by frog
Can you join us for one last big weekend of collection on the 16th and 17th of February? We’re on track to submit the petition before any asset sales are started. A referendum will give every New Zealander who wants a smart, green future a chance to be heard.
There will be collection points at events around the country on the 16th and 17th. To find out where we’ll be and to sign up to collect signatures with us visit www.signathon.org.nz.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by frog on Sat, February 9th, 2013
Tags: asset sales, Keep Our Assets
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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Should referendums be binding?
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It’ll knock Key’s asset theft programme on the head.
Such a stupid idea, selling the energy assets.
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It won’t make any difference. No government acts of referendums.
These “assets” are being part floated. You lost.
You’re just taking a very long time to accept the fact.
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Remember the petition, that had overwhelming support, to reduce the size of Parliament to 99 members?
Can you tell me when the Green Party pushed to accept the referendum result, even if only by putting up a private members bill?
No I can’t remember either. Funny that.
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It irks you something terrible, Arana and Alwyn, doesn’t it, the approaching message from the people of New Zealand that they don’t want Key to steal our assets. They will say it loud and clear and if Key and his National Party thieves forge ahead, they’ll be tossed out on their arses at the next election. That’s got them all frothed, and you all skittery. The referendum will be a powerful rallying point for New Zealanders who won’t tolerate being sold out. I’m loving every second of this, especially watching you and your ilk, squirm.
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National may well lose the next election as it’s always difficult to secure a third term, but whatever happens in that respect, the assets will have been floated and sitting in Kiwisaver portfolios by then.
What really irks you is that the last election was all about asset sales, as far as Labour was concerned, and as a result, Labour posted their 2nd worst result ever.
Why?
Failure to focus on what people are most worried about – jobs and economic security.
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So you’ll be caught on the wrong side of the debate.
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Witness the sale of assets and the one on reducing the size of Parliament. Have you found when a Green MP proposed a private members bill to action that referendum yet?
If your petition gets put, and if it gets the votes, and if it is then ignored by the Government I suppose I can just follow Helen Clark’s example.
“Diddums”.
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Please tell your family/friends that they haven’t really signed up Keep our asset petition if they signed up on line…as there is no on-line version for signning up this petition, you need to physically sign up the one and only Keep our asset petition form. you can go to Green Party’s website to download the correct form then physically sigh it up before you post it to the address printed on the form. Need to act fast though!!
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Its a pity they didn’t say it when it mattered. They (hell, – “we”) got a chance to stop sales dead in their tracks, and we chose not to avail ourselves of that opportunity.
If Hell freezes over then there may be a tiny chance that Key gets tossed at the next election. Best I can tell, however, those fires are buring bright.
For most people in New Zealand, I don’t believe they give a fig about asset sales, one way or the other.
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DBuckley – as one of the people going out to get the petitions signed I can tell you that there’s about an 80-20 distribution… and the 20% who support Key no matter what he does seem embarrassed about it. This very well could sink them if they ignore the petition.
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I haven’t heard any politician saying that the assett sales referendum should be binding. What people are saying is that if the Government ignores the outcome of this particular referendum it will be at its own peril.
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Having done this petition in 4 areas, I found there was no better then 50/50 split overall. Ironically, people in the “better off” areas were a lot more likely to sign. The poorest area was about 80/20 – ie: 80% of people didn’t give a damn and wouldn’t sign.
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Good man. I’ve signed. I hope the petition reaches the goal, and I do hope we end up with a referendum.
Not because I believe it will make one iota of difference, but because I want to see the results, and not just the fores and agins as a split, but the number who can be arsed to express an opinion.
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That figure, vs the total voter figure, will be amusing.
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Really? So when they stood on part-floats as key policy at the general election, they did so at “their peril”? When Labour made the election “all about asset sales” that was the end of National?
Nek Minute….
If National lose the next election, it will be because enough swing voters have grown bored with them.
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Correct. Labour bet the election on it – and lost badly. You’d think some self-reflection would be in order and they’d move on to something their voters actually care about…
….like jobs.
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The election came down to something that most people didn’t understand the impact of (Asset sales), or “we’ll increase tax” (CGT).
Faced with the choice of something they couldn’t relate to versus something the could, they chose “no more tax”.
Even though for almost all voters it didn’t mean more tax.
Perhaps truth is the first casualty in an election…
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Truth is the first casualty in politics.
