The Labour Party wants to change the law to tighten procedures for selling state owned assets, saying a sale should only be given the go-ahead if 75% of Parliament agrees to it, or if a majority of the public allowed a sale via a referendum.
Labour leader Phil Goff made the announcement to media this morning, with the party's SOE spokesman Clayton Cosgrove to draft a members bill for Parliament.
The National Party has said it would look to sell up to 49% of state owned power companies Genesis Energy, Mighty River Power and Meridian Energy, as well as Solid Energy, if it won a second term in government after the November 26 election. In its May Budget documents Treasury included up to NZ$7 billion in gains from the pending sales.
Goff said New Zealand's SOEs were not National's to sell.
"John Key is arrogantly ignoring the fact that at least two-thirds of New Zealanders strongly oppose the sale of our community-owned assets. He should have to seek a specific mandate before flogging off those assets to corporate and foreign buyers,” Goff said.
However Goff dismissed Key's claim that the November 26 election would be National's mandate to sell the assets.
The private members bill would require any future proposal to partly or wholly privatise an SOE or Crown entity to gain support from 75% of Parliament or from a majority of voters in a referendum, Goff said.
The bill, to be called the State-Owned Enterprises and Crown Entities (Protecting New Zealand’s Strategic Assets) Amendment bill would entrench enterprises listed in Schedules 1 and 2 of the State-Owned Enterprises Act 1986.
"Those assets include our state electricity generation and transmission companies, NZ Post (including KiwiBank), Landcorp (including its extensive holding of farmland) and Solid Energy. It also includes other strategic assets like Radio New Zealand, Television New Zealand and the Crown research institutes," Goff said.
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