Personal gain from privatisation? | The Jackal

20 Nov 2011

Personal gain from privatisation?

Last week, Rod Oram wrote:

If the government were serious about helping the NZX develop, it would deliver on all the recommendations of the capital markets development taskforce. 
The taskforce said the most important remedies were to increase the household savings rate and remove tax distortions and other regulatory impediments. 
So, given the economics of SOE sales are so poor and the politics so unpalatable, judging by voter resistance expressed in the polls, it remains a mystery why Key is exercising such bad economic and political judgement.

Well there is one reason why John Key might undertake such an exercise... to ensure that New Zealand has to undertake asset sales to service the huge amounts of debt that National has mismanaged us into.

Approximately one third of the added $22 billion of extra debt under National was avoidable from the get go without even looking at re-prioritizing.

This is because there are unfortunately many Conflicts of interest within the National party.

You can check out some more conflicts of interest in this Register of Pecuniary and Other Specified Interests of Members of Parliament (PDF).