Standing Orders — Sessional

I move, That Genesis Energy Ltd be a public organisation for the purpose of Standing Orders. This is a process we have been going through with each of the mixed-ownership model companies. As a result of Genesis Energy ceasing to be a State-owned enterprise and becoming a mixed-ownership company, it ceases to be subject to ongoing financial reviews by a select committee. To ensure that Genesis Energy continues to be subject to financial reviews, we need to put this motion through the House, which deems Genesis Energy to be a public organisation under the Standing Orders. That will mean that when Genesis Energy’s annual report is tabled in the House, it is then referred to a select committee for financial review. Following completion of their public offerings, Mighty River Power and Meridian Energy were deemed to be public organisations in the same way. Air New Zealand was also deemed to be a public organisation, and has been for some time.

This is just part of the procedural tidy-up after the successful floats of 49 percent of these Government companies. The merits of the policy have been debated probably more extensively than any other single issue over the last 3 years, and the Government is pleased to note that after that debate and the sale of the assets there is around $4.7 billion that has been put into the Future Investment Fund, and that is now available to be recycled into other public assets—a process that is well under way and from which thousands of New Zealanders will benefit. Particularly, I am pleased to see that some of this money is going into the rebuild of Christchurch schools, where we have a generational opportunity to spend $1 billion on new schools and upgrades, and to change the way that the schooling system operates in our second-largest city. It is pleasing to see that so many of the members of the Christchurch educational community are involved in taking that project forward.

💬 Dr Megan Woods: Give us all the facts.

If the member is looking for some facts, I will just give her some facts. The share offer programme has increased the incentive for these companies to improve their performance, and this is now flowing into higher dividends for the Crown. It is particularly noticeable in the case of Genesis Energy, the company about which we are debating today. Despite selling just under half of the shares in the company, the Crown expects to receive nearly twice as much in dividends from Genesis Energy this year than it did in the best year in the decade up to 2012. So in those 10 years, when the company was fully owned by the Crown—100 percent—in its best year we received half the dividends that we will receive from Genesis Energy this year. So the taxpayer sold half the company, and it is getting more than twice the return. That makes a lot of sense.

The Opposition members are going to get up and say that is because power prices went up. Well, they should look at the last CPI index, which shows that the increase in power prices was all due to increases in line charges from the monopoly, community-owned companies. In fact, the variable power price, the energy price, dropped very slightly. So the increased dividend, which is twice as big a dividend as the best of the last 10 years under Crown ownership, is not due to higher power prices. It is due to a better-run company that no longer wastes taxpayers’ money or tries to exploit what was a less than competitive position up until 3 years ago at the expense of the consumers of power. There are many other benefits from the floats—that is just one of them.

As a result of Parliament passing this motion, select committees will have the opportunity to question Genesis Energy closely about why it is now paying the Crown twice the dividend when the Crown is a 50 percent shareholder—twice the dividend it paid when the Government was a 100 percent shareholder. Actually, a similar but not quite the same pattern applies for Mighty River Power, which is also paying somewhere between 50 percent and 100 percent more dividend to the Government when it owns half the shares as when it was 100 percent owned. In the case of Meridian Energy it does not work out that way because Meridian Energy had a number of special dividends and the special dividend that it paid—the very large special dividend that it paid—was because it sold assets, actually.

💬 Hon Craig Foss: Who to?

Well, it sold assets in Australia. It set up some energy generation in Australia and sold it very successfully. I have not actually done the calculations if you take that special dividend out, but I am sure that once you remove that special dividend we will see that there is also a better performance by Meridian Energy and taxpayers getting a better deal.

