Phil Twyford
Transport Spokesperson

18 January 2012

Flogging off assets does nothing to help New Zealand

Strategic assets like the Ports of Auckland should not be privatised, Labour Transport spokesperson Phil Twyford says.

“People using the Ports of Auckland dispute to push privatisation agendas are putting ideology ahead of good sense and the view of the majority of New Zealanders,” Phil Twyford said.

“Kiwis do not want assets sold. It is as simple as that.

“The Ports of Auckland is a strategic asset. How would selling it-off most likely to a foreign-buyer benefit New Zealand? It is a flawed argument based more on ideology than sound business sense.

"Unfortunately the pro-privatisation advocates are lining up to make capital out of the current dispute. Last week we had the Government’s hand-picked Productivity Commission advising the Government to part-privatise the country's ports.

"Then we saw Ports of Auckland CEO Tony Gibson declaring he is not opposed to privatisation, even though he works for a Council whose Mayor was elected on a platform of keeping the ports in public ownership.

"Now we have political commentators urging the Government to ban local government from running port services, thus forcing a Tauranga-solution of contracted-out stevedoring on the country's ports.

"Whether you call it 'mixed ownership', or whether you want to privatise the running of the port, it is still a form of privatisation. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.

"The country needs port reform. We have too many ports, with many of them over-capitalised. But the answer does not lie in flogging off our strategic assets, nor encouraging Auckland and Tauranga to cut each other's throats by driving down wages and casualising jobs.

“There needs to be a more rationally coordinated approach that protects New Zealand's long term interests,” Phil Twyford said.

ENDS

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