Written By:
- Date published:
12:00 pm, November 12th, 2025 - 26 comments
Categories: act, assets, Christopher Luxon, national, nz first, privatisation, same old national, Tobacco, winston peters -
Tags:
Over the past few months Winston Peters has gone up in my estimation regularly.
Yesterday he did this by criticising Christopher Luxon’s plans to have asset sales on the menu after the next election.
Luxon kicked things off on Monday by stating that he wanted a bigger braver discussion on asset sales.
This was after Treasury said, yet again, that the country is broke and we need to sell off assets. I look forward to the day that Treasury says something different.
Luxon then chirped up and said essentially that he thought it was a good idea.
From the Herald:
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has called for a “bigger, bolder, braver conversation about asset recycling”.
…
Luxon made the remarks as he and other members of National drop hints they will campaign on a policy of some asset sales after the next election.
Luxon made two main points in support of some asset sales: the first, is mounting evidence at least some of the assets the Government owns are performing poorly.
Second, the Government could use money raised from the assets to buy other, better-performing assets.
If he was concerned abour poorly performing policies he should review the policy of giving huge tax cuts to landlords and further tax cuts to tobacco companies. Such largesse has affected the Government’s bottom line and arguably made the need to sell assets greater.
Winston however was having nothing to do with it. And he has savaged the suggestion using such language that you have to wonder how the Government can survive.
From Radio New Zealand:
NZ First leader Winston Peters has savaged National’s suggestion of asset sales as a “tawdry silly argument”, which he says it is falling back on after having failed to fix the economy fast enough.
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon said on Monday he was open to the possible sale of state assets, though he has ruled it out this term.
Winston Peters told Morning Report there was a history of poor choices of asset sales by both Labour and National.
“Because they’ve failed to run the economy properly, they want to go to the assets of a time when the country was run properly, when we were number two in the world and built up by our forefathers and to start to flog those off … to so-called balance their books,” Peters said.
“This is a tawdry silly argument.”
He also criticised the Government that he is a member of for failing to turn around the economy around as quickly as it should have.
He was quoted as saying this:
“I know it can be turned around, but not with this sort of strategy where you’re not actually fixing the economy, you’re just getting rid of assets.”
Getting rid of assets to balance the books was a mission that was doomed to fail before it even started, Peters said.
He also said this:
Selling assets off was “a tawdry repetition of history” and Treasury was not performing, he said.
“When Treasury get their forecasts so wrong, they need to upskill themselves for goodness sake,” he said.
“We’re talking about a failed economic strategy that Treasury has pushed for a long long time.”
Luxon has responded by saying he is not bothered.
From Radio New Zealand:
Luxon said he was not bothered by his coalition partner’s comments.
“Winston Peters has been around for half a century in this place. He has a lot of entrenched views on a lot of different things that aren’t a surprise to me or you.”
Luxon reiterated that the government would not be pursuing state asset sales this term but said there was a “legitimate conversation” to be had about the best use of its funds.
He told RNZ both National and NZ First would develop their policies over the next year and campaign on them into the election.
“He has his take on it, and I have my take on it,” he said. “It’s not surprising. He’s been here 50 years, for goodness’ sake. He has a lot of different views.”
Luxon said it was “quite normal” for coalition partners to express different views “on the margins” – especially going into election year – and that should not be viewed as an impediment to governing.
Asked about Peters’ claim that National had failed to turn around the economy fast enough, Luxon said all three coalition parties were “working incredibly hard” on that goal.
“We are in this together as a coalition government,” Luxon told RNZ. “Part of [the economy]… has recovered well. The other part has been more challenging.”
Peters is clearly lining New Zealand First up to be a poison pill for National. It may be really relaxed about the way the Government has bent over backwards to appease the tobacco companies, a level of appeasement that has seen the country go from second best to 53rd best in terms of resistance to tobacco company interference. It may be contributing to the destruction of the environment and our climate change response. It may be engaged in highly questionable changes to the Resource Management system that raises significant concerns about the undue influence of donors over policy.
But at least it will not sell assets and has made this a bottom line, at least of sorts.
Peters is impressive in his ability to nominally position NZ First away from the excesses of National and Act.
Next year just got a whole lot more interesting.
So let's pretend we are speaking to an 8 yr old.
How does selling assets improve the economy?
I get it weakens the state's capacity and lessens resilience. Being at the behest of corporations and market operators is not the way forward, as Covid taught us.
Depends what they sell I spose TVNZ seems a bit of a stranded asset problem is the money would go down a black hole.
Its a shame we sold off our power generation, it could have been our great advantage if the govt owned all the generation and invested into oversupply driving energy costs as low as possible. Could have been NZ's great advantage, cheap renewable energy which would no doubt attract all kinds of industry not to mention reduce the cost of living significantly. Could still have the various retailers acting as the go between generation and consumer. But yeah ships sailed on that.
