Christopher Luxon Hints National Will Campaign On Asset Sales In The 2026 Election

Tuesday, 28 January 2025, 9:09 pm
Article: RNZ

Jo Moir, Political Editor

The Prime Minister has hinted National will campaign on asset sales next year, saying an election win in 2026 would be the mandate he needed to push ahead with asset sales next term.

Christopher Luxon has ruled out selling off state houses but says he is open to having a wider conversation with voters at the next election and pursuing other asset sales next term.

He told reporters on Tuesday morning an election result would be an acceptable mandate, and he does not see a referendum on the issue being required.

Asked if he planned to campaign on it next year, Luxon said "we'd take it to the election and it would be part of our programme that we'd want to talk about and be upfront with New Zealanders about".

Act leader David Seymour put asset sales firmly on the table in his State of the Nation speech on Friday, saying privatisation needs to be talked about more openly and posed whether the healthcare system could be a good starting point.

Newly-minted health minister Simeon Brown said the country had a "publicly funded healthcare model" and that would not change.

Where privatisation could be an option in health, he said, was "areas such as infrastructure in the healthcare system where public private partnerships are something we could be looking more at".

Brown, who is also the new state owned enterprises minister, told reporters he was receiving briefings in coming days on the government's full breadth of assets and his focus was "making sure they've got high quality performing boards".

"We've said very carefully we're not open to sales in this term, there's questions to be asked about the purpose of these entities, the ownership the government has, and are we getting good value for money.

"As the Prime Minister said, you could be building a hospital or you could be owning QV (Quotable Value), those are the questions that we'll look at."

Economic Growth and Finance Minister Nicola Willis also put the spotlight on QV.

"Overall the question is with the billions of dollars of assets that the government owns, are those billions in the right place, because when I travel around the country people say to me, we'd love to see more investment in hospitals and schools and transport infrastructure, but I haven't had many people say to me recently, I'd like to see a lot more investment in QV."

She said the work reviewing state owned enterprises was still progressing and nothing had gone to cabinet yet.

On whether asset sales will be a feature of next term, Willis said that was an issue for the National Party to discuss ahead of the next election campaign.

Luxon said he was very open to the idea of asset recycling and "the best use of capital and that's something we should always be attune to, but as I've committed to, we're not going to have any asset sales this term".

Luxon said there would always be ongoing sales of state houses, as has happened in successive governments, but he's not interested in wholesale sell-offs.

"A wholesale sale of state houses isn't on the cards."

With Brown having taken over the state owned enterprises portfolio Luxon said he expected him to assess whether each one was performing.

"So I expect him to go through and do an audit of that and make sure each of these assets are in tip-top shape, they're well governed, they're being well lead, they're delivering on their goals, which the government expects them to do, which is generating a return."

'Typical right-wing... playbook'

Labour leader Chris Hipkins has accused the coalition of grabbing a "typical right-wing government playbook" when it comes to privatisation.

"They run down public services by denying them funding, then they say they're broken, and then they try and hock them off," he told reporters.

"They're clearly doing that in the health system, I think the prime minister should rule out right now privatising hospitals and other forms of publicly provided healthcare.

"If he's not willing to do that then he should be upfront with New Zealanders that privatisation and user-pays for health is back on the agenda, as it was when we had a national government as right-wing as this one in the 1990s."

Hipkins has ruled out Labour engaging in any form of asset sales, beyond "what you might do day-to-day, for example, selling one state house to build four".

"This government wants to sell out New Zealand from under New Zealanders - New Zealanders would become tenants in their own country under this government," he said.

On the question of whether QV should be one considered for sell-off, Hipkins said that would only mean New Zealanders missed out on the benefits of the profits it makes.

"Selling off assets to pay the bills isn't what responsible governments do."

Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds said it was worth noting Luxon had caveated asset sales by saying it wasn't on the table "this term".

"Clearly New Zealand First is getting in the way."

On whether Māori would take legal action against the government on any moves to privatise state assets, Māori Development spokesperson Willie Jackson expected that to be the case.

"Māori have done it before and they'll do it again."

"I have no doubt Māori will take legal action... I'd be surprised if they didn't because you've heard the angst and we've had terrible experiences in terms of privatisation."

Jackson said it's a basic principle for many that the government be involved in owning public services.

"I think the argument remains the same, it's government business and it needs to be involved in these areas."

Meanwhile, Seymour said the government needed to be continually asking the question of whether taxpayers are owning the right assets.

He said ultimately, New Zealanders wanted better infrastructure.

"I think the public appetite is for better infrastructure, better roads, pipes, pumping stations and homes for the next generation, and if we can use the $570 billion worth of stuff the government owns to get a better deal on that stuff, I think they'll go for it."

Seymour used the example of the government owning QV and said it was pretty hard to see why the government would want to be in the property valuation business.

NZ First leader Winston Peters said his opposition to privatisation would not be an issue for the coalition, because they were in "full support of me here".

"I spent my whole career ensuring that our assets stay in our possession.

"Don't put the view out there that I've ever been for the kind of privatisation that I saw with NZRail, with the BNZ - these are scandals one after the other which I disclosed and revealed when the mainstream media wasn't doing their job."

He said the "National Party's manifesto is their business entirely."

Peters referenced the sale of "an asset like NZRail in 1992" to "Wisconsin Central Railroad", saying "then it went bust because they recapitalised, and we had to buy it back again."

"This is not going to happen to us this time."

'Mask is slipping off'

The Green Party said it was now clear the government was pursuing a privatisation agenda, and co-leader Chloe Swarbrick warned asset sales usually meant higher costs for ordinary people.

"Slowly the mask is slipping off. I mean, we're starting to see where the real agenda of this government is.

"Back in October of last year when I asked the prime minister directly about intentions to privatise, you had laughs from the government benches ... making fun of me and pointing out that I was a conspiracy theorist or something, yet here it goes, this is the agenda of this government: to privatise."

She said Luxon's rhetoric opened the door to the kind of privatisation seen under former National governments, which ignored an overwhelming public referendum rejecting privatisation.

"We can invest in that public infrastructure. The reason that privatisation is on the table is because Christopher Luxon doesn't want to tax those at the top fairly."

She said it comes down to moves towards commercial ways of operating in government, which leads to "an austerity mindset ... the prioritisation of profit over the wellbeing of people and planet."

Te Pāti Māori, however, is not worried about a privatisation programme because it said this government will not make it back next term.

Co-leader Debbie Ngarewa-Packer said they "don't have to have that discussion".

"The prime minister's talking about privatisation assuming that he is here in the next term, and I can guarantee he won't be here the next term."

"So we don't have to have that discussion."

Co-leader Rawiri Waititi added, "we don't have to worry about that".

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