Gosche Mark: General Debates 
Gosche Mark: General Debates 
[Volume:617;Page:12858] 
Hon MARK GOSCHE (Labour—Maungakiekie) 
: 
 I want to talk about a reason why the National Party should never govern this country again. I point members of the House to a report of the Transport and Industrial Relations Committee regarding the sale of Paraparaumu Airport by National in 1995. What did that committee conclude? It concluded that the National Government sold Paraparaumu Airport and ignored its strategic and national importance. It was sold cheaply—below the price it should have sold for. New Zealand taxpayers—and all New Zealanders—missed out on somewhere between $1.5 million and $3 million maybe even more. 
That Government sold the airport without protecting the rights of the people who had had land taken off them under the Public Works Act. It knew that the law was deficient but it still sold that airport and those people’s rights were not properly protected by law. Maori interests were also said to be covered by the law but for 3 or 4 years Cabinet papers indicated there was no such protection. So the State sold the airport knowing that both Pakeha and Maori who had had land taken off them were not protected by law. 
The committee concluded that the paper trail on this whole sorry transaction was woeful. It agreed that the evaluation stage of the tender process was seriously flawed and that Government processes fell well below the standards expected in an asset sale of this type. Why did this happen? That question needs to be explored by a full Government inquiry. Why did that Government sell below the price? Why did it not protect the interests of the previous owners? Why did it ignore the strategic value of that airport? 
 Perhaps a paper I came across very late in the piece may help us to understand one of the reasons it was sold like that. I shall quote from it. It is about another airport sale that was happening at the same time: “Earlier in respect of Ardmore the Minister was briefed regarding an approach by Mr Warren Kyd MP who was involved with one of the potential purchasers. The ministry’s view was that political involvement in the sales could be embarrassing. The Minister agreed with this position and Mr Kyd was cautioned accordingly.” 
We want an inquiry to investigate whether the National Party was being completely incompetent or whether there was political interference by local members of Parliament in those airport sales. We are not just talking about Paraparaumu. Ardmore has come up in the paper work and we want answers. The New Zealand public deserves answers from the National Party because we have documentary evidence from correspondence written during its stewardship—which I will table—between the Auditor-General’s office and the Ministry of Transport. The Auditor-General’s office wanted to ask questions. The Ministry of Transport sent back the letter I have quoted from indicating why some of the processes were slipped by. This was despite Cabinet paper after Cabinet paper which I will also table indicating that the Government knew that the law was inadequate that it was selling the airport too cheaply and that it went against its advisers’ advice as to how the airport should be sold. 
The Government ignored the local people’s wishes and the strategic and national importance of that airport. It is one of the shoddiest things I have ever seen in my time in Parliament and that view is shared by just about every party on the select committee. New Zealand First ACT the Greens and Labour all were in agreement that the sale was a shoddy piece of work and we said so in the report. We are asking the Government to inquire into this. We want to know whether there was political interference or incompetence. 
Perhaps Dr Brash could come up with answers for the New Zealand public. He wants to be put in charge of New Zealand’s assets again. He wants a chance to privatise even more of our assets at below their value in dodgy ways and maybe with improper interference from his own MPs. These are serious questions to which this Parliament deserves answers. This Government is being asked by a select committee to inquire and we expect it to inquire. We want answers and so do the people in Paraparaumu who signed a petition 2 years ago to have this matter looked at. We want to give answers to them and to all New Zealand taxpayers.