The ‘ship has not sailed on that’. A future left wing coalition government can renationalise the power industry, the way we renationalised Air New Zealand, (twice!) & Railways
"Next year just got a whole lot more interesting……"
Going to be another PR adventure for Winston to reconcile being in coalition with such fundamental differing views…….but then Winston knows all the twists and turns of many political rodeos…..doesn't he…..take note Chippie…….
It is nearly impossible to have sympathy for TVNZ senior staff and Board in the case of a full sale, when they so ruthlessly opposed the amalgamation of TVNZ and RNZ under the previous Labour government. Now they are the broadcasting dinosaur we all saw coming in a YouTube asteroid, effectively sold for scrap.
RNZ is having to sell one of its big 1YA mast sites in Henderson to keeps its upgrades going.
I hope Labour goes back to its original plan and dusts the amalganation off in a late 2026 win, because both legacy broadcasters must have serious questions over them. If National get back in TVNZ will be advertorial with news, and RNZ a husk.
I'd be keen to see a future Labour government amalgamate its shareholding across the 3 remaining old generators to form stronger policy over their joint direction. After all if they're happy to collude over the Huntly coal stockpile they can clearly plan on more sustainable plans.
Key's government got about $4.3 billion for the sale of generators + AirNZ. Which I protested about and got signatures for the referendum. But it was mighty useful for the budget bill to rebuild Christchurch after the earthquakes. Also the 3 companies have improved their profitability since listing, which is great for the government in dividends if not for the consumer.
I am not entirely sure now why the Crown still owns half of Christchurch Airport, Dunedin Airport, and Hawkes Bay airport. Perhaps it's not sufficiently material to the NZ Budget to bother with.
Is there a really good reason to hold on to Kordia?
If you want to understand the value of public ownership, have a look at the natural monopolies that have been owned by corporations, Telecom and TransRail, for example. Or natural monopolies still owned by corporations; supermarket wholesalers, or tech platforms like FarceBook, Goggle, or scAmazon.
Like TransPower, utility-scale renewable energy generation is a natural monopoly, and should all be publicly-owned. The gentailers need to be broken up, and their generation infrastructure moved into a not-for-profit public body. The retail arms can either continue operating as SOEs or PPPs, or be sold, because this is a market is which there is evidence of genuine competition.
Airports too are natural monopolies, it makes no sense to have two airports in one area. They need to be publicly-owned so that any airline can use their services on an equal footing. If the ferries had still been publicly-owed when BlueBridge started up, they could have been given access to the Interislander ferry docking facilities. Rather than customers being inconvenienced by having to figure out which of two under-resourced terminals their ferry is loaded from, at each end of the Cook Strait crossing, and how to get into it. The money sucked out of Aotearoa by the corporate extractors who asset-stripped Transrail could instead have paid for new Cook Strait ferry terminals in places like Nelson or New Plymouth, usable by any company wanting to offer a ferry service.
As with TransPower, there's no sensible reason to have two broadcast TV networks competing with each other. The same is true of RNZ's broadcast infrastructure, both FM and AM. These too are natural monopolies that should remain in public ownership. It's a tech industry trope that TV is a dying medium and rendered irrelevant by the net, but kiwis still watch free-to-air broadcast TV (and radio) in huge numbers, and as we've seen during the COVID lockdowns, and natural disasters, these remain essential emergency communications channels.
In summary, we have to break out of the corporatist habit of thinking about public infrastructure as a portfolio of "assets" that can be liquidated to pay the bills. Because as we've seen over the last 40 years, every time we do that we end up paying much more as a population for the same infrastructure, so that wealthy people can extract a "return" from owning them.
Oh my.
Let's go back a bit.
The national New Zealand Electricity Department has a legacy as the top destroyers of river systems nationwide. It was near-impossible to stop even if anyone wanted to. It was a useful Leviathan for a growing country, but also irreversibly destructive. Wanaka for example is one of the very few lakes untouched by its destruction, and that took an act of parliament in the 1970s.
Telecom was one of our very worst corporations, state-owned or privately owned. They absolutely screwed New Zealand until they were broken up. There is no way we would have a film industry if they had remained. And it took the state to form an entirely new company to generate a broadband system upon which we all rely.
Don't even get me started on how shit NZPost and its 1970s monopoly was.
Airports are not "natural monopolies". AIAL is a predatory leech with a lock over the entirety of Auckland. It would not have been difficult to commercialise Whenuapai Airbase for at least Australian and domestic flights. AIAL effectively control Queenstown. You get a sense of their power from their parking charges, which is where they make the majority of their income.
