Chlöe Swarbrick says Christopher Luxon's language on privatisation has "substantially softened". Photo: RNZ
The Green Party wants clarity from the Prime Minister on the government's plans for privatisation, accusing him of "publicly entertaining" the privatisation of public services and asset sales after previously saying it was not on his agenda.
In Question Time on 22 October, Green Party co-leader Chlöe Swarbrick asked the prime minister whether the government's "choices to under-fund critical infrastructure like our hospitals, our schools, and our ferries [were] essentially just setting them up to fail to pave the way for an eventual sell-off of these crucial assets that we all own?"
In response, Christopher Luxon said Swarbrick was in "a very dark and conspiratorial mood" and confirmed there were no plans to do any asset sales.
Swarbrick said the prime minister's language had since softened.
"The prime minister and his offsiders accused me effectively of being a conspiracy theorist, and yet we've seen in the last few months that that language has substantially softened, and the prime minister has used euphemisms like 'international investment' when talking about potentially privatising future public infrastructure," Swarbrick told RNZ.
In his state of the nation speech on Thursday, Luxon said the Invest New Zealand initiative would "roll out the welcome mat" for direct foreign investment in critical areas like transport, energy, and manufacturing.
The following day, at his own state of the nation speech, ACT leader David Seymour said the public needed to "get past squeamishness" about privatisation and question whether the benefits of owning an asset outweigh the costs to taxpayers.
Asked about Seymour's speech, Luxon said he was open to further discussions on asset sales in the long-term, but reiterated there would be no wholesale asset sales this term.
Swarbrick has written to the prime minister seeking clarity on the government's intentions, and asking him to commit to keeping public services and key infrastructure in the ownership of the public.
"You can see and understand why New Zealanders are worried, as their trust is being tested once again," she wrote.
Swarbrick said privatisation would take the cost off the government's books, but would cost regular New Zealanders more in the long-run.
"These overseas corporations are not philanthropists. They're not deciding to invest in this infrastructure out of charity, they want to make money. You only need look at the healthcare system in the United States of America to see a nightmarish path that I don't think any New Zealanders want to see us go down," she said.
RNZ has approached the prime minister's office for comment on Swarbrick's letter.
Asked whether privatisation was necessary for New Zealand's economic growth, the Minister for Economic Growth Nicola Willis said the government would continue to own a number of assets, and in some cases it was best placed to own those assets.
She said New Zealanders had tens of billions of dollars of their wealth tied up in the assets the government owned, and it was the government's role to manage those assets as well as possible.
"It's true that the government will continue to own significant numbers of roads, hospitals, and schools, that's right. But when we are building new infrastructure or building new assets, we always need to make sure we're making the best use of the dollar," Willis said.
"The private sector has a role to play. If you look to our energy markets for example, there is widespread private ownership of some our energy generation. If you look at our ports, there is private investment in our ports, in our airports. So there is a role for the private sector and the disciplines that it brings."
The government was already receiving "unsolicited" proposals from international firms that wanted to contribute to building new infrastructure, Willis said. At the same time, the government was soliciting interest from private sector players who may want to invest in projects like the Roads of National Significance.
Willis said the Treasury was looking at the assets the government owned, and had identified some areas where an entity was not delivering as well as it should, as well as other ways the government could consider managing that asset.
Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