The final point I would make is this. The only reason the Government has billions of dollars investment is because ordinary Kiwis pay their power bills and, at the end of a week of working in the cold, wet July weather, they hand over $300 of PAYE. That is how we get billions. But just because they come in small amounts is exactly the reason we should respect them. We should pay attention to every $300 because if Kiwis kept it, they would be able to do a lot with it. They would be able to upgrade their car, pay for the school trip, buy a new washing machine, and that is why I am so deeply opposed to the wasteful arrogant attitudes of the Opposition members who think that the billions somehow belong to the Government. They do not. They belong to people working in the rain and cold today and this motion is part of a process that reassures ordinary New Zealanders—everyday New Zealanders paying their tax and their power bills—that the National-led Government respects their contribution to New Zealand’s common good. We will make sure that people on good pay with good jobs who run these companies are thoroughly scrutinised and most particularly scrutinised by a market that can signal very clearly by reducing the share price when that company is not performing.

The reason we are here today with this motion on Genesis Energy is that the Government forgot—forgot—to put in the legislation a little part that talks about financial review, scrutiny, transparency. That is just the normal sort of thing you would expect a Government to do. It forgot. It forgot to do that, so we are here wasting Parliament’s time to make sure that that scrutiny is part of this legislation. It is not a procedural tidy-up, Mr English; it is a tidy-up of a complete cock-up, which shows exactly what this Government’s priority really is, and that is to not to pay too much attention to transparency.

This motion comes at an interesting time. Today is one of the coldest days in our winter, and people, as they are maybe watching this, are turning on their heaters to keep warm, burning up energy and electricity in order to stay warm. They know that their power bills, despite all of the saving and the conservation that they are doing in perhaps not even turning on the heater when they should, are going up. Our power prices went up by 4.2 percent in one quarter, according to the Consumers Price Index released two days ago—4.2 percent in just one quarter. That is not an annual rate; it is a quarterly rate. That was the highest increase of power prices since 2000, with the exception of one quarter in 2012—also under this National Government. The National Government talks about all the work it is doing to bring power prices down, but the consumers at home who are sitting there in front of their heaters today worrying about their power prices have just had to endure a 4.2 percent increase—the largest increase in 14 years. You have got to ask yourself whether Kiwis are really getting a fair deal. Are they getting a fair deal? I do not think so.

Ninety-three percent of our power market is dominated by five big companies, and Genesis Energy is the biggest. The organisation that we are talking about today is the biggest. This is a story of industries that have now been partly sold off to private investors. One percent of New Zealanders now own those shares in half of those companies. They are doing very well. They are doing very well out of ordinary Kiwis who are paying their power bills, because it is the residential payer who is paying the most. This is an industry with oversight by the Electricity Authority, which believes that what is good for these companies must also be good for consumers. Well, it just does not work like that.

In fact, the Electricity Authority not so long ago said that demand when coupled with a drop in rates must lead to lower power prices in a competitive market. But they never did become lower. Power prices have continued to go up even though we have a decrease in the amount of power that is being consumed. In a competitive market, power prices should have gone down like they have in most other OECD countries. Instead, we have had a 4.2 percent increase in just one quarter. Genesis Energy has been at the forefront of maximising its profits. It had a 35 percent increase in profits. It went from a $243 million profit in 2010 to a $335 million profit in 2013—a 35 percent increase in profit. We have got power prices going up and we have profits of energy companies, including Genesis Energy, going up at the same time. You get the picture. No wonder they are returning more revenue to the Government, because they are squeezing more money out of ordinary New Zealanders, who are struggling to pay their power bills. That is what is happening—that is what is happening under this Government.

Let us look at what is happening with prepay, because I believe that prepay is a bit of an indicator of the way that companies behave towards consumers. Those people who are on prepay schemes pay in advance of their power bills. So, unlike most people in New Zealand who get their power bills and pay them, these people effectively put money in the meter to keep it going. Well, I can tell you that if you are on a prepay scheme in Gisborne with Genesis Energy—the only scheme that you can go on to with prepay—you will be paying 32 percent more than somebody who is on a normal rate. And if you are here in Wellington—I am sure that Mr English is not on this scheme but if he were, he would be paying 31.5 percent more under a prepay scheme than for a normal bill. This is money in advance. People are putting money down in advance. There is no risk to the companies. They prey on mainly poorer, less well-off people who are paying more than a third of their bills in advance. This company is simply preying on those people.

