National has a big asset-sale problem

Written By: - Date published: 4:36 pm, December 16th, 2013 - 128 comments
Categories: democratic participation, referendum - Tags:

In the continuing deluge of information post referendum, lets have a wee look at some analysis where the vote for No came from. Even in National held electorates, their MPs have big turnouts and big votes against asset sales. I’ve chosen to put this image in turnout order purely to illustrate the point that Matthew Hooten can’t read numbers. The turnout across the country is highly uneven. In postal votes, the South Island and National held electorates generally turn out far more than Labour or Auckland urban electorates.

It also again illustrates Rob Salmond’s point that the postal voting system effectively disenfranchises electorates with large numbers of Maori and Pasifika.

The other images can be seen here.

turnout high-low data - Imgur

Click on image to get larger version.

So to summarize, the asset sales program is highly disliked across all of rural and provincial NZ – most of which is in National held electorates.

About the only electorates that liked assets sales were (surprise, surprise) where the bankers, stock market clowns, and investors hang out. Epsom, Tamaki, Helensville, Botany, parts of the North Shore in Auckland, etc. In short the home and haunts of the favoured 1% for whom the theft of assets for the rest of the voters was designed to assist.

The really bad news for National is that most of the voter turnout was (as expected) National voters who in most National held electorates largely voted against the asset sales almost two to one. Especially in the provincial seats that National has to hold to retain the treasury benches.

The turnout differences between seats in a postal vote are far more pronounced than general elections almost exactly following the deprivation indexes. Which once again reinforces that postal votes are effectively discriminatory against the poor.  You can see why National preferred to waste $9 million holding this referendum vote out from the general election. The results for National’s mythical “Mandate” with a higher turnout in Labour, Maori party, and Mana held electorates would have been disastrous.

128 comments on “National has a big asset-sale problem ”

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  1. Rogue Trooper 1
    16 December 2013 at 4:40 pm

    Hey, I only just commented about this in ‘The Working Class’ thread (very good thread too, I might tell you), and now there’s the opportunity to do so again.

    • lprent 1.1
      16 December 2013 at 4:46 pm

      Good graphics eh. Bloody amazing that with the exception of only relative handful and half, most of the National electorates most voted two to one against asset sales.

  2. Richard Christie 2
    16 December 2013 at 4:56 pm

    Do people in here intentionally misspell Hooton’s surname?
    Not that I particularly object, it’s just that I see it too often for it to be explained by other reasons.

  3. emergency mike 3
    16 December 2013 at 5:12 pm

    From this chart we could figure out what the overall yes/no vote would have been if there was a 100% turnout if we had a list of the voting population numbers for each electorate. I’d say even the lowest turnout of 28.9% is enough to make a reasonable assumption about for that electorate. If there is a statistician here they’d be able to whip up a margin of error I’m sure.

    • McFlock 3.1
      16 December 2013 at 5:38 pm

      nah, because it’s self-selecting and the nats would argue a heavy advertising bias. The old “we knew we were going to lose so we didn’t even try, just to make you look silly” gambit.

      But 900k votes are still 900k votes. They can tell themselves no nats voted “no”, but when they’re hanging on to power with <50% of the vote + 2 rotten boroughs … I'm happy for them to pretend that that's the case 🙂

      • lprent 3.1.1
        16 December 2013 at 5:46 pm

        It is the vote in those relatively high turnout provincial seats that has to be the killer for National. If Labour puts up a credible team and platform, then 1999 and 2002 shows that the vote can move pretty rapidly in those electorates against National.

        That being said, I really don’t want Labour to focus too much on that short-term gain. They need to concentrate on the enrolled non-voters and non-enrolled young voters. Because that is where they get their long-term electoral power base from. Making sure that they aren’t just scrapping with National over a fickle and aging but solid voting centre is a negative game for Labour.

        Quite simply the non-voters are the fastest growing demographic in the country. That is where they need to concentrate their efforts.

        • Matthew Hooton 3.1.1.1
          16 December 2013 at 6:00 pm

          lprent, not sure you are right that the non-vote is fastest growing demographic in the country. In 2002, the non-vote was 614,645. That dropped to 543,258 in 2005 and returned to 614,308 in 2008. It then jumped to 792,011 in 2011. So there is a general trend up, but the total roll also increased from 2,670.049 in 2002 to 3,071,000 in 2011. So the non-vote is important and Labour-Green is right to chase it but there are probably more than 500,000 people who will never vote no matter what anyone tells them. Also, I think our rolls are getting messy. For example, when you are asked to renew, you get a letter saying “if nothing has changed then you need to do nothing”. So when someone moves flat/house/country, if no one forwards that letter on, or they don’t contact the Electoral Commission proactively, they remain on the roll in that electorate even if they have moved overseas. So the 3,071,000 on the roll in 2011 is probably also inflated, which means the true 2011 non-vote is a bit lower than “the missing million” – actually 792,011 – that David Cunliffe has spoken of.

