Retaining public ownership of Solid Energy “in the national interest”

Retaining public ownership of Solid Energy is in the national interest, says the Engineering, Printing and Manufacturing Union (EPMU), the union that represents employees in the State-owned Enterprise (SOE).

“Retaining public ownership of Solid Energy means New Zealand retains control of the company’s operations and helps ensure continued high returns to the government and taxpayers,” says EPMU assistant national secretary Ged O’Connell.

“Rather than float Solid Energy on the share market, as the company chairman recently suggested, the government should invest in its future as it has done recently with new investment in KiwiRail,” he says.

“Selling a proportion of the value of Solid Energy to private interests would raise funds for the government but would not add any new capital to the SOE,” he says.

“Since selling a proportion of Solid Energy to the private sector won't add anything to it financially, it would be wholly ideological.”

“The private sector has generally shown itself unable to act more efficiently than a public owner under the SOE model. It also tends to only act in its’ own short term interest, rather than in the long term national interest in the way a public owner demonstrably does.”

“Retaining SOE assets such as Solid Energy in public ownership also enables New Zealand to have better accountability of its operations, including the environmental impacts of those operations.”

ENDS

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