Asset Sales
1 November 2011

The National has a manifesto that includes asset sales. New Zealanders need to start a proper debate on the future limits of those sales.

To this point there has not been a proper national debate beyond National saying 'yes' and Labour saying 'no'.

We need a conversation that is more detailed and drills down into what New Zealanders really think are acceptable bottom lines.

New Zealanders are not definitively pro-asset sales, but under certain conditions, it is no longer the bogeyman issue that Labour would have you believe.

UnitedFuture’s role as a support partner is not just to contribute its own policies, but to help keep a government to a reasonable, centrist path.

UnitedFuture says let’s start with three no-go areas where there would be no asset sales, not now, not ever

Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand and the water supply should be ruled out of any future asset sales programmes

Kiwibank is in every sense now a national institution, whether you bank with it or not. And in a market full of Australian-owned banks, and an increasingly fraught and troubled globe, it is both a symbolic and practical statement of our economic sovereignty. Collectively, it is ours pure and simple. It must stay that way.

Radio New Zealand exists in an increasingly commercial media marketplace, and it is more important than ever to have a voice that does not bend to the dollar, to ratings, or to external forces. Every nation needs its own voice and we need to afford that voice our collective protection.

Water. UnitedFuture does not intend to wait until it is on the asset sales agenda. New Zealanders would never – or should never – accept a sell-off of the supply of the water, or any of the aspects around it.

In addition, with regard to Asset Sales, UnitedFuture will insist that:

- The New Zealand Government retains majority control (51%)

- Shareholding by private investors be capped at 15%

- New Zealand household investors are given preferential purchase right at time of issue.