Why buy slice of state assets we own?

It must be the electoral season all over again. Or maybe I'm having a nightmare and need to wake myself up. It's the privatisation of our four power companies I'm thinking about.

John Key in his best corporatist mode is intent on selling off those assets of ours despite the overwhelmingly negative public reaction to the idea.

That's the way corporatism works when combined with political power in a parliamentary system.

Pre-election you hint quietly that sales of assets may be necessary to save the country from the debt crisis which is non-existent. Once elected, strike quickly before anyone can stop you. Hope everyone will forget in three years or that they won't yet have suffered from your decision as energy rate rises can be brought in gradually.

A quick summary of the manufactured debt crisis may help keep things clear. Our debt was roughly 17 per cent of GDP in Labour's last year. Helen accused John in parliamentary debate, (August 6, 2008), of wanting to raise debt by lowering the tax on the top earners. That came to pass. Now the debt (25 per cent of GDP and still not a crisis) is the excuse to sell assets. A laughing Bill English says asset sales will bring in $4 billion-$7 billion, a figure he acknowledges as a pure guess.

The Government plans to sell 49 per cent of four power companies and, in its beneficence, allow Kiwis to buy shares.

Who owns these companies in the first place? Before the 1980s, electricity in this country was Government-run. Rogernomics led to the development of the state-owned enterprises.

The several power companies were born out of that process, created to solve certain problems of monopoly. But these assets were created with money that the Government received in the form of taxes.

These assets - the power companies - belong to the citizens, the taxpayers of New Zealand. The Government "owns" them in the sense that, in a democracy, the people are the government. Any party in power is simply the temporary steward of that ownership.

The National Party, as Government, represents the people of New Zealand.

It plans to allow the people to buy what they've already paid for. Isn't that great? What do they call it when someone tries to sell you what you already own?

Then there is the sad spectacle of Pita Sharples. He claims he put his job (read ministerial pay and perks) on the line to secure the requirement that the Government take the Treaty Of Waitangi into account in legalising these asset sales. That's what the Government will do. But not because of any threats of Pita. Section 9 of the State Owned Enterprise Act of 1986-7 requires the Government to do just that.

National and the Maori Party created a non-serious mini-dust up, with phony threats to walk from Tariana and Pita and double-dare-yous from John and Bill.

They all knew that any attempt to remove Section 9 would end in court and the courts haven't taken kindly to that in the past.

Besides, as was pointed out here a few turns ago, Section 9 is an obligation of the Government and not, as our friend Chester Borrows contends, an encumbrance on investors.

None of this is more than showmanship because Section 9 doesn't stop those asset sales. Only a determined nation can do that.

Most of us know that consultation comes in two qualities. There's the real turtle soup and the mock. So far, the Maori Party, allied with National, has been serving up a mockery of consultation.

If Kiwis want to have a real influence, they'll have to get together, Maori and non-Maori, to stir up a pot of objections to selling the New Zealand investing public (and foreigner investors) shares in what is already ours by virtue of right and of our tax money that bought those assets in the first place. I'm tired of dreaming. We all need to wake up.