          • Paul 3.1.1.1.1
            16 December 2013 at 6:08 pm

            Spin…spin

            • Matthew Hooton 3.1.1.1.1.1
              16 December 2013 at 6:14 pm

              Thank you for engaging with your normal intelligence with the points I have raised above.

              • McFlock …
                16 December 2013 at 6:31 pm

                To be fair, you did take a lot of words to say fuck all of any use or point.

                • felix …
                  16 December 2013 at 6:49 pm

                  That could be his epitaph one day.

                  • rhinocrates …
                    16 December 2013 at 10:19 pm

                    It would be an epitaph, but how can the someone who never lived die?

                    Thank you for engaging with your normal intelligence with the points I have raised above.

                    I have to say that its pomposity and pretense to “dignity” is amusing, like a cat caught tripping up which then starts licking its paws. Hoots pretending to be an intellectual – that has to be funny.

                    • lurgee …
                      17 December 2013 at 7:33 am

                      Some very unpleasant and childish spite, above, directed at someone trying to make a contribution. Grow up, nasty little boys.

                      Is this another example of Rhinocrates’s ‘necessary abusive bullying’? Still, excellent self-description in your final paragraph, Rhino!

                    • rhinocrates …
                      17 December 2013 at 11:34 pm

                      Oh, disease, poor Hoots, he’s such a victim, isn’t he?

                      Nope, sorry, I’ve no intention of growing up at all, disease. The people who try too hard at that generally don’t turn out well. They do weird things like buying Holdens and living in suburbs.

                    • lurgee …
                      18 December 2013 at 7:28 am

                      Did I say he was a victim? I simply recalled some comments you made about bullies and the necessity of exposing them. I pointed out you were quite happy to behave in similar behaviour yourself – your personal attacks on Hooten being another instance. You immediately engaged in the classic abuser’s behaviour of denial and justification. As here. Face it. You are what you purport to despise – an internet bully boy. And you probably own a Holden and live in the suburbs, just to complete the picture.

                      P.S. I think I also recall you getting Very Upset when I suggested someone as thin-skinned as yourself shouldn’t be named after the noble Rhinoceros. You replied with some rather surreal and spittle flecked yowling about how I had no right to tell another poster what to call themselves. Nice to see you again demonstrating bottomless hypocrisy by changing my moniker to ‘disease.’ Don’t confuse my comment for caring – your barbs are rather blunt.

          • Draco T Bastard 3.1.1.1.2
            16 December 2013 at 7:02 pm

            For example, when you are asked to renew, you get a letter saying “if nothing has changed then you need to do nothing”. So when someone moves flat/house/country, if no one forwards that letter on, or they don’t contact the Electoral Commission proactively, they remain on the roll in that electorate even if they have moved overseas.

            Last time I moved house within a week I had a letter from the Electoral Commission asking me to update my details.

            GENERAL ELECTIONS 1853-2011 – DATES AND TURNOUT
            When doing comparisons of turnout for voting you need to use percentages and not raw numbers. That means that such comparisons are like to like rather than being spin which is what you gave us.

            which means the true 2011 non-vote is a bit lower than “the missing million” – actually 792,011 – that David Cunliffe has spoken of.

            And, despite decades being a jonolist you seem to never have heard of hyperbole, exaggeration and rounding.

          • emergency mike 3.1.1.1.3
            16 December 2013 at 7:20 pm

            Thanks for the concern Matthew.

            Let’s listen to Hooten and forget about the 800,000 people who weren’t inspired enough to vote in 2011. I guess we should go back to the tired old same old same of trying to woo voters from National with don’t-rock-the-boat policy waffle that’s slightly to the left of the right of centre.

      • emergency mike 3.1.2
        16 December 2013 at 7:10 pm

        “nah, because it’s self-selecting”

        True, but if it’s OK for Key to come up with “Three quarters of New Zealanders said no,” then I think coming up with a number like this would be a good and fair PR response.

        People like numbers more than rationalizations, which is why Key can spin this referendum any way he likes and still loses.

  4. Quincepickle 4
    16 December 2013 at 5:16 pm

    Postal voting doesn’t appear to be any different from election balloting in terms of what electorates have the lowest turnout – the Maori and South Auckland electorates *always* have much lower turnout than other electorates, regardless of the measure of voting. The lower overall turnout with postal votes just makes the Maori and South Auckland vote turnout look even more dire. The poor turnout is a result of wider societal issues, not from postal voting itself.

