Jessica Mutch interviews Bill English
Sunday 9 September, 2012
Jessica Mutch interviews Bill
English
Selling three
power companies in a single year will be “a test”,
Finance Minister admits, but he’s still confident of
demand from ‘Mum and Dad investors’.
English suggests “uncertainty” around the $5-7 billion sale price of state assets: “I think now people can see that there are commercial risks that go with these assets, that we’re in a world where there’s a bit less certainty than there was four or five years ago”.
Asset sales referendum “won’t make any difference to the government… we will be continuing with the programme”.
English picks opposition parties may struggle to get referendum numbers: “I think our political opponents are afraid they might have trouble getting the 300,000 signatures, particularly when they are now approaching schoolchildren to try and get those signatures.”
Despite John Key’s suggestion the 2014/15 surplus target could be revised, Bill English says it’s “on track” and 80-90% likely.
New Zealand economy “on track” to produce 20-30,000 jobs in a year, as English predicted in July on Q+A.
Asset sales delays won’t delay spending commitments from the Future Investment Fund.
Credit ratings agencies not concerned about delay to asset sales programme “because of our commitment of seeing the process through”.
No decision on which order to sell Genesis or Meridian and no guarantee that Solid Energy will be sold at all.
Decision to delay asset says was based on concerns about Maori rights, “there wasn’t really a financial consideration involved”.
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Q + A
JESSICA MUTCH
INTERVIEWS BILL ENGLISH
GREG Asset sales
aren’t going ahead this year. The Government has delayed
the partial sale of Mighty River Power on the back of the
Waitangi Tribunal request to negotiate with iwi. What
impact will that delay have? Bill English has been in
Russia talking with other finance ministers about the global
economy. On his way home, he stopped in to New York to meet
with ratings agencies Moody’s, and Standard & Poor’s.
Now it’s back to domestic politics. Bill English is live
with Jessica Mutch.
JESSICA Finance Minister Bill English, thank you very much for joining us this morning. I want to start big picture – are we still on target to reach surplus by 2014-15?
BILL ENGLISH – Finance Minister
Yes, we are. We think it’s desirable to get to surplus by
then to stop government debt rising, and we’ve worked
quite hard on getting government expenditure under control,
delivering better public services for less money. The
revenue is a bit less certain than the expenditure. You
know, how the world economy goes is going to matter, the
speed of recovery in Christchurch, the rate of inflation, so
there’s always uncertainties there, but up to now we’re
on track.
JESSICA John Key over the weekend didn’t rule out revising that target, so are you saying we’re 100% on track?
BILL
Yeah, look, we’re on track. He was referring to
the possibility, which feels quite real when you’re
offshore, that, for instance, Europe may not save— may not
be able to resolve its problems, that China might slow down
faster than anyone’s expecting. Now, those are, you know,
small probabilities that they could happen. If that was the
case, then it’s possible to adjust the surplus, for
instance, you know, get there a year later. But within the
kind of 80% or 90% probability, that is moderate growth in
New Zealand, we’re sticking to that 2014-15 surplus. We
believe that’s achievable and good for the
economy.
JESSICA
What about assets sales, though? We’ve heard
this week that there will be a delay in Mighty River Power.
What impact will that have on us reaching our target?
BILL It won’t have any
significant impact as long as we get the sales process
underway next year.
JESSICA We heard that
the delay in the sales process will cost between $5 million
and $10 million. Can you be any more precise about
that?
BILL Look,
it’s— No, it can’t be much more precise than that.
There’s some delay. There’s some cost in just the
administrative processes around it. The main point here for
the asset sales, though, is that we’ve got a future
investment fund. That is designed to be able to fund things
such as our contribution to the rebuild of Christchurch, the
new schools and hospitals that we’re going to need around
the country. So we’re on track even with the delay to get
the proceeds from the partial sale of shares to go into that
fund to pay for other valuable infrastructure.
JESSICA So you’re
saying that there will be a delay in the progress we’ll
see with Christchurch and that will hit us in the books?
BILL No, there
shouldn’t be a delay. We have scheduled this – the
first sale – for the first quarter of next year. As those
proceeds come in, they’ll be available for further
investment, and that’s roughly on schedule for what we had
thought 12 months ago.
