I misunderstood the responses to my Official Information Act requests to the Minister of Finance to obtain information on the financial performance of the crown portfolio of state owned enterprises.
It seems that the Treasury no longer is publishing a report on its portfolio of commercial assets. I have emailed the minister to find out if this is true.
If this is so, it will no longer be possible to work out if the commercial portfolio offers a positive return to the taxpayer, much less how large that return is and how it changes over time.
I was planning to compare the return on that portfolio under the current and previous governments but that information is simply unavailable from the Treasury.
You want to find out how the taxpayers investment in our state owned enterprises going, all the Treasury will do is tell you to look up their annual report.
The Treasury’s own briefings to the Minister of Finance are regarded as commercial in confidence so none of the information there on the total return to the taxpayer on the portfolio of state owned enterprises is available under the Official Information Act.
For some months now I’ve been trying to ascertain the latest performance of the state owned enterprises (SOE) portfolio. The last Crown Portfolio Report was issued in December 2013. That was two long years ago. I therefore asked for access to the quarterly report on the Crown commercial portfolio to the Minister of Finance by the Treasury.
My Official Information Act request to the Treasury was declined on commercial in confidence grounds. Not only was my request to the Minister of Finance similarly refused, he told me to do the analysis myself by working my way through the 49 annual reports of the state owned enterprises in New Zealand.
Source: Bill English, Minister of Finance, Response to Official Information Act request, 30 November 2015.
Look it up yourself is not a good approach to public accountability to busy taxpayers who have lives to lead. There is a very well-paid…
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Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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