The government is not going to back down on the issue of asset sales, Economic Development Minister Steven Joyce says.
His comment came after a poll of 700 people indicated most New Zealanders remain opposed to the partial privatisation of four state-owned energy companies, but most would also like to buy shares if they came up for sale.
The final vote on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill - allowing for the sale of 49 per cent of Mighty River Power, Genesis Energy, Meridian Energy and Solid Energy - takes place in parliament on Tuesday.
"I don't believe the government's going to back down on that at all," Mr Joyce said on TV One's Q+A programme on Sunday.
He said the role the policy would have in strengthening New Zealand's capital markets had not been discussed enough.
"Now, the New Zealand capital markets actually historically, certainly over the last 10 years, have performed very poorly relative to the rest of the world, and that's because there's been some breaches of faith historically."
The sale of stakes in the energy companies would be an opportunity to list strong companies.
"That's an opportunity to actually strengthen the capital markets and get more kiwis interested," Mr Joyce said.
Results published on Sunday from a Key Research poll show that 64 per cent of the 700 people surveyed were against the partial sale of state-owned assets, while only 25 per cent were in favour.
At the same time, 60 per cent would buy shares in the same assets, compared with 30 per cent who wouldn't, according to the poll commissioned by the Herald on Sunday.
The results also showed National holding its support at 47.9 per cent, while both Labour and the Greens have risen three percentage points since the 2011 election to be at 30.4 per cent and 14.8 per cent respectively.
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