United Future leader Peter Dunne has ruled out supporting any Government move to sell or partially sell Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand or the national water supply.
The one-man-party announced the policy at the Auckland Rotary Club this afternoon.
Mr Dunne says New Zealanders are “not definitively pro-asset sales” and says his party has started with three “no-go areas” which are Kiwibank, Radio New Zealand and fresh water.
“Kiwibank is in every sense now a national institution, whether you bank with it or not. And in a market full of Australian-owned banks, and an increasingly fraught and troubled globe, it is both a symbolic and practical statement of our economic sovereignty.
“Collectively, it is ours pure and simple. It must stay that way,” he says.
“Secondly, Radio New Zealand exists in an increasingly commercial media marketplace, and it is more important than ever to have a voice that does not bend to the dollar, to ratings, to external forces.
“Every nation needs its own voice and we need to afford that voice our collective protection.
“Thirdly, and one that I feel particularly deeply about, is water. I do not intend to wait until it is on the asset sales agenda.
“I do not believe New Zealanders would ever, or should ever, accept a sell-off of the supply of the water, or any of the aspects around it.
“Let no one claim for any price what is ours as of right. There needs to be a blanket and clear undertaking that this will never be on the agenda,” Mr Dunne says.
He also says there needs to be a proper debate on the issue of asset-sales that is more than just “National saying yes and Labour saying no”.
“We need a conversation that is more detailed and drills down into what New Zealanders really think are acceptable bottom lines,” he says.
“New Zealanders, I believe, are not definitively pro-asset sales, but under certain conditions, it is no longer the bogeyman issue that Labour would have you believe.”
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