The New Zealand Herald

State control

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The Jones issue does raise some more fundamenta­l issues around the stateowned enterprise and Crown Company model. The SOEs were designed as a half-way house ahead of privatisat­ion, but when the steam went out of asset sales, they were left in limbo. The only way to politicall­y handle them was to remove ministers from their commercial activities, but the fact is, the Government is still the owner, and ministers have quietly used their influence. The relationsh­ip is more difficult with the gentailers and Air NZ, where shareholdi­ng ministers own a majority stake. Until now, ministers have been hands off, but it is only a matter of time until a minister does not fancy staying silent. Of course, the two solutions — selling them off or buying them back — are politicall­y or fiscally impossible.

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