Nick Minchin (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance and Administration) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to the first question is yes. The answer to the second question is that it is based on the utterly hypothetical notion that the government have already made a decision on what we will do with the shares which the Labor Party has forced us to retain in this company. We have not yet made a decision. I have been very public in saying that if we are to have a retail offer of our shares it would need to be given effect to in the October-November period of this year. We have to make a decision as to whether to offer those shares to the public and institutional investors, by way of a prospectus and full retail offer, imminently, within the next couple of weeks.

We have a range of options open to us if we are not in a position to make a retail offer. One of the options which is open to us and on which we have not yet made a decision is that part or all of those shares could be placed in the hands of the Future Fund. One of the great initiatives of the government, I might say, is the establishment of the Future Fund, which we will protect from the ravages of the Labor Party for as long as we can. Of course, it is Labor Party policy to ravage and raid the Future Fund as a slush fund. That is your policy.

This is what I do not get about the Labor Party’s position: you say that you do not want us to sell any shares, but you do not want us to put them in the Future Fund. What is the difference? If the Labor Party has a policy, it is apparently that the government has the shares. That is an overhang. The issue with the Future Fund is the assertion that there would be a share overhang in the hands of the Future Fund. There is a share overhang now, which the Labor Party does not seem to understand, and that is because the government has been forced by this lot to continue to own 50 per cent of the shares. It has been only some eight months that we have had the authority from the parliament to dispose of the remainder of our shares.

I have said at all times that the only opportunity, the window, for a retail offer is in the August to December period of any year, after the financial results are available. We are now in that position and we are approaching a point at which we will have to make a decision. We will make a sensible decision in the interests of the shareholders, the country and the company.