Let us contrast those people with the chief executive officer of Genesis Energy and the salary he is getting. Well, the chief executive officer of Genesis Energy just got a 12 percent increase in his salary. That is great. I would like to see more people in New Zealand get 12 percent increases, but they do not and they will not. Forty percent of New Zealanders did not get a 1 percent increase in their salaries over the last year. His salary went from $1.2 million a year to $1.35 million a year. That must really help with those electricity bills in his case. To say that somehow this is a good thing from Bill English does not speak to the facts.

There was a 2 percent decrease in demand in electricity, and we had a 4.2 percent increase in electricity prices. In normal, competitive markets, as is happening right around the world, prices have stabilised or are going down. In New Zealand that is exactly the opposite of what is happening, and that shows we have got a broken market. We have got a broken market in New Zealand, and people in New Zealand are not getting what they deserve.

As the Labour Party, we are not afraid to stand up and say that this market is not working and we will change this market. We are not afraid to take on the vested interests that are taking profits out of the pockets of ordinary New Zealanders and that are supported, backed up, encouraged, and cajoled by that Government. No, we will stand up for the New Zealanders who are paying too much for their electricity, for the people who cannot afford to put on their heaters when they should put on their heaters, and for the people who are taking their kids to the doctor with rheumatic fever and respiratory problems. We know that if you invest in insulation, you will be able to save money on health costs. If you put an efficient heating source in a house, you will also be able to save on health costs. Those people do not have a choice. Ten percent of New Zealanders are paying 10 percent of their household income on energy, and the top handful of New Zealanders is paying, like, 1 percent.

We will look at reforming this energy market. We will bring in NZ Power, which will make sure that more money goes into the pockets of New Zealanders—hundreds of millions of dollars. People can rely on us to make sure that power prices are stabilised and at the same time ensure that there are benefits derived for the economy as well. This is a disgrace. We are here because of a mistake the Government made, two days after a quarter in which power prices went up 4.2 percent. We will do something about that.

I rise on behalf of the Green Party to address this motion regarding Genesis Energy. This motion, of course, comes out of the Government’s failed privatisation programme. I think it is important for us to remember how the privatisation programme worked. The first step was tax cuts for the very wealthy, which have cost probably in the order of $5 billion, and probably more, so far—just the cost of tax cuts for the top 10 percent. The Government gave very large amounts of money to the top 10 percent and then said: “Oh, there’s a hole in our Budget. We don’t have enough money. We’re going to have to sell assets to cover the hole in our Budget caused by the tax cuts.” So then it said it was going to have to sell some of these assets, and it sold about $5 billion worth of assets.

Of course, who could afford to buy the assets? Well, it was not ordinary mums and dads. They could not afford to buy shares in Meridian Energy, Genesis Energy, and all the rest. They do not have spare cash. Of course, the people who could afford to buy the assets were the very same people to whom Bill English and the others gave tax cuts. There was $5 billion transferred from the Crown account to the wealthiest 10 percent in the country, and then $5 billion was paid back to the Crown account to purchase the shares in these assets. At the end of it, for ordinary people, what they find is that their collective assets have been reduced by about half—half of these assets were sold.

Of course, the very wealthy, who got Bill English’s very large and generous tax cuts that did not go to anyone else, found themselves in possession of half of the nation’s electricity generating assets. It was straight theft. National orchestrated this straight theft in front of everybody’s eyes of half of the electricity generating assets in the country, moved them from the ownership of all New Zealanders, and gave them to the very wealthiest people—and, of course, to the wealthiest corporations. Many of the shares in these assets simply went to large corporations or they went offshore. So it was simply a straight theft—stealing assets in front of everybody. Everybody could see that National was transferring the assets. Hence, it was not at all surprising that the overwhelming majority of New Zealanders opposed the theft of their assets by National. We saw that in the referendum and in every opinion poll. None the less, National proceeded to steal the assets from the people of New Zealand.

