Issuing green energy bonds would give New Zealanders a safe place for their retirement funds and give state energy companies access to capital, the Green Party says.
The Government said the energy companies needed access to capital.
"Fair enough. But you don't need to privatise them to do that. There is an alternative way to get access to capital and that is for the publicly owned energy companies to issue green energy bonds directly to the people of New Zealand," Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said.
After the debacle of the collapse of finance companies, many New Zealanders were looking for a safe place for their retirement nest eggs, he told the party's annual conference in Auckland.
Green energy bonds would keep the companies in public ownership and in New Zealand, Dr Norman said.
The Government is planning to partly privatise Genesis, Mighty River Power, Meridian and coal producer Solid Energy. It also intends reducing its nearly 80% stake in Air New Zealand if it wins at the next election.
Prime Minister John Key has put a figure of up to $5 billion being available from the partial sell-down of those companies.
However, Dr Norman said if the companies were kept in state ownership, they could be used as the nucleus of the growing clean energy sector.
All had renewable generation experience and even Solid Energy had a biofuel operation.
The companies had the size and critical mass to compete internationally, he said.
"These energy companies have the kind of intellectual property and hands-on practical experience that is desperately sought-after in a world hungry for clean energy.
"These publicly owned energy companies are worth more today than they were yesterday and they will be worth much more tomorrow. That is why selling them is such a huge mistake."
The companies had already started to look for export opportunities, building geothermal generation in California, but the sky was the limit, Dr Norman said.
Not only would supercharged public energy companies launch New Zealand green entrepreneurs into the world, but they would build a safer future for the next generation.
The Greens wanted to keep the energy companies in public ownership so they stayed in New Zealand and formed the launching platform for a clean energy export sector.
Issuing green energy bonds would help them stay, Dr Norman said.