    • Rogue Trooper 4.1
      16 December 2013 at 10:46 pm

      -Medlarjelly
      “The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends”. – Timon of Athens

  5. Matthew Hooton 5
    16 December 2013 at 5:43 pm

    So, in conservative Clutha-Southland 28% of people voted against the MOM. And in Dunedin South 41% voted against the MOM. Look, there is no doubt the left won the referendum and a majority of people are against the MOM, but this referendum result demonstrates that most opponents are not as passionate about the issue as Labour-Green has assumed. Certainly, this issue doesn’t raise the same passions as smacking did, for example, or longer prison sentences, or cutting MP numbers.

    • blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 5.1
      16 December 2013 at 6:06 pm

      The clearest message of this referendum is that there are extremely low numbers of people who support the sales.

      Little wonder Key is saying stranger and stranger things by the day to cover the fact. He should simply concede defeat – it would be a better look. Good on you for admitting the obvious Hooton – albeit while attempting to marginalize the overwhelming nature of the result.

    • Paul 5.2
      16 December 2013 at 6:12 pm

      Spin…spin
      The corporates must be terrified.

    • Tigger 5.3
      16 December 2013 at 6:20 pm

      “but this referendum result demonstrates that most opponents are not as passionate about the issue as Labour-Green has assumed.”

      Interesting spin. Here’s mine – the referendum shows that when a government does its best to skew democracy, for example when, where and how to hold a referendum, it affects democracy. For the worse. Which is nothing to be proud, or smug, about.

      • Paul 5.3.1
        16 December 2013 at 6:32 pm

        It is when you’re someone like Hooton.
        As long as he’s doing ok, then he’ll spin anything for his corporate clients.
        Some people have no principles.

        • rhinocrates 5.3.1.1
          16 December 2013 at 10:25 pm

          Oh come now, Hoots has plenty of principles – and he puts a high value on them too, making sure that he sells them for the highest price that he can get!

    • lprent 5.4
      16 December 2013 at 6:23 pm

      Actually this is exactly what I was saying the other day when you were blathering about a even distribution. This is a electorate distribution that is tilted towards National rural/provincial and South Island electorates for turnout. It is highly likely that this displays that National’s voters from 2011 don’t think that they gave National a mandate to flog off their assets to their urban money mates. In fact I’d say that they’re kind of pissed about it.

      In most of the relatively conservative provincial and small city electorates (including some of the Labour ones), there was a pretty good turnout for a postal vote. It was mostly two to one against Nationals asset thefts.

      As expected for a postal vote National held conservative provincial electorates generally got 25% more turnout than the mid urban electorates when Labour and Green support is concentrated. Basically the poorer urban demographics don’t vote nearly as much in postal elections.

      Those same National held conservative provincial seats had about a 60% higher turnout than the poorest electorates seats in the country. Again exactly what you’d expect to see in a electorate where the most deprived vote the least in any postal vote.

      Basically it was almost certainly that National voters from 2011 who were the major voters against the asset thefts.

    • mac1 5.5
      16 December 2013 at 7:10 pm

      In conservative Kaikoura, (National party vote 57% in 2011), 64 % of the voters, 14209 in all, voted No. Even if every Labour/Green?Mana/NZ First in 2011 had voted and voted No, there were still 1412 Nats/Conz/UF/Act voyers who voted No!

      The National Majority in 1999 (post the Bradford electricity reforms) in Kaikoura was 1486.

      Nats I have spoken to- the astute among them were against asset sales. The sales just were not good business sense, for them.

      • Rogue Trooper 5.5.1
        16 December 2013 at 10:49 pm

        Boundary Road – Arabica Dabra ; yummy.

        • mac1 5.5.1.1
          16 December 2013 at 11:07 pm

          Auckland brewery, there, Rogue Trooper. Down here, it’s about Renaissance Elemental Porter or 8-Wired I-stout. (Moa sold out to metro Auckland and its mysognystic and homophobic advertising geniuses. A bit of a connection there between how to spoil a good beer brand and how to spoil a country. Its beer sales are down the tubes as well, after a big share holding sale to big business interests- like the asset sales.)

    • Matthew Whitehead 5.6
      16 December 2013 at 11:31 pm

      LOL, because it’s an actual issue and not manufactured outrage, which is always easier to win, but dies out quicker when confronted with reality. The bad will generated by these asset sales isn’t going away, the trick will be capitalising on it. A lot of the people most represented in this poll as against asset theft are cultural National voters- that is, they identify with National regardless of their policies. It’s very hard to convince people like that to swing their vote. Rather, the likely result is decreased rural turnout at the next election.

