Bill English, the Minister of Finance, acquiesced to the Treasury killing the publication of the Crown Portfolio Report. This report summarises the performance of the state owned enterprises in New Zealand. This portfolio is a dog of an investment for the taxpayer.
Treasury decided that the best way to deal with this terrible return to the taxpayer on billion tens of billions of dollars in assets, assets struggling to get a return that is above zero much less the long-term bond rate, was to stop publishing this inconvenient data.
Source: Reporting – Portfolio of Commercial Entities — The Treasury – New Zealand
When I have sought the figures on the portfolio rate of return for the last two years through the Official Information Act to bring the table below up-to-date, I am told by Bill English that I can look up the annual reports of 49 state owned enterprises up for myself and do the calculation.
For that reason, the information on portfolio rates of returned for state owned enterprises, which I sought under the Official Information Act was publicly available and therefore the Treasury and the Minister of Finance both had a good reason under the legislation to turn my request down for access to that official information.
To put it mildly, the difference in credibility of a calculation of the rate of return of the portfolio of state owned enterprises made by the Treasury and by an angry blogger are beyond measure.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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