Port of Marlborogh have woefully underinvested in their Picton port for decades, which is why even after the collapse of IREX they are now back in the market ready to spend hundreds of millions on upgrades. Port of Marlborough is 100% Council owned not state owned, and is a run-down mess as a monopoly. Bluebridge have invested more often and faster in their fleets than Kiwirial and good on them.
RNZ, not TVNZ, is the statutory civil emergency broadcaster. Less than 50% of New Zealand watches TVNZ's old set schedule, and that's rapidly declining into the over-60 segment. TVNZ now have most of their value tied up in downtown commercial land. The monopoly on broadcasting was lost decades ago with TV3 and we're a long, long way lost from the stentorian authority of Philip Sherry. I marched against them shutting Channel 7 but that was a decade ago.
I will continue to oppose the sale of state assets. It's good to see Hipkins and Peters do the same.
But don't let's confuse that $$ value with the power of Leviathan over us and our country.
I would much prefer that the state form new assets. Take a shareholding in Fonterra. Take a shareholding in Rocketlab and sell at listing. Turn NZTE into a full company. Be an active and nimble state rather than the Leviathan that presumes the old modernist state monolith is still on balance right for us.
In short we should expect a modern state to use its imagination on our behalf, support industry, and not be afraid to make money.
"In short we should expect a modern state to use its imagination on our behalf, support industry, and not be afraid to make money….."
NZ had and still has a problem with incompetent management, the failures of state owned assets during the 1970's and onwards is more a reflection of poor management rather than the ideology for the creation and establishment of the asset.
I wouldn't trust the current lot in govt to set up a school tuck shop let alone anything major such as critical infrastructure.
All is not lost though….one great example of current competent stewardship and executive management is the Port of Auckland with Roger Gray at the helm…..we need more of his caliber if we want to turn this country around and become prosperous, socially and economically.
The management of Fonterra being prime examples of a mangement team way out of their depth.
Is that really true?
The main recent failure was Solid Energy, but the 3 generators and AirNZ have been very commercially successful. Pamu is a very profitable outfit. Kiwirail not so much but they are a declining technology in NZ.
Crown Fibre Holdings has been a massive success.
In other big investments, the Provincial Growth Fund projects have on balance been very successful. So has RocketLabd which had tonnes of direct and indirect state support.
In straight returns to shareholders Fonterra in the last three years and certainly next year will be their most successful ever.
The biggest failures that we have had recently have been in real estate development companies, which is generally what you get at the end of a boom cycle.
Let's give ourselves a break.
"Kiwirail not so much but they are a declining technology in NZ."
I live next to the Kinleith line, with 2000 tonne trains of logs and processed timber heading to Mt Maunganui, with some similar size trains from Lichfield to Te Rapa.
Please advise how the "declining technology" can replace those trains
For a start the entire NZ packaging industry is in terminal decline. You'll be aware that Oji Fibre is closing its mill.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/rotorua-daily-post/news/kinleith-mill-job-cuts-230-workers-affected-as-paper-machine-shuts/7SPCGA2VNZCIFH7Z5W5O2UDYGE/
On top of that is Eve's Valley mill in Nelson.
And Carter Holt Harvey Tokoroa Plywood plant.
On top of that the paper recycling mills in Penrose Auckland.
Then there's the Karioi pulp mill and Tangiwai samill closures.
And the Juken Mill in Gisborne closed in 2023, and before that the Norska Skog mill in Kawerau in 2021.
Log freight by rail overall in NZ is decreasing. And just a reminder that about 90% of our freight goes by road.
Looks like a decline to me.
So, NAct agrees to put public asset sales on the back burner in return for Winston's continued support – Kiwis get another 3 years of the CoC (govt by and for the sorted) shrinking state capacity and enabling the relentless upwards redistribution of wealth.
Some see poverty's intergenerational effects – others want to sweep it under the carpet.
By a one-percenter we are ‘led’.
From watching Chloe Swarbrick on the Bradbury Group, I know what Mr Thumb means when he says it's time to have a mature conversation on asset sales.
It means he won't call people a conspiracy theorist when asked about his plans to sell assets.
I saw a clip of luxon yesterday (not sure where) babbling that the could sell assets like pamu farms to build roads!!
They already burned our asset base by wrecking 3 waters, sinking the ferries, attacking Kainga Ora, stealing from the health system.
Labour had an infrastructure pipeline with productive investments driving growth and public amenity. National didn't even try to "sell" it they just fucken smashed it out of spite
Pawning off assets to afford to run New Zealand without a taxation common in other nations – NACT vs NZF/Labour/Green/TPM.
Try a little fund raising
stamp duty (on houses over $1-2M)
CGT (residential and commercial property investment)
gift duty and estate tax (threshold $700,000) (and look at a wealth tax paying this forward)
progressive rate company taxation – 28 + 5% on banks (on $8B – $400M pa)
Allow the RBG to set a mortgage surcharge as part of the anti-inflation tool-kit, rather than only raising the OCR (and equity and income tests).
https://www.thepost.co.nz/nz-news/360883564/time-tried-and-true-or-make-way-radical
I think there should be a contingency approach to whether assets are sold or not.
