23 September 2007

National's privatisation policy exposed

National deputy leader Bill English has revealed his party's plans to sell off New Zealand's State Owned Enterprises (SOEs), Acting Finance Minister Clayton Cosgrove said today.

"On TVNZ's Agenda programme this morning, Bill English talked about partially selling off New Zealand's SOEs.

"This seems to be National's latest secret plan for financing its tax cuts for the rich with a drip feed of money from the partial sale of SOEs. In other words, selling off the family silver to pay for their election bribes.

"When Labour came to power in 1999, we stopped the sales of SOEs. Labour's approach is very popular with New Zealanders who agree with our government that these prime assets should be kept in public ownership," Mr Cosgrove said.

"So now, fearing the wrath of the voters, National has come up with what it claims is just a "partial" privatisation plan. Bill English now admits that they have only watered down their extreme policy because they know they can't sell upfront to voters a fire sale of New Zealand's prime assets.

"But make no mistake, this is still privatisation no matter how they dress it up, and this ploy will be just as unpopular with the public as National's previous policy of hocking off our SOEs.

"Bill English needs to come clean with New Zealanders and spell out their SOE sell off plans. What does "partial" mean and what SOEs would be on the chopping block?

"No one believes that the National Party could control itself with partial sales. They don't believe in our SOEs. There's no doubt that if they ever got their hands on them, they would be gone by lunchtime," Mr Cosgrove said.

ENDS

© Scoop Media