas companies. They are the beneficiaries of this bill who will be forcing up the price of electricity in New Zealand so that they can maximise their profits which will mean that mum and dad New Zealanders cannot afford to run the electric heaters in their house and keep their kids warm. The beneficiaries—the true beneficiaries—of this bill which the Government is trying to force through the House tonight will be the overseas owners. 
That is where the protections in this bill are completely inadequate. We will be moving amendments around that as well. The protections are actually just ridiculous. They are not going to work in terms of preventing overseas ownership of these companies. That means that the beneficiaries of this bill—the people who will earn the money as a result of this—will be the overseas investors. 
Here we have a bill that on the one hand trades off ordinary mum and dad New Zealanders who cannot afford to buy shares in this company. They will not be buying shares in this company. Those people get colder houses and more expensive electricity bills courtesy of the National Party the ACT Party and United Future. The beneficiaries of this bill will be the overseas owners who get to buy up all the shares in the company because the protections in this bill are so weak. The protections in Part 2 are too weak to prevent the overseas buy-up of these companies which we think is an absolute tragedy.