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It’s certainly taken a beating from Key.
Still, truth will out.
Bring on the referendum!
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Takes a beating from all sides, Greenfly.
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I can understand your dark cynicism, Arana. Your political leaders have accustomed you to untruths, so naturally you’d believe that everybody does it.
They don’t.
My political representatives do not lie as yours do and so I have not become resigned to dishonesty as you have.
Therein lies (geddit?) the difference between us.
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Bless.
“Oh, but we’re different!”
Sure you are….
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BTW: I’m not represented at all in the NZ parliament. The entire parliament appears to be different degrees of left-wing, centralised command-n-control ideology. Are there any exceptions? If there are, they are keeping very quiet.
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Confirming that you are an extremist, here only to attack.
Charming.
I’ll ignore your cynical, extremist views then and carry on regarding my political representatives highly, for their integrity and truthfulness.
You’re a sorry creature, Arana and I do feel for you.
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You should always question power, Greenfly.
“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”
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If New Zealanders own power, then why aren’t they getting power at cost? Why are they being rorted to the tune of around 12%?
If New Zealanders really own it, then how about redistributing 100% as shares and allocate a parcel to every adult New Zealander. Those who feel they need to own a slice of a power company can keep their shares, those who don’t, can sell them to someone else.
That way, people get the benefit of ownership (voting rights/dividends) and not just poli-speak “ownership” which doesn’t mean ownership at all, but actually means no direct vote, no dividends, and the “opportunity” to pay well over the odds, forevermore.
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Although Arana and I hold different views on many things, I too am also not represented by any political party, and neither do consider myself aligned with left or right wing ideology, though I have been… groping for word… accused of being both in this very forum. Thats not to say that there are not good and bad thing both from the left and the right.
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Easy one.
When the “state owned enterprise” rubbish was set up, the government became a “shareholder” and thus wanted “a return on the profits”. Thats profits that the electricity companies of the day didn’t make as a government department.
So from the beginning of SOEville the government skims off our money through our electricity bills. You could in fact call it another form of taxation, or probably more accurately, a duty on electricity use. We’re proud of our lack of tariffs and duties at the border, yet we are rorted by our own government inside the country.
I beleive this was all set up by the leftish government of the day. They did exactly what the current government want to do (ie rort the citizens of money out of our electricity system that we built and paid for), but by a different, perhaps more insidious mechanism.
Perhaps this video explains it all…
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I know – the question was rhetorical
Power is a stealth tax. I do wish these tellers-of-not-the-whole-truth would stop claiming we “own” it, unless by “we” they mean “politicians”. If so, the tellers-of-not-the-whole-truth should make that crystal clear.
I won’t hold my breath, of course.
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“Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind”
Ah, yes! The John Key Way. But that is not the Green Way. You seem to cling most tightly to axioms, Arana (Truth is the first casualty in politics.) Why do you believe such claims? Where is your evidence. I question the correctness of your thinking. I also ask you to provide evidence that Green MPs lie the way John Key lies. You clearly believe that they do. I say they do not.
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Won’t Get Fooled Again sums it up both succinctly and…loudly
Townsend also said: “Expect nothing and you might gain everything. The song was meant to let politicians and revolutionaries alike know that what lay in the centre of my life was not for sale, and could not be co-opted into any obvious cause”
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Give it up, Greenfly.
“I’ll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I’ll get all my papers and smile at the sky
For I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?
There’s nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now the parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight”
Riddle me this. Was this true?
15 March 2007 Bradford says “I have never called it an anti-smacking bill – my opponents did, and the media adopted the phrase”
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Arana! Are you drinking? It’s Sunday afternoon!!
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No answer, I see.
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It is true. Media-speak.
If you really (really) have nothing better to do, all the gory deatils are right here on this blog, blow by blow…
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Not (arm) waving, but drowning. As Stevie Smith may have said….
Perhaps it was just the copy editor. Hard to get good staff these days….
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One also wonders how the leadership could not know about a billboard sticker campaign.
Then again, communication is so difficult these days. Darn fangled txt messaging. And email. And, like, talking. Heat of election campaign. Can’t be expected to know, like, everything that’s going on.
Nope, nothing to see here. We’re all clean n’ clear.