Then it had the temerity, during this election campaign, to offer back some of the money that it raised in the slush fund as election bribes. This is with John Key as the slush fund manager. He is the manager of the slush fund created by the asset sales programme. National sold the people’s assets against the people’s will. Overwhelmingly, people were opposed to the sale of these assets. Then, after selling the assets, it offered back the money that it gained as an election bribe. National members would say to the people in rural New Zealand: “We’ll pick a number of our favourite roading projects across the country, and if you vote for us, we’ll build those roading projects with the money that we got from stealing your assets.” It is like when someone breaks into your house and, against your will, steals some of your stuff and then sells it, and then says: “Here, have some money back. You should like me because here’s some money from me.” Actually, it was New Zealanders’ money. It was New Zealanders’ assets that National flogged off, and now it is using the cash that it got from selling the assets as an election bribe. It is disgraceful behaviour.

Bill English talked about how we should value all the dollars that ordinary people pay in the form of taxes. I agree with Bill English. My question for him then is: why did he waste $748 million on the process of the asset sales? I think it is important for people to realise how empty is the rhetoric of this Government about being fiscally conservative.

This is how the Government spent the money. Treasury spent $85 million on the asset sales process itself. It spent $12.6 million just on those ads on TV. You know, the ads you saw on TV that were shown to ordinary New Zealanders and that said: “Buy shares in these companies that you used to own. Buy shares in these companies.” Those ads cost $12.6 million. On top of that, Treasury outsourced to contractors $65 million worth of work—that is, taxpayers had to pay $65 million to these contractors. They were for things like people who were doing public relations work in order to try to massage public opinion. They were people like stockbrokers, who were taking a cut out of the proceeds of the asset sale process. Then Treasury spent $8 million internally on the asset sale process. So Bill English, who tells us that it is so important that we look after taxpayers’ money, spent $85 million just in Treasury on the asset sale process. The companies themselves spent $36 million on preparing themselves for privatisation. So the companies, on top of that, spent another $36 million.

Then we had the incentives. The incentives were the bonus shares, whereby National said to its mates: “If you buy a share in this company and you hold on to it for a certain period of time, then we will give you extra shares for free.” Of course, they are not for free; they are paid for by taxpayers. The bonus shares for Mighty River Power cost taxpayers about $25 million. The Meridian Energy incentive costs taxpayers about $33 million. The Genesis Energy bonus costs taxpayers about $22 million. This is all the money that Mr English told us he is so careful spending and that he does not like to spend it on things that are not important. This is all money that Mr English and National have given away as part of this privatisation process.

Then we have the losses on the sale. If you compare the book value of these companies with what National actually brought in when it privatised the assets, there is a difference there of about $361 million. It sold the assets for $361 million less than National itself valued them at. So, effectively, the assets lost $361 million of taxpayer value.

On top of that, the Government gave Rio Tinto $30 million, as part of the sweetener. Remember, Rio Tinto had the Government over a barrel, because if it did not renew the contract from Meridian Energy or it threatened the contract with Meridian Energy, then it would decrease the value of Meridian Energy, but particularly all the other assets including Genesis Energy. So Rio Tinto, a hugely profitable company, was able to force the Government to hand over $30 million as part of the process for the asset sales.

So when you add that all up, including $9 million on the referendum, whereby the people of New Zealand spoke very clearly that they did not want the asset sales process, then Bill English, who tells us he cares so much about taxpayers’ money, wasted $748 million on a process that an overwhelming majority of New Zealanders opposed. This is a Government that prides itself on fiscal rectitude, and it is spewing money everywhere in order to force through this incredibly unpopular privatisation process, to transfer ownership of these companies from all of us—from all New Zealanders—to a tiny few. That, I think, demonstrates the true priorities of this Government.