JESSICA Did you have any
advice on how much it would cost if you forged ahead with
the sale of Mighty River Power and didn’t have that
delay?
BILL Well, it
wasn’t so much how much it would cost. It was whether—
The advice was focused on whether we could meet all the
legal requirements of, say, the High Court if we’re taken
to court.
JESSICA But you must
have had some kind of approximate cost around that. What
was the advice there?
BILL
Well, no, there wasn’t really a cost. The
decision the Government made to delay is focused on a
very— quite a narrow point. The Waitangi Tribunal made
quite a detailed proposition about how to cater to the
interests of Maori shareholders. Once these companies are
floated, we are going out to consult on that to ensure that
we meet all the requirements for consultation. So there
wasn’t really a financial consideration
involved.
JESSICA
Back to the finances of it, though. $5 billion to
$7 billion – are we still on track to reach that
target?
BILL Well,
it’s a pretty wide range – $5 billion to $7 billion –
and some of the issues that have come up since this process
started indicate why there would be uncertainty about
exactly what you would get.
JESSICA So are we aiming
more for the five billion now, then?
BILL
Well, no, look, we haven’t changed the estimate.
It’s still five to seven billion. I mean, that is a range
of, you know, 40% variation. And I think now people can see
that there are commercial risks that go with these assets,
that we’re in a world where there’s a bit less certainty
than there was four or five years ago.
JESSICA You’ve been
travelling overseas. You’ve been in New York talking to
ratings agencies. Has there been any concern around this
delay of asset sales? Will that hurt us in any way?
BILL No, there hasn’t
been, although the rating agencies have kept making the same
point they’ve made for a number of years about debt.
Because New Zealand has very high household debt – among
the highest in the developed world – they want to see
government with low levels of debt and—
JESSICA And wasn’t
asset sales the answer to this?
BILL Well, it’s part of
the answer. It will keep us below a threshold of 30% of
GDP, which is highly desirable and it’s necessary to
offset the fact that we’ve got such high private-sector
debt.
JESSICA
Did you raise the delay in asset sales with the
ratings agencies when you met?
BILL
Yes, it was discussed, but they didn’t see it as
really significant.
JESSICA Why not?
BILL Oh, well, because of
our commitment of seeing the process through and the
Government’s commitment to keeping debt below 30% of GDP
and getting to surplus. So that’s a package of, you know,
quite tight fiscal discipline. The asset sales are part of
it, but only part of it, and the rating agencies are pretty
supportive of our direction.
JESSICA We’ve been
given an indication this week that Genesis and Meridian will
be sold off at the end of next year and the beginning of
2014. Doesn’t that effectively mean that we’re going to
have three quite big similar assets on the block within the
space of about a year, and what are the implications of
that?
BILL Well, we
always said it was a three- to four-year programme, and the
indications have been that the energy companies would be at
the front of the queue, so there was always going to be a
number of significant floats over, you know, one to two
years.
JESSICA
Aren’t you worried there will be a glut,
though?
BILL Well,
that’s, you know— that is— You know, we’ll be tested
as we go along. We believe that there will be quite strong
demand from New Zealanders for these shares. If you look,
for instance, at bank deposits – bank deposits have been
growing by 8% to 10% a year now for about three years, so a
lot of New Zealanders are putting their money in the bank.
And as time goes on, they’ll be looking for opportunities
to put that money somewhere else where it might earn a bit
more. And that’s the kind of pool of demand that will be
available.
JESSICA You sound like
you are concerned about this issue, though. Are you
worried?
BILL No,
we’re not concerned about it. Look, nothing has changed
about the programme.
JESSICA Except for the
timeframe being shortened.
BILL
Well, the timeframe’s been delayed by, you know,
three months. But to get five to seven billion was always
going to— always going to be about getting the demand of a
wide range of New Zealanders who want to participate in
share ownership in investments that they think are going to
be effective for them.
JESSICA What happens,
though, when we get to that third energy company within a
space of about 12 months? Isn’t there going to be
investor fatigue, and do we have enough ‘Mum and Dad’
investors to buy up?
BILL
Well, we’re confident that the demand will be
there, and, you know, we’ll test that as we go to the
market. As we’ve said, we’ll always take into account
market conditions in making a decision about whether to go
ahead with the float.
JESSICA What will be
first – Meridian or Genesis?