      What I’d take home from the referendum:
      1) The opposition has won the argument on asset sales, not that the government ever intended to engage in it. This referendum was really about making it clear how to the media how big of a punching bag this issue is for the government.
      2) National could have a real voter flight problem at the next election, in addition to its lack of tenable allies. Cultural National voters won’t switch to a party on the other side of the aisle easily, but they don’t have to turn out if they’re disgusted with their party. It’s usually a matter of supporter flight that changes government anyway, so I wouldn’t be surprised.
      3) The referendum really doesn’t directly suggest any level of support for the opposition parties, however. It will take hard work to generate that support, on both a policy and political level.

      • Francis 5.6.1
        17 December 2013 at 3:02 pm

        There’s also a possibility that some of them could move to a party like NZ First, which opposes most of National’s economic policy but holds a more conservative social policy than those on the left. Hard to say if that would be better or worse for those on the left than if they simply didn’t vote at all.

    • Skinny 5.7
      17 December 2013 at 10:05 am

      The sale of our assets has left a bitter taste to most people, apart from the Aussie Bankers & the rich investors. Anyone trying to say otherwise is a mug. 

      If I was Cunliffe I’d start talking up a buy back less costs. See he is keeping that option alive on morning tv today. 

      Key, Joyce & co may well have thought they got off relatively lightly, however compounding interest is going to see them take a pretty nasty hit in 2014.

      Key & Joyce are panicked, announcing the Avatar deal so soon after the referendum was bad timing. People saw it for what it was ‘damage control’.

      Something is up with the Chorus share trades. Someone has messed up squeaking a fav over Xmas drinks. Flush them out is my advice, any implied link to National would infuriate the masses.

      • Francis 5.7.1
        17 December 2013 at 3:06 pm

        I heard something about Cunliffe offering to buy them back if they get in, subject to finances (like they did with Air NZ and the railways). I believe that’s been their policy for a while, same with the Greens. Though it’s hard to put a firm commitment in when you don’t know how much damage National will have done by the 2014 election.

  6. swordfish 6
    16 December 2013 at 6:05 pm

    Yeah, in a comment earlier this afternoon (Open Mike 16/12/13), I set-out a quick bit of number-crunching I’d undertaken to test the Hooton/Tory Troll claims (namely that turnout was either (1) greater in Labour-held seats or (2) “fairly even throughout the country” (Hooton’s specific claim)).

    I used the Party-Vote (specifically, which Bloc – Left or Right – won in 2011) as the basis for determining the political complexion of each seat. (While Lynn employs a brilliant-looking and quite illuminating table, its one weakspot is that it uses the Candidate-Vote as the basis for colour-coding each seat. For example, in terms of high-turnout seats, although West Coast-Tasman is colour-coded Red, the Right had actually beaten the Left by 52 to 42% in the 2011 Party-Vote there. Similarly, in terms of low-turnout seats, although some of the Maori seats are colour-coded Black for the National/Right-aligned Maori Party MPs, they were, of course, all easily won by the Left in terms of the Party-Vote.

    So, to repeat my little bit of analysis, looking at the 20 seats with the HIGHEST turnout, we find that no less than 17 were won by the RIGHT in 2011 (and, what’s more, I’d classify only 1 of those 17 as MARGINAL RIGHT, the rest were either STRONG or FAIRLY STRONG RIGHT).

    Of the 20 seats with the LOWEST turnout, 14 were won by the LEFT in 2011, 6 by the RIGHT (and every single one of the 10 LOWEST-turnout seats were LEFT-leaning).

  7. blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 7
    16 December 2013 at 6:16 pm

    Good on you lprent, for taking time to carefully explain the results to Hooton and co. whom appear to be having a great deal of trouble understanding the blatantly obvious.

    All this business about ‘fairly even turnout’ and ‘3/4 of NZ supporting the sell-off’ I guess we are watching the effects of people having their self induced delusions shattered Poor wee dears. Perhaps they might be more cautious about swallowing their Dear Leader’s spin hook, line and sinker in future?

    • Matthew Hooton 7.1
      16 December 2013 at 6:21 pm

      I don’t think anyone has ever said 3/4 of people support the MOM. It has always been acknowledged, even by the prime minister, that most people are opposed if asked to say yes or no to this single policy. The point, that the prime minister judged correctly in 2011 and Labour judged incorrectly, and which appears to have been confirmed by the referendum result, is that while around 30% feel very passionately that the policy is wrong, most people don’t care as much as Labour-Green and the media have assumed.

