Jones Shane: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail Shares—Insider Trading 
Jones Shane: Urgent Debates — Tranz Rail Shares—Insider Trading 
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SHANE JONES (Labour) 
: 
 It is with a great deal of pleasure that I take this opportunity for a 5-minute call to be followed by a speaker from New Zealand First. I stand and support Winston Peters in highlighting the issue about two individuals Michael Fay and David Richwhite whom I regard as having done a great deal of damage to New Zealand’s business. Let us just think back to the 1980s and the 1990s when members of the media and members of the Government in the 1990s enabled Fay and Richwhite to think that they walked on water. Let us just focus on how they destroyed our rail transport industry. Once they gained access to the rail company they asset-stripped it. Not only did they pursue a strategy of having special dividends but they left it as a hovel. They left it hollow resonating with the name of the book that describes the actions of members of the other side of the House. The company was gutted and it took the State to then recapitalise it—and we can see how important that company is proving to be today in meeting our needs and our desire to transform the economy. 
Those two men having enjoyed the plundering of the public treasury then decamped overseas. One thing really grates with me is to hear that characters of their ilk have come back to Aotearoa—back to New Zealand—and have spoken and given lectures on how we need to improve the culture of business and our political culture when there have been no greater corporate vandals in my view than they were at their zenith. They had freedom—carte blanche. Not only did they pinch from shareholders when they went in but they robbed them when they went out. They were advising on certain deals so no doubt they had an opportunity to identify where the particularly rich pluckings were. They were able to jump on to the other side of the deal end up owning it and then pretend they had invented capitalism here in New Zealand. 
Hon Parekura Horomia 
: Then they sold it. 
SHANE JONES 
: No. What is worse is that they represented a betrayal of ethical standards that still haunts us today. Why do so many Kiwis have doubts about our capital markets? Why does the current chief executive of the sharemarket still struggle to build people’s confidence? People have not forgotten how these two individuals gorged for their own personal growth. 
I give full marks to Jane Diplock who really should go on to the Honours List. She should become Dame Jane; we should strip Fay of his knighthood and give it to her. At long last someone has identified a long route of wrongdoing. Yes these people squeaked out of the consequences of the wine-box inquiry but the cork having been pulled out of this bottle shows that the sludge of their wrongdoing has not been forgotten by us—not at all. 
These individuals actually own an island not very far from Hauraki: one of the Mercury Islands. No doubt it was funded by their affairs which were driven by their access to the public treasury. But given the vast periods of time they spend overseas and the shallow level of input they have not only to developing our own economy but to the country’s national pride and well-being I wonder why our regulators have not looked at whether they should be allowed to own that island. Are they actually fulfilling the citizenship requirements? No doubt they fled overseas in order to avoid tax obligations and to capture the full extent of their ill-gotten gains but in no way should they be welcome back in our country until they atone for their wrongdoing. 
Another thing that certainly bewilders me—but it does not surprise me given the price paid—is the raft of officials of that time and of professionals who either chose to defend the perfidy of those individuals or did not have the courage or indeed the resources to pursue them. Somehow we are meant to wipe all that away. It is no wonder that my colleague Lianne Dalziel over here has had to introduce a raft of proposals to improve people’s confidence in the capital markets the security law and other frameworks. 
Through this particular out-of-court settlement we are given a window through which to peer in order to see how things went wrong and to see how badly they went wrong over that period of time. On occasions out of this House when we have spoken about that period of time one thing irks. It is that Fay and Richwhite themselves and their many advisers refused to defend on any ethical basis the transactions they presided over. We should not forget that these people did not invent capitalism nor did they enjoy any larger degree of talent or education than others. What they had was an insider connection and that connection was ruthlessly exploited. After having amassed well over a billion dollars what did they do? They fled. How can we have any confidence that they have a place of pride back here in our country? [ 
Interruption 
] Yes as my colleague has just said they fled to a low-tax environment. But what is the impact of their actions at a time when we are struggling to introduce pride interest and enthusiasm in our people for civics values and aspiration? 
This decision is a timely reminder of what we must never do again. These two individuals—admittedly Richwhite’s name comes up the louder—have been caught and required to cough up. They are coughing up only a tiny percentage of what they ought to cough up. I am led to believe that their penalty is reduced to the period of time that elapsed before the regulator actually seized the moment and moved ahead to secure this decision. But folks should never ever forget what this bout of corporate vandalism has done to our reputation in terms of international business. 
No one enjoys more than I do I say to Mr Peters seeing people of enterprise and business have a go make an honest attempt and enrich themselves and their families. That is the way our country should be whether we are Pakeha or Maori. But that we should allow people who perceive themselves to be elitist and who enjoy privilege to prevail over us—the toilers the families and those in “Strugglers’ Gully”—to hoodwink us by pretending they are being done wrong by or to plant articles in the media about how aggrieved they feel because the country does not understand them! Oh we understand them all right! They exploited every avenue they had available to them not only to destroy confidence but to personally enrich themselves and no doubt a raft of advisers on the way. But the advisers only got crumbs; they were paid for the quality of their advice. 
But you know there must come a point in time at which people who portrayed themselves as being the architects of a new brand of capitalism to the rest of us in “Strugglers’ Gully” in New Zealand should give an account to the public as to the damaging effects of their actions. Do members know why those individuals are living overseas? In my view it is because they are afraid of their own shadows because those shadows remind them of what they did to degrade our country in the recent past. And none of it should rest easily on their spirits or consciences. Kia ora tatou.