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Arana – there was a question? I saw only a cut and paste job of some lyrics from whatever band you thrilled to when you were young.
dbuckley – you had to dig deep for that one! You might be right and she may have made a mistake in saying that. How seriously do you rate that claim? Up there with, ‘We won’t raise GST’and Bill’s ‘My real home is in Dipton’? I don’t believe that it is impossible for Green MPs to say something untrue, they are human after all, but I believe it has been and will continue to be a very rare event and it is certainly not their modus operandi. The same cannot be said for our present PM and his flunkies, I believe.
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Arana – at least dbuckley (being a rational thinker) had something of some substance. All you could muster was half-baked innuendo and thin supposition. That’s a fail.
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Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
A bit before my time, actually, but the message remains true today. If I were to quote songs from my youth, I’d probably have to quote “Such a dirty mind. Always get it up for the touch of the younger kind. My my my i yi woo. M M M My Sharona…”
…but I think we can all agree, that doesn’t have quite the same relevance.
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Politicians never lie, of course. An absolutely preposterous suggestion.
The English language is just so…..versatile.
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Ghandi and Key – same boss?
You are so cynical.
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I don’t expect politicians to be saints, Greenfly, any more so than I expect company directors to be saints.
I like to keep a large jar of salt handy.
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But I’ll give you this – of all parties in parliament, I feel the Greens appear to act with the most integrity if I had to rank party by party.
And I rate Kevin Hague, and think he’d make an excellent Minister of health someday. There are some very capable individuals in parliament, across National, Labour and The Greens.
I’m not a party person, really. There are some good people, who do good things, some of the time. Sadly, the reverse is also true.
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Is that for the pickling I mentioned earlier?
Your political ideology seems to consist primarily of cliches and throwaway phrases of little substance.
Let’s fathom your depth. You say,
“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
A bit before my time, actually, but the message remains true today.”
Can you show me how that message remains true today? perhaps some examples to illustrate your claim? Then, if you’d be so kind, could you relate it to the discussion we are having about Green MPs, whom I claim have integrity all the honesty you could expect from any human beings. All this in light of my claims that Key and Co have made numerous dishonest claims, something you were keen to agree with further up the thread.
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There at 5:10, a moment of clarity from you and one I appreciate.
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Again, with Arana, the Green MPs are all clearly people with integrity, even though I flat out disagree with some things they say.
Even though I particularly disagreed with Bradford on many things, I would stake an awful lot that she never uttered the words “anti-smacking” other than as a rebuttal.
The problem with that particular piece of legislation is that to admit the existance of it on the Frogblog is almost akin to Godwin’s law; you mention it and the thread rapidly degenerates into a carbon copy of probably a hundred other threads where well-tested arguments on all sides of the debate are rehashed… ad nauseum. Please…. not again… Even by saying this I am risking the men in white coats dragging me off…
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One example would be National vs Labour. The similarities are far greater than the differences, hence “Meet the new boss, same as the old Boss”
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That’s very gracious, dbuckley and your sentiment describes what it is I stake my political ‘reputation’ on. Don’t ever let me down, Greenies! I can get very annoying!
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It’s the truth. I also agree with dbuckley in that I disagree with almost everything the Greens say.
And sorry dbuckley, I will not talk of “the scottish play” again.
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Ah, Arana! Common ground!
But I’m talking Green MPs here.
You can compare Key and Clark til the cows come home for all I care.
I’d have Turei and Norman in the number one spot (?) any day.
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And as a bonus, you’d see me selling up and heading to Australia or Canada.
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Should it ever happen that the Greens get to be the number one party, that would cause an interesting conundrum, in that there isn’t a job title of 50% Prime Minister available.
It is interesing to see what a dogs dinner the sort-of-co-leaders in the UK are making. I’m not following it at all, but there seems to be a lot of static on the dial over there…
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I’ll wave you off at the airport, Arana.
Tell me, if you would, you say there is no one in the present parliament who represents you and your political ideals – just what do you subscribe too?
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It used to be such an easy question to answer.
I grew up working class, so that meant I voted Labour. Those were the “rules”. I was left wing at University, but I got disillusioned with it. When I got into business, my politics moved more right-wing/libertarian, with a small l, although I’m not happy with either of those labels. I prefer individualism over committees.
I admire an old working class left that seems to have disappeared these days. The Welsh miners would build libraries for their kids, and pools, and would look after you BUT you had to pull your weight. You had obligations. Those who didn’t got short shift – with rights came responsibilities.
I agree with The Greens on a few issues – drug reform, gay rights, internet freedom.
