Winston Peters has shrugged off his coalition partners’ opposition to his party’s plan to buy back the Bank of New Zealand, saying Kiwis should remember “it was them that sold the BNZ in the first place”.
Both Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Deputy Prime Minister David Seymour refused to support the buyback proposal in media appearances yesterday after Peters announced his party would campaign on it during a speech in West Auckland over the weekend.
A party spokesman earlier told the Herald it wanted the Government to present the National Australia Bank (NAB) with a “premium-priced offer” and negotiate a deal.
Appearing on Ryan Bridge Today, Peters dismissed National and Act’s reactions as “nervous laughter” and reaffirmed his party’s commitment to the idea, saying New Zealanders were “sold out” when the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ), then a state-owned bank, was privatised by Jim Bolger’s National Party Government and sold to NAB in 1992.
“New Zealanders are sick and tired of the status quo, or the idea this is as good as it gets,” Peters said.
“They’ve been robbed when it comes to banking – we know we’re being overcharged, everybody knows that, and no one’s denying that.“
Peters claimed the numbers being discussed regarding the cost of the buyback were being exaggerated by both politicians and economists, with some estimating it would cost up to $24 billion or even $30b.
Peters’ own cost estimates, shared with Newstalk ZB yesterday, sat between $7.5b and $12b.
“Does Mr Seymour or Mr Luxon understand economics?” he asked.
”If you take the purchase price Australia paid, $1.4 billion – right – at the time, compounding inflation, going forward it’s about $3.5 billion now, but they won’t be taking $3.5 billion will they?
“Other figures they were using just five, six years ago were $7.5 billion, going up from that.
“But when you get people saying, ‘Oh, it’s somewhere between $10 and $20 billion’. They’re not experts. They don’t know what day it is. No wonder the darn financial market is such a mess.“
While Bridge pushed for more detail on the price he’d be prepared to offer NAB, noting that shareholders’ equity had grown from $7.9b to $13.7b in the three decades since the BNZ privatisation, Peters said he wouldn’t reveal any concrete numbers, describing it as a “numbskull” move.
However, his commitment was resolute, emphasising how billions of dollars in lost dividends are being sent back across the Tasman annually.
The policy’s future remains up in the air with both coalition parties ruling it out, and despite being asked on-air, Peters refused to make it a bottom line in coalition negotiations.
However, Peters said he’d received strong support from the audience when announcing the policy and emphasised the fact that Australia’s banking sector generated more lucrative returns here than at home.
Luxon told Newstalk ZB’s Mike Hosking Breakfast yesterday that the proposal sounded like a Labour policy.
“It’s completely fanciful ... To go borrow $30 billion to buy a private company doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
“It’s just not feasible, I don’t know why you’d want to do it.”
When asked for his thoughts this morning, Labour leader Chris Hipkins was also not convinced.
“Winston Peters is currently in Government with two parties that are currently trying to hock off Kiwibank,” he told Ryan Bridge TODAY.
“So the idea that he wants to not only not hock off Kiwibank, but buy back a bank that was sold about 30 years ago during a Government that he was also part of, I think is somewhat farcical.”
Seymour also outlined the Act Party’s stance on the proposal yesterday, saying while he understood Peters’ emotive appeal, its long-term proposition wasn’t so clear.
He said a merger would go against current efforts to stimulate the market, noting that the BNZ wasn’t for sale, and pointed to Venezuela as an example of nationalising assets.
“I’m sure that they will sell it to the Government for the right price, but I’m not sure the taxpayer would be very happy about that price,” Seymour told Ryan Bridge TODAY.
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