      • Paul 7.1.1
        16 December 2013 at 6:23 pm

        Who pays you to write this stuff?

      • felix 7.1.2
        16 December 2013 at 6:45 pm

        “I don’t think anyone has ever said 3/4 of people support the MOM.”

        Except John Key.

        • Tracey 7.1.2.1
          17 December 2013 at 3:26 pm

          Well except for John key, unless you mean John Key, the Prime Minister who HootEn says never said that. Or probably didnt mean what he said and his words mean something totally different. Fortunately we have one of his interpreters in Mr HootEn to help us all out.

      • KJT 7.1.3
        16 December 2013 at 6:47 pm

        It doesn’t seem to occur to Key, or you, for that matter, that if 2/3 of the owners vote against selling their property, then selling it is a criminal activity.

      • swordfish 7.1.4
        16 December 2013 at 6:56 pm

        @ Young Master Hooton : “…around 30% feel very passionately that the policy is wrong, most people don’t care…”

        Nope. The one poll I’ve seen that attempts that sort of strength-of-feeling breakdown (Massey’s 2011 New Zealand Study of Values Survey) suggested that roughly half of New Zealanders were ‘Strongly’ opposed, with more than another quarter ‘More or Less’ opposed. A mere 8% were ‘more or less’ in favour, with a tiny – an incredibly tiny !!! – 1% ‘Strongly’ in favour.

        Given that opposition has increased by almost 10 percentage points over the last year-and-a-half, you’d have to assume that ‘Strong’ opposition has increased to more than 50% now.

        Here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/polls/5993822/Voters-turned-off-by-SOE-retirement-policies

        • Paul 7.1.4.1
          16 December 2013 at 7:02 pm

          It is young Mister Hooton’s job to play with statistics.

        • Tracey 7.1.4.2
          17 December 2013 at 3:28 pm

          Your mistake was not putting those figures through the HootEnator, or Keynoming it. It translates to exactly what Key or Hooten say it means.

      • blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 7.1.5
        16 December 2013 at 7:01 pm

        @ Hooton

        “I don’t think anyone has ever said 3/4 of people support the MOM. ” ~Hooton 16/12/2013

        “Three in four New Zealanders said no we don’t agree with Labour and the Greens. I think it will be a dismal failure from their point of view.” ~ John Key 14/12/2013

        • Paul 7.1.5.1
          16 December 2013 at 7:18 pm

          He’s on a conference call with a foreign client on ‘something unrelated to NZ politics’.

          • blue leopard (Get Lost GCSB Bill) 7.1.5.1.1
            16 December 2013 at 7:35 pm

            …yes, not to his masters…

            …they don’t need to give him any tips on how to spin this PR disaster or anything….

            …he’s managing just fine by himself…

            …erhem….

      • Tracey 7.1.6
        17 December 2013 at 3:23 pm

        “Three in four New Zealanders said no we don’t agree with Labour and the Greens. I think it will be a dismal failure from their point of view.” – John Key

  8. Paul 8
    16 December 2013 at 6:24 pm

    You seem to be…

  9. swordfish 9
    16 December 2013 at 6:29 pm

    My earlier comment’s still in moderation for some reason.

    • swordfish 9.1
      16 December 2013 at 7:10 pm

      And STILL my 6.05 pm turnout analysis is sitting quietly awaiting moderation !!! Still, then again, they say life’s a veil of tears, don’t they.

      [lprent: I was comforting a miserable and coughing Lyn. ]

      • Colonial Viper 9.1.1
        16 December 2013 at 7:38 pm

        🙂 suffering refines and purifies the soul, so they say

        • swordfish 9.1.1.1
          16 December 2013 at 7:52 pm

          Well, in that case, CV, I now have a particularly stylish, sophisticated and urbane soul. Because, INCREDIBLY !!!, my 6.05 comment’s STILL languishing quietly on a secluded beach somewhere in the upper reaches of moderation-land.

          [Sorry just released it and I have no idea why it went into moderation … MS]

          [lprent: There are couple of people getting over moderated at present. I’ll check in the morning if there is a glitch in the aour moderation lists. You could just (if you don’t have a static IP) try restarting your internet ADSL. That often works because the IP you were using may have been tagged.

          BTW: I had to give up akismet last week as it got overwhelmed. The new protection is very finicky about how you get your references to us. This may target some browsers more than others. But it is also very very good at eliminating spam. ]

          • swordfish 9.1.1.1.1
            16 December 2013 at 8:17 pm

            Cheers, Mickey.

            • swordfish 9.1.1.1.1.