Prime Minister Christopher Luxon. Photo: RNZ / Mark Papalii
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon says the government will "think about" possible sales of government assets.
While Luxon has ruled out an asset sales this term, he told Morning Report on Monday that governments needed to be able to "recycle" assets.
He said he is up for a conversation on whether there should be sales with the money redeployed to creating new ones.
Speaking at the post-Cabinet briefing later in the day, Luxon said Pamu - the state-owned farming operator - was a good example where sales might make sense.
"It may well be that they're needed for Treaty claims, it may well be that it's used for R&D for model farms. There may be a rationale for it, or there may not.
"We know that there's a massive drive for protein over the next 10 years or so - a shortfall around the world - are we the best people to run those farms? How do those farms perform relative to farms that aren't run by government? All of those things are legitimately good questions to be asking to make sure that we are maximising the capital that the New Zealand government has tied up in that investment."
He said those kinds of questions should be asked of "each and every single asset that we have".
"Not everything can be sold. Not everything should be sold. But all I'm just saying is we need to move to a more mature conversation about asset recycling in this country ... we need to make sure that every asset that we own is optimally deployed, optimally managed."
He said there was nothing off the table at this point, but National's policy had not yet been developed.
Luxon's comments came after he was questioned about a Treasury Report last week which raised whether the government should sell state assets that are under-performing or no longer needed.
Treasury said there needed to be better asset management, that some assets were under-performing or poorly maintained.
"A formal capital recycling programme may be useful where government reallocates or reinvests capital from existing assets or infrastructure projects into new opportunities or projects to meet policy objectives," the report said.
Luxon said New Zealand did need need a "more mature conversation" about asset sales.
"Owning everything we own forever is not the right thing to do, I suspect."
He said governments have huge money tied up in assets and governments needed to refresh or recycle their holdings.
"To be able to sell an asset in order to buy or create a new asset is a good thing. Governments own a lot of stuff - there's obviously some we must own. But over time you want to cycle assets in and out of a portfolio and that is a good conversation to have."
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