No decisions on asset sales, Key says

The Government is still a long way away from making any decisions about state asset sales but its position will be clear before the next election, Prime Minister John Key says.

National promised before last year's election that it wouldn't sell or partially sell any state-owned assets during its first term and Mr Key said today he would honour that commitment.

"Because it was a one-term commitment it's important that we kick the tyres on that policy and going into the 2011 campaign we have a clear policy - either to retain the existing position, or to change it," he said at his post-cabinet press conference.

"What our position will be going into 2011 is very unclear at this point - we haven't done any work on it and I wouldn't want to speculate that we will change our position."

Mr Key said one thing he could promise New Zealanders was that the policy which would be put to them at the next election would be unambiguous.

"It will be quite clear what we're doing....we're going to need to make a decision clearly so New Zealanders can understand what our position will be."

The sale of state assets was raised at a meeting addressed by Finance Minister Bill English on Friday, and Kiwibank was mentioned as a possibility.

That has raised speculation about the Government's intentions, and Mr Key appears to want to calm it down.

He said Mr English had not been testing the waters by talking about it.

"The finance minister does get asked that question on numerous occasions - I think he was simply making the point that one of the things we wanted to achieve in the budget is greater levels of investment and savings," he said.

Mr Key said government debt was under control and it wouldn't sell assets because of that.

He said the process of deciding a policy was likely to start later this year.

"I wouldn't want you to get ahead of yourselves," he told reporters.

"There's a clear process we need to go through - define for ourselves what we want the policy to be going into 2011, kick the tyres on the merits of that policy whatever it might be, and then articulate that to New Zealanders."

- NZPA