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Hmmm… could you join a fraternity such as the Masons, Arana? They seem to operate in the manner of the Welsh miners with regards reciprocal help.
I’m encouraged by you today though; you say that you feel the Greens appear to act with the most integrity of all the parties. That’s some praise indeed from an antagonist like you. You say you are not a party person, so I don’t ever expect you to endorse the Greens, but you did cite several Green policies that you do support – again, I’m bouyed by your comments. The ‘leaving for Australia’ stuff I just ignored as nonsense, as you’d earlier made the ‘new boss, same as the old boss’ comment, which would necessitate your having to leave the country now, having said Key is the same as Turei and Norman – if you’d leave because of them, you’d have to leave because of him, if you had integrity and believed your claim about bosses.
I don’t think you have a credible political ideology at all. I think you create your position in relation to your criticisms of the ideologies of others, hence your presence here.
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I think some people like to put other people in boxes. Tag them with a label. It’s a religious thing – you’ve got your church, the other guy is from the other church. Clear demarcation. You know where the edges are – you stay within them. It’s easier that way.
I don’t think people are like that in practice. Most people are contradictions. For most people, it’s fuzzy. I could put myself in, say, a libertarian church and argue from that position. It would be very easy. I know where the edges are. I know the positions to take.
But real life isn’t really like that….
Real life transcends ideology. It’s a bit messy. It’s hard to see the edges, sometimes.
I like to stay fluid, Greenfly.
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We are well on our way to getting there, over the last 3-4 days we have collected over 1000 signatures in Invercargill. This is the easiest petition that I have ever collected signatures for.
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sprout – 1000 more ? From Invercargill! That’s astonishing. Key is in for a whipping over this.
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Greenfly says of Arana:
That describes me. I don’t have an ideology. I support certain “things”, things that are good ideas from all over the political spectrum, but I don’t have an “ideology”, let alone a credible one.
Sprout, BJ et al – keep collecting those signatures, and well done.
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Fluid? Slippery, more like.
I’ve put my stake in the ground.
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dbuckley – you must have an ideology, otherwise you’d be a drifting dingy – something must guide your decisions to support one idea or another.
Perhaps you mean you don’t subscribe to the ideology of a particular party or political movement; Anarchist, Libertarian, Communist, Randian etc.
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So has an Islamist.
I have a stake in the ground, it just doesn’t fit into the available categories, unless liberalsmallgovernmentskepticalpragmatism is a category.
Even then…
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unless liberalsmallgovernmentskepticalpragmatism is a category.
Arana – Skepticism isn’t really an ideology so you can cross that one out.
I think you can in fact be fairly easily categorised as a Classic Liberal given the positions you purport to hold on a number of subjects.
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Sometimes I think social liberals have the right idea, other times I agree with market liberals. But you might be right – if I must be put into a box, I guess that one seems to fit.
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Ah! A Classic Liberal! That’s the label on your stake. Islamists have stakes too, as you do.
You’re no different from them in that regard.
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Arana – you are also quite right is assessing that your ideology has no representation in Parliament.
Scope for creating your own party methinks! The New Whigs?
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Heh heh. I iz in da box….
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liberalsmallgovernmentskepticalpragmatism
Yep, add me to that list.
Greenfly should be happy, he has a token to label us by now.
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I think this individual is best served by engaging in business, not politics.
But debating can be fun and informative.
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So what is it that brings you New Whigs to Frogblog?
Nothing better to do?
Or are you prothlesizing?
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I suspect you are attracted by the quality of debate here, as well as the positive energy Greens exude. You don’t like what we say, but you admire our verve. That’s what I reckon.
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The quality of the debate here is good. Interesting topics. The Greens seem to be more philosophical than most, especially about big picture topics. Yes, I do admire your verve.
Compare this with The Standard, which appears to be almost entirely about John Key and who is stabbing who within Labour. Strange lot.
I also follow Cactus Kate, Kiwiblog, NotPC, WhaleOil, Liberty Scott, Liberation and Bowally Road. What do other people here read?
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Dimpost and Cactus Kate for me.
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The ArchDruid Report for me.
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National has the anti-midas touch, that is to say everything they touch turns to crap .
The asset theft/sale debacle is a prime example of just how incompetent and useless the Nats are, I mean really, what kind of blinkered moron would you have to be to not see Maori issues arising over water?.
A National party moron of course ….
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