Opposition outraged over asset sales legislation

There's outrage from opposition parties as the Government moves to push through asset sales legislation as quickly as possible.

Select committee hearings on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill finished early, and parties were forced to publish their view on the mixed ownership model early after National MPs forced a vote on it.

There were 1,448 submissions on the Bill, and just nine were in favour.

The Government plans to bring the legislation back before parliament on Thursday and Labour MP Clayton Cosgrove says it was willing to back down on class sizes, so why not asset sales.

"This policy of selling assets that people own is opposed by over 80 percent of our communities, why don't they put the same strategy in place and ditch if they're really listening to people. The truth is they're not."

However the controversial legislation looks unlikely to be pushed through under urgency.

Opposition parties had suspected the move might be on the cards, but National needs 61 votes to secure an urgency motion on the Bill.

The Maori Party opposes the Bill meaning they're highly unlikely to support urgency.

It means National would need the support of both ACT and United Future, its support partners who back the Bill.

It's understood United Future is opposed to the legislation being debated under urgency.

Only minor changes have been made to the legislation.

Among the changes made are new measures to prevent the Crown disposing of shares or consenting to share issues if doing so would reduce the Crown's voting rights to less than 51 percent.

Also introduced are steps to enforce the 10 percent cap on non-Crown shareholdings.

Shareholders in breach of the rule will be given 60 days to take steps to ensure they comply with the rule.

Photo: Edward Swift