BILL
Well, that decision hasn’t been made. We know
the very first one’s going to be Mighty River Power, and
then there will be a judgement made before too long about
what follows on behind it.
JESSICA What about Solid
and Air New Zealand?
BILL
Well, I think it’s become, you know, apparent
with Solid Energy they’re not in any— they’re not in a
state where you could put them on the stock market. So
they’ve got some significant issues now to deal with,
particularly because the world coal price has kept on
dropping. In the case of Air New Zealand, I mean, that’s
a well-respected, well-run company. It would be relatively
easy to sell down more of it, and, you know, we’ll
consider that as we’ve dealt with these energy company
floats.
JESSICA
You gave yourself a five-year window. Do you think
you’ll need that? Given you’re still in government, do
you think you’ll need that to sell Solid?
BILL Look, I wouldn’t
want to prejudge it. What we know is that right now it’s
not in the shape where you could put it on the market.
There’s a lot of issues that need to be sorted out there.
The company is getting on with that job, and they’ve got
time before we would need to make a decision about
that.
JESSICA
You say that the public are coming around to the
idea of asset sales. Why not just wait for the referendum
to get that mandate to prove to the public that you have
support?
BILL Look,
the referendum is a political stunt by our political
opponents, including using paid parliamentary—
JESSICA If they can get
310,000 signatures, though, is it really a stunt?
BILL Well, look, it’s
politically motivated, we know that. The mandate the
Government has comes from the fact that the beginning of
last year, we announced the sales programme, it was a
central feature of the election campaign, we became elected,
and now we’ve got on with doing what we said we would do.
So I don’t think there’s any question—
JESSICA So if you say
you have the mandate— If you say you have the mandate, why
not just wait for a referendum to prove it to people?
BILL Well, we have a
mandate, and we’re getting on with doing it.
JESSICA What are you so
afraid of with the referendum?
BILL
Well, we’re not afraid of anything. I think our
political opponents are afraid they might have trouble
getting the 300,000 signatures, particularly when they are
now approaching schoolchildren to try and get those
signatures, which, of course, won’t be valid. We’re
just getting on with the job. We campaigned we’d be
absolutely transparent about this, got elected. We were
elected to deal with the economy and the country as we find
it, and we’re getting on according to our best judgement
to promote a growing economy, in this case to help New
Zealanders rebuild their savings and to keep our government
debt levels down.
JESSICA
The group that’s coordinating the referendum say
they may very well have the numbers before the end of the
year and they’re very confident that they’ll have it
before the sale of Mighty River Power. It seems like it may
be an inevitability. What do you make of that?
BILL Well, it won’t
make any difference to the Government. We campaigned openly
on the policy. We got elected. There’s larger issues
than the political desires of our opponents. You know,
we’ve got to get an economy that’s growing, that’s
providing jobs, that’s providing opportunities for New
Zealanders growing savings, which is very positive for New
Zealand. So we will be continuing with the
programme.
JESSICA
Just as a final question, I’d like to ask you
about the jobs issue. When you were here interviewed by Q+A
on the 1st of July, you promised 20,000 to 30,000 jobs in a
year. Where are you at with that?
BILL
Well, look, it’s not so much politicians
promising jobs. If we could just promise them, we’d
promise 200,000 jobs. The fact is it’s businesses who
make the decisions to invest a bit more, hire a new person,
pay a bit more because their product can sell for more. And
so those numbers are forecast for what this economy will
create, and it’s been something like 50,000 new jobs in
the last couple of years. At any given time, such as this
last week, you’re going to have businesses that are under
pressure for various reasons, and that’s very difficult
for people who lose their jobs, for instance in the coal
mine on the West Coast or in the smelter down in
Invercargill. You know, it’s challenging.
JESSICA That was what
you promised, though, Minister, when you were on the show
last week— sorry, on July 1st. Are you on track?
BILL Well, the economy is
on track to produce that kind of number of new jobs, and
that is because at the same time as the sum businesses who
were affected, for instance, by the downturn in the world
coal price, there are other businesses who are doing quite
well and they are hiring people. And on balance, this
economy is creating new jobs.
JESSICA And that’s a
nice place to leave it. Thank you very much, Bill English,
Finance Minister, for joining us this morning.
BILL Thank you,
Jessica.