Annette King

By Peter Wilson of NZPA

Wellington, June 3 NZPA - Prime Minister John Key promised at least nine times before the last election that Kiwibank would never be sold, the Labour Party said in Parliament today as it continued to attack the Government over its intention to review its policy on the sale of state-owned assets.

In Parliament yesterday Mr Key would not give an assurance that Kiwibank would never be sold, despite being faced with two of his own unequivocal comments made in the run-up to the 2008 election.

That led to accusations that a sale would break a promise, and Labour's deputy leader Annette King followed it up today.

Mr Key was not in Parliament so she targeted Finance Minister Bill English.

"Is it the Government's policy to sell Kiwibank eventually...or is the policy to never sell Kiwibank as stated by John Key on at least nine occasions," Ms King asked, giving the dates on which Mr Key made those commitments.

Mr English replied: "The prime minister has strong views on these things and I agree with him."

Ms King's attempts to unravel that response failed and Mr English slipped into what has become the Government's standard answer about any asset sales.

"The Government has made a firm commitment to New Zealanders that there will be no asset sales in this term of office and that if the policy changes we will say so and campaign on the issue in the 2011 election," he said.

Before he went into the debating chamber to face Ms King, Mr English was closely questioned by reporters about Mr Key's comments before the last election.

"The current position is that the Government is not selling any assets...and it hasn't worked on plans for selling assets," Mr English said.

"We're not selling Kiwibank, it is not for sale, there are no plans for selling Kiwibank...if anything changed we would put that to the electorate. People can be quite reassured there is nothing happening about selling Kiwibank."

Progressive Party leader Jim Anderton, who created Kiwibank when he was a minister in the Labour-led government, said today Mr Key was guilty of the worst kind of cynical politics.

"He changes his mind depending on where the votes are...he promised multiple times not to sell Kiwibank, ever, if he was elected," Mr Anderton said.

Referring to a pledge campaign run by Kiwibank supporters before the last election, Mr Anderton said it was signed by National MP Nathan Guy who won the Otaki seat with a majority of 1354 votes.

Mr Anderton said Mr Guy would not have taken the seat from Labour if voters had known about National's intentions.