Christopher Luxon floats National potentially campaigning on asset sales at election

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has suggested National may take asset sales to the next election but denies there are any immediate plans for a sell-off.

Act’s David Seymour says it’s time to debate whether some government assets should be sold off if they aren’t delivering returns, but New Zealand First leader Winston Peters is making his thoughts clear.

Asked on Tuesday afternoon if he supported privatisation, Peters responded: “Give me a break.”

Parliament was back on Tuesday, with its first session starting with an acknowledgment of individuals who passed over the summer break, including Dame Turiana Turia and police officer Lyn Fleming.

The Prime Minister then tabled a statement focused, unsurprisingly, on economic growth, which National has said will be its top priority for 2025.

“Every New Zealander deserves to reap the benefits of strong economic growth – higher incomes, quality public services, stronger local businesses and communities, and the prospect of even better times ahead for their children and grandchildren.

“Every decision we make this year will prioritise making that a reality – and that means 2025 will be another massive year for New Zealand, as we do everything it takes to unleash the growth, innovation, and investment we need to thrive – because Kiwis deserve nothing less.”

Luxon said the Government’s Budget in May will focus on lifting economic growth by addressing long-term productivity problems, implementing the social investment approach, keeping “tight control” of government spending while funding high-priority programmes and developing a pipelines of infrastructure investments.

“The operating allowances for Budgets 2025, 2026 and 2027 will be $2.4 billion a year, ensuring a tight lid is kept on overall spending increases so we can chart a sensible path back to surplus and begin to pay down the significant debt added to the books in recent years.”

In his response, Labour’s Chris Hipkins said the Government’s priorities were “wrong and out of touch”. He believed Kiwis would be disappointed with Luxon’s contribution.

“New Zealanders were looking for more. A realisation from this Government that despite all the big talk last year it’s still getting harder for New Zealand families, it’s still getting harder for New Zealand businesses.”

He pointed to New Zealand being in a recession according to GDP data released in December.

The Greens' Chlöe Swarbrick said that while the Government was talking about growth, it was “knowingly making decisions to grow climate changing emissions, it’s knowingly making decisions to grow inequality, poverty, homelessness and, notably, record number of New Zealanders leaving this country.”

Seymour said in Parliament it was “totally implausible” for Hipkins to “say everything terrible but only 18 months ago when we were in charge, it was fantastic”.

He said inflation had come down under the current Government.

“That is a real change. That is a real victory for New Zealanders, that while prices might still be high, they have stopped rising because this Government has killed inflation.”

Peters also said the economy was in a dire state under Labour. He said New Zealand First had pointed this out at the time.

“To use a metaphor, that’s the Labour Party metaphor, a massive economic tanker was on autopilot, heading for disaster unless we did something about it and the present Government got hold of the wheel with the expectation of turning it away from its wayward course.”

Te Pāti Māori’s Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said there had been a deterioration of behaviour in Parliament.

She said the Prime Minister’s statement was full of mentions of growth and infrastructure, but nothing that related specifically to Māori.

Earlier, the Prime Minister said National may wish to campaign on asset sales at the next election.

The issue of privatisation was put into the headlines last week with Seymour’s State of the Nation speech. In it, he said New Zealand needed to move past a “squeamishness” about privatisation.

As the Herald revealed on Friday, Seymour wants to begin a conversation about whether government assets that aren’t delivering returns should be kept in public ownership or sold off, with the resulting resources deployed elsewhere, such as towards infrastructure.

That debate’s now been well and truly sparked, with the Prime Minister facing several questions on Tuesday morning about whether he stood by his previous commitment not to sell assets this term.

“Yes, absolutely,” Luxon responded.

“Our focus is on driving economic growth and, as I have said, that is not something we’ve been talking about this term. We won’t be talking about [it] this term. I am open to talking about it in the longer term, at the next election. That is something for this term is not on [the agenda].”

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and State-Owned Enterprises Minister Simeon Brown. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Prime Minister said an election victory would be a mandate to move forward.

“We would take it to the election and it would be part of our programme that we’d want to talk about and be upfront with New Zealanders about,” Luxon said.

“I am open to the idea of asset recycling and the best use of capital and that is something we should always be attuned to. But as I have committed to, we’re not going to be having asset sales this term.”

He refused to say what assets he would be open to selling.

Economic Growth Minister Nicola Willis yesterday said Treasury had identified some areas where entities were not delivering “as well as it should” and more would be said in the future.

Elaborating on Tuesday, Willis said the findings of the Government’s review would be shared with New Zealanders ahead of the election.

She said Kiwis wanted more investment in hospitals, schools and transport infrastructure, but not many people were calling for “more investment in QV [Quotable Value]”, the property valuation provider, which has been speculated could be sold.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins said his party wasn’t interested in asset sales, other than “what you might do on a day-to-day thing like selling one state house to build four more”.

“This Government wants to sell out New Zealand from under New Zealanders. New Zealanders would become tenants in their own country under this Government.”

Asked why QV shouldn’t be sold, Hipkins said New Zealanders benefit “from the profits QV makes”. The provider reported a $1.2 million profit in its 2024 annual report.

Labour leader Chris Hipkins. Photo / Mark Mitchell

The Labour leader noted that at the 2013 asset sale citizens-initiated referendum – which related to the partial privatisation of energy companies and Air New Zealand – most Kiwis voted against a sell-off. He didn’t believe an election victory would be a mandate for asset sales.

Despite that referendum result, Sir John Key’s National Government still went ahead with the sale, arguing National had won the most recent election with asset sales being a policy.

Hipkins said the privatisation of energy companies hadn’t worked out, with Kiwis still paying high energy costs.

Peters. Luxon and Seymour’s current coalition partner, also made his thoughts about privatisation clear.

Asked whether he would support privatisation, Peters said: “Give me a break. I spent my career ensuring our assets stay in our possession.”

He said National’s manifesto was its “business entirely”.

Another part of Seymour’s speech related to giving New Zealanders more choice about health and education funding. He suggested one idea could be to allow Kiwis to opt out of the public health system and instead receive money to spend privately.

New Health Minister Simeon Brown said on Tuesday that there were aspects of the healthcare system, such as infrastructure, where public-private partnerships would be looked at, but the provision of services wouldn’t change.

Asked if he could give Kiwis more options to opt into private healthcare, Brown said it was “early days” as he had just taken on the role, but he wanted all New Zealanders to be able to access healthcare in a “timely and quality fashion”.

While Luxon has said he is focused on economic growth, he has also suggested raising more foreign investment into New Zealand infrastructure could be a way of doing that.

The Greens’ Chlöe Swarbrick also wrote to Luxon yesterday asking him to “end all speculation” about future sell-offs.

“We are requesting that you urgently show necessary leadership and put this issue to bed once and for all, committing to keep public services and key infrastructure in the ownership of the people of this country,” Swarbrick told the Prime Minister.

She highlighted that when she previously asked Luxon whether the Government may be paving “the way for an eventual sell-off” of assets, Government MPs “laughed at the questions” and Luxon said she was in a “very dark and conspiratorial mood”.

Jamie Ensor is a political reporter in the NZ Herald press gallery team based at Parliament. He was previously a TV reporter and digital producer in the Newshub press gallery office.