It is to create for itself the slush fund. John Key, the slush fund manager, is managing a slush fund that is $5 million, and he hands it out here and there, where he thinks it is important to get votes in the election campaign, as he manages the slush fund. A big part of the slush fund is guaranteed to go to increased water pollution in the form of the $400 million irrigation fund, because the National Party is determined to increase toxic pollution in our rivers and lakes across the country, and it is giving $400 million free to the irrigation companies. That is money that ordinary New Zealanders used to have. This is part of the Government’s pollution economy. Instead of having an economic and fiscal strategy that is sustainable, it has a different kind of strategy, and asset sales are a key part of it.

Borrowing, of course, is a key part of it. This Government borrowed $50 billion—the Government that supposedly knows about money. Well, what it really knows about is borrowing lots of money. It is very good at borrowing money. It is excellent at borrowing money. It is very good at asset sales. It forced through the asset sales programme. But, of course, borrowing and asset sales do not generate any new wealth. When you look at the parts of the economy that the Government is very interested in, it is simple commodities: milk powder, raw logs; the kinds of things that do not make the country rich. That is the focus for the Government’s economic strategy—its pollution economy.

When you look at what it is spending on research and development, it is tiny, at 1.3 percent of GDP on research and development. That is a tiny fraction. The projections going forward show a 20 percent cut in research and development under this Government’s own projections in the 10 years forward. Instead of having a smart Green economy that invests in innovation and research and development, this is a Government that has a pollution economy that pays its bills by selling assets and borrowing money. That is the truth around this Government’s economic strategy.

We have put up a number of alternatives to this Government’s failed pollution economy, but, of course, it is only a change of Government that will bring those changes into life. For example, the NZ Power proposal put up by the Greens and Labour for a single buyer to create competition in generation and retail. Currently, vertical integration of the generator and retail companies means that there is no real competition in the electricity sector. If you want real competition in generation and retail, that is what NZ Power will achieve, because it puts a horizontal dividing line across the electricity market. There will be real competition, and hence, innovation, in the electricity market, under NZ Power, whereas in the current system there is none. Then there is our Solar Homes project, to make sure that people can access solar photovoltaic panels on their roof, to give them some control over their power. A smart Green economy that invests in innovation and research and development is a much better option than the pollution economy and asset sale economy that the National Party is proposing.

I take a call on behalf of New Zealand First in this Genesis Energy debate. Has any other country had to endure the sort of madness that National has imposed on our electricity system? No. This National Government has taken ideological fixation and fantasy to new heights. Nothing has been learnt from the past. Nothing has been remembered from the mistakes of the 1980s and the 1990s. Not content with Max Bradford’s theory-driven mess, the National Government has spent the last 3 years selling State power assets to enrich their pals and their mates. Now we have ended up with a Byzantine structure that is baffling and wholly without logic.

The State asset sales programme is entirely consistent with National’s agenda. That agenda is to use every opportunity to transfer wealth from the many—the general public of New Zealand—to the few; namely, National’s friends, mates, and cronies of the party. Feathering the nests of the few—that is the National way. It is an outrageous theft of the common wealth into the hands of the speculator and assorted wheeler-dealers. In the case of one of the State-owned enterprise power generation companies, nearly 10 percent of the shares went to a New York bank. That is hardly “moms and pops” New Zealanders, when nearly 10 percent of shares went to a New York bank. I wonder how close that New York bank was to Mr Key, who himself was a former New York banker. So it is very, very suspicious indeed that suddenly a New York bank pops up out of nowhere to buy into our power companies.

There was overwhelming public opposition to the selling-up of 49 percent of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, and Genesis Power. The public well understood that these assets, built up by generations of Kiwis, were not for the Government to sell. The public were not fooled by all the ideological waffle that National and an army of paid lobbyists, who were paid over $100 million, and media hacks churned out. These were assets owned by all New Zealanders, by not just the select few—not just the 2.5 percent who ended up buying the shares—but all New Zealanders. These were assets built up by two or three generations. My parents, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, and your great-grandparents built up those assets across the length and breadth of New Zealand—the likes of the dams on the Waikato River, the likes of the hydro schemes in the South Island, the likes of the thermal plants that we have in the central North Island. These were built up over many generations.