For example, I think breaking up and privatising our power supply was a mistake. Because, our electricity network is a long term strategic asset that requires decisions far further out that most commercial decisions would envisage. So, there are assets similar to this where it makes sense for the government to own and run them for the public good. The health system is another asset I wouldn’t want to see flogged off for similar reasons.
But, there are assets that I think we should seriously question the need to hold. For example, should the government be running farms as in what Landcorp owns? Should the government own a media company? One only has to look at Russia to see how that can become a propaganda vehicle for a government seeking to control its population. Plus, taxpayers are being put in major financial risk supporting media organisations given the rapidly changing landscape in this area. Does the government need to own a valuation company in the form of Quotable NZ when there are commerical entities that can do the same thing?
Also, asset sales don’t necessarily require the full sell off of assets. A model similar to the Air New Zealand model could apply to some asset sales.
I tend to agree. It’s a bit naïve to claim that selling any state-owned commercial asset is always bad and should never happen. Even the last Labour Government, which campaigned firmly against large scale privatisation, still oversaw the sale of some Crown-owned commercial assets when it made sense to do so. Governments of all stripes sometimes divest non core assets while still protecting the strategic ones. Blanket slogans don’t reflect how things actually work in practice.
Can you name the larger size countries where there is no national state-owned media? We should look at these as examples of not having state owned media (?), vs those where its owned but runs somewhat independently (UK, Australia, Netherlands, Ireland) vs those where its state propaganda (Russia, Israel, China).
Frankly this seems more related to the independence of opinion the government allows in each country rather than the ownership model.
Also, just to point out the financial risk of state ownership is irrelevant. The point of a country is not to make a profit, countries operate with negative equity (at a loss) so their populations can operate with positive equity.
Have we not learned the lesson of KiwiRail?
NZR was sold off to Wisconsin and then on to Toll. Both foreign companies.
They asset stripped it.
The government had to buy it back at a point where it had to put massive new investment to bring it back up to speed, and it is nowhere near its potential still.
We should never let these foreign bastards control our essential assets. It is colonialism 2.0.
Not to mention these assets are part of the commons. They are not Christopher's to sell.
You maybe know..or not? Anyway here are some Links of History….(incl the shameful involvement of labour in Act drag, Roger Douglas, Richard Prebble..et al). I have linked much on this..many times.
And an interesting article with input by Rail historian Andre Brett.
Instead of selling to fund $Billions on wrong RONS ?
Rail..it makes sense
Very good to read such sharp critiques of selling our collectively-owned assets.
A more fundamental question is to ask: has the Crown run out of money?
Answer: how is that possible, when the Crown is the issuer of all money? In an independent country with its own free-floating currency the Crown can never run out of money.
If that money is spent into the economy to pay workers to produce the necessary human social services [health, education, housing], infrastructure [communication, transport, water sewage, port, railways], and so on, where is the limit to the Crown's capacity to spend?
There is no limit – except for the current total available productive capacity – which is reached at the point of full employment of workers and resources.
Obviously, minimization of waste and genuine increases in productivity are relevant factors over time.
Cheers
Or that could be rephrased as, has this governing party simply incompetent managers of the Crown finances? They appear to be ideologically economically impaired.
After all, the current demographic shifts that are raising costs in health and aged care were obvious to me when I first voted in 1978. They are the same factors that diminish productivity.
Yet at every available opportunity, National and Act have always taken the route to diminish tax takes for short-term effects, while giving tax breaks for productivity sapping investments into residential property. They sell off effective monopolies as privatisation of state assets so private investors can extort monopoly profits, thereby acting as a drag on the rest of the economy. The electricity sector with its refusal to increase capacity being the prime example.
These days National and Act also have a habit of giving effective tax breaks to sectors that reduce the health of our workforce – while taking backhander ‘donations’ (bribes) for party political purposes.
That is the why productivity is so low. National and Act never invest in anything that actually increases productivity in the economy in the future. Building productivity takes decades. Having political parties who can’t think past 3-5 years are simply incapable of doing tht essential governmental task. Instead they waste money on unproductive roads and tax breaks for the their donors.
It has to actually be spent on things that are productive over decades. If the guardians of the Crowns finances don’t spend on things that are productive over the lifetime of the projects, like the lifetime of human, or a sewerage system – then productivity can’t rise. National and Act barely have the vision to see past the next election campaign.
Nicola Willis said that selling the investment in Chorus is actually selling a debt, not an asset.
I keep wondering, if that's true, where are they going to find someone dumb enough to pay the government to acquire a debt?
A debt.
Returns interest!
Does Willis know how banks make money?