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 Treasury that can do that analysis and has been doing that analysis every year until two years ago.
There is been no explanation for the non-publication of the Crown Portfolio report for two years. That is unacceptable in terms of tax payer accountability.
What is weird about this blow to taxpayer accountability is I have been refused access to Treasury analysis of public information. I’m not actually asking for the analysis. I am asking for a tabulation of 49 annual reports of state owned enterprises. Somehow a tabulation of public information is commercial in confidence despite the fact I can do it myself. This makes no sense.
It appears that for two years now the Minister of Finance has not been advised on the annual rates of return of the state owned enterprise portfolio as a whole. If he had, the Treasury and the Minister of Finance would have supplied that data to me in the course of my Official Information Act requests because it was obvious that I was after that information and they have a duty to be helpful when processing Official Information Act requests.
The Minister of Finance should be more curious about tens of billions of dollars in taxpayer’s assets that currently struggle to offer a positive return.
Source: The New Zealand Treasury, Crown Portfolio Report 2013, p. 41.
No publicly listed company could fail to publish its annual report. The fact that this has not been picked up as an example of why public ownership is inferior. No one profits from highlighting these governance shortcomings.
If the state owned enterprises were listed on the stock exchange, investors would sell off a company that missed its reporting date. Missing a reporting date is a sure sign of both poor governance and poor performance. Entrepreneurs would see a poorly governed company as a takeover opportunity. There are no similar disciplines for state owned enterprises whose governance and transparency falls short.
By the way, the original objective of my research was to compare state-owned enterprise performance under the current and previous governments. The Treasury was unable to supply data further back than 2007. Everything before then is on paper. The individual company reports have to be looked up by hand.
Nothing is at the fingertips of the Treasury if the Minister of Finance was interested in knowing whether his stewardship of state owned enterprises was superior to that of his predecessors.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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