There are some of us who can remember when New Zealand had a generating and electricity system that was the envy of the world. There was a time when the electricity system was a public utility that we were proud of. It was run for the benefit of all. A little bit like water, a little bit like air, power and gas are a basic staple requirement that we all require and that we all must have.

We took advantage of hydro power to have some of the lowest power prices in the world. National, in its inimitable genius, threw all that away. In its incompetence and greed, it cast aside a system that the rest of the world could only envy. No, New Zealand’s electricity system had to be stuffed up, well and truly, just to favour the few. Among those few—those happy few—are the chief executive officers of those energy companies. At the top, there are executives receiving huge salaries of $1 million - plus. At the other end of the scale, Kiwis are struggling to pay soaring power and electricity prices.

On Sunday the Sunday Star-Times did a public service by revealing what the chief executives of five of our biggest energy companies earn. The chief executive officers’ mega pay cheques are as follows: Contact Energy, $1.58 million to the chief executive officer; Genesis, $1.35 million—and that was an increase of 12 percent in salary in the last 12 months—Mighty River Power, $1.3 million; Transpower, $1.22 million; and Meridian, $1 million. These are all million-dollar salaries to pay for these executives to run our power companies, which have been there for decades and decades in most cases, and which have been the staple backbone of this economy.

As the asset sales programme has shown, National’s shameless manipulation has no bounds. The public are entitled to ask who actually benefited from the asset sales programme, which brought in some $4.5 billion, when the Government was promising $6 billion to $7 billion. Clearly, it is not electricity consumers or taxpayers. Pity the poor electricity consumers or taxpayers. They have been coshed by the asset sales programme. They have been well and truly mugged. Kiwis will be paying the prices of National’s asset sales folly for generations. What a legacy of failure National will leave when it is given its marching orders in September. When we look back on it and ask who sold off those assets that were built up by the previous generation, it was a small group of people—a small, tight five of Cabinet Ministers who controlled everything in those days, around the years 2008 to 2014. They controlled it and they sold off the silverware. They sold off the silverware, and it was gone.

New Zealand First is the only political party that has said, unequivocally, that if we are in a position of influence in the next Government, we will buy back the shares of those power-generating companies at a price that is no more than that initially paid for them. I repeat: under New Zealand First, we will buy back the shares at a price that is no more than that initially paid for them. We will then merge those State-owned power-generating companies into one single energy entity. That one single energy entity will then ensure there is security of supply, there is forward planning, and it is strategically developed so that all modes of power and gas generation are explored, and all sustainable renewable energy sources are also explored across the length and breadth of this country. That wholesale generating company will then supply to the retail market at consistent, reliable, affordable prices for the people of New Zealand. That is common sense. That is what New Zealanders expect. That is what under New Zealand First we will provide.

We will also under New Zealand First provide a power and gas discount during the winter months—from May to September—for those with a SuperGold card. It is very important that our seniors, our elderly—those who require us to ensure that they are comfortable in their homes over some of the bitter winters that we are experiencing—can afford to turn the heater on or turn the gas heater on. It is critical that people should not be suffering in their senior years because they cannot afford to stay warm. New Zealand First will ensure that a discount is put in place from the State-owned enterprise that we will be forming, to ensure that those people can again have dignity in their old age in their homes. Again, that is a policy that is common sense. It is common sense that we must explore in the future to ensure that the people of this country are taken care of.

So, in closing, can I just say that New Zealand First does not support this motion. This is, again, a transfer, and it endorses the whole situation that National is pushing time and time again. It is just backing up a situation where the wealthy in this country continue to get wealthier and the regular everyday New Zealanders—the middle-income New Zealanders, the lower-income New Zealanders, the hard-working families in this country—suffer. We will not allow them to suffer. New Zealand First will ensure that we do something about it. It is common sense.

I do not disagree with many of the sentiments from the New Zealand First colleagues, apart from one. We will be supporting this motion. I do not agree that supporting a motion somehow validates or supports the selling-off of State-owned assets. We are supporting this motion simply because it will allow, through the select committee process, a modicum of scrutiny of the activities of this asset. We know that the Official Information Act and even parliamentary questions now, because of this Government’s wish to sell that asset off with the others, as it did, limit the scrutiny by members of Parliament, the general public, journalists, and others. Under the guise of so-called increased scrutiny the Minister of Finance says that somehow the magic hand of the market will provide that scrutiny through stockbrokers, analysts, and others.

I would wager that that scrutiny will be nowhere near the level of scrutiny that occurs in this place, where Ministers’ feet are put to the fire before the select committees and this Parliament, where full disclosure can occur through parliamentary questions and Official Information Act requests. They are now limited. There is no way that a broker or an analyst can provide—or would be interested in, actually—many of the key pieces of information that members of Parliament and members of the public gain through the various mechanisms like the Official Information Act, parliamentary questions, and full select committee scrutiny, which will be lost because of the sell-off. So I make it very clear that in supporting this motion the Labour Party does in no way endorse the fire sale—the bargain basement sale—that occurred as this Government sold off asset after asset.

Let us look at the history. It was the Prime Minister who originally said—and we have got the quotes—that the total asset sale proceeds would number in the order of $10 billion. People forget this—$10 billion. Then that was revised down. Somebody tapped the Prime Minister on the shoulder, presumably Tony Ryall or Bill English, and said: “Taihoa. That is a bit over the top. That is a bit of propaganda. We need to ratchet back expectations.” Then it went to $7 billion, then it went to $6 billion, then the range was revised again to $5 billion to $7 billion. Then it was revised down again to $6 billion. Where did we get to when the Government sold the final asset, which is Genesis Energy, after the raft of others like Mighty River Power, Meridian Energy, Air New Zealand? Well, it got to $4.7 billion—bargain-basement prices. My word, the Warehouse as an entity would be proud of Bill English. Maybe he should go into sort of a mail-order business or a discount business or selling Tupperware or something, I do not know, because, my word, can this guy get a huge discount on the assets he sells.

I have got to say, the gall of Mr English to say that we are sort of tidying things up. This is not a tidy-up; this is an attempted clean-up of one of the biggest stuff-ups in the history of this Parliament. We have already heard the Green colleague talk about the wasted hundreds of millions of dollars in costs to get these assets away. Bill English talks about the fact that he is prudent with the purse. He talked in sort of voice-breaking tones about every $300 being important to the average Kiwi, and he is right about that.

So my question is how does he explain the Rio Tinto deal, when he gave Rio Tinto $30 million? And here are the facts on that. Rio Tinto did not even ask for the $30 million that he gave it. It did not ask for it in the deal. Nowhere does it appear in the deal. The halving of the notice period does. The cheaper electricity price does. But nowhere in the deal, I am advised, did Rio Tinto put its hand out and say it would like $30 million. It was a free gift. Bill English talks about being prudent about every $300 that the Government spends on behalf of taxpayers. So he doled out $30 million to Rio Tinto that it did not ask for, and then he came into Parliament and went around New Zealand and said that this was a prudent spend of money because it guaranteed the Southland jobs. We know that was a lie. It was an absolute lie because on Kathryn Ryan’s show he was asked by Kathryn Ryan whether he asked for a jobs guarantee and he said no, he did not, and he did not get one. So that was a lie—absolute, unequivocal, from his own lips. So you tell me how that is a prudent use of taxpayers’ money.

And then the Government made the argument that it was selling these assets because it had got this Future Investment Fund and it would be buying new assets, and is that not a good thing? It was in a sort of blind attempt to hoodwink the taxpayer. But the taxpayer worked out, as evidenced by the referendum, that when you sell a revenue-generating asset and you buy non - revenue-generating assets—and the last time I checked, public hospitals and schools and the like were not revenue-generating entities; they were taxpayer-funded entities designed to make people healthy and to educate kids—there is a wee problem. At the end of the day the slush fund runs out and there is no more money.

These turkeys over here did it in the 1990s. They learnt absolutely nothing from it. I say to Mr English that if this policy is so remarkably successful, what happened when you and your mate Jim Bolger and the like flogged off all the assets in the 1990s? Where is the success? It is Groundhog Day. We are back here again with the same National cronies, the same guys who were there under Jim Bolger, selling things off again.

These guys are good, I have got to say. When it comes to the old pyramid scheme, these boys are phenomenally professional. Look at the promises that were made in respect of the Future Investment Fund. If you take the promises at face value, National has promised on the latest count $80 billion worth of spending from proceeds of $4.7 billion. We had promises from John Key that they would fund Kiwibank in 2011. In 2012 Tony Ryall said that asset sales were necessary to pay down debt. Then in 2012 John Key said no, the asset sales were for new hospitals and schools. Steven Joyce in the same year said no, we have got to use some of this money to fund KiwiRail. Nathan Guy in 2013 said no, some of this money will be to subsidise irrigation schemes—multimillion-dollar schemes—for farmers. Then Gerry Brownlee, the big fellow himself, came out and said no, the asset sales money would be used to rebuild Christchurch. And then John Key in June 2013 said the asset sales would be used in part to fund the Auckland rail link. And then you look at some of the other little missives that they put in. Remember, this asset sales money was all about big investments—schools, hospitals, all this sort of thing.

But then you get into the sort of additional asset sales proceeds that they have paid for, not to mention the $100 million - odd that they appropriated, of course, to try to stabilise Solid Energy. Tony Ryall and Bill English stood by and watched the then directors and then management run it into the ground to the tune of 800 to 1,000 jobs and counting. I am sure those poor people are watching every $300 they make, if they do, through the unemployment benefit. I am sure they are taking due care with every $300 they are lucky enough to scrape up given they have lost their jobs.

You have a look at some of the other stuff, such as $40 million for the bonuses for Mighty River Power. This is what the Government has spent taxpayers’ money on from these proceeds—replacement of the refugee resettlement facilities, immigration management systems, and closed captioning on Parliament TV. I cannot remember that in the last National Party manifesto in terms of a major sort of investment from the Future Investment Fund. There is the replacement of the ground station for search and rescue satellite systems; replacement of something called the Matriarch system in the Debt Management Office; the whole-of-Government radio network; “analysis of outcomes, Cabinet investment function”—whatever that means—and a computer system for Cabinet, presumably so Bill English can actually tot up all the dough he has wasted from the sale of these assets; and a few other obligations to the IMF.

You tell me, Mr Deputy Speaker and colleagues, where that was mentioned in the list of assets that the Future Investment Fund would use in respect of these sales. The truth is that the people of New Zealand own these assets. For generations they have paid for them through blood, sweat, and tears, through generations of people. The truth is that Bill English was generous enough to say “I’m going to allow you to spend your own money”—the big end of town, of course—“to buy what you already own back again.” What has happened is a wealth transfer and an asset transfer from every Kiwi and every member of our community, who owned these assets, down to the privileged few, who pay for the so-called free shares, which have never been free. They are paid for by the people who could not afford to buy or did not wish to buy shares in these particular assets.

All the loyalty bonuses, remember, will expire a few months after the next general election. A few months after, the loyalty bonuses expire. I make this prediction: those shares, as soon as the bonuses are picked up when the expiry happens, will wing their way to New York, London, and Tokyo, just like Contact Energy’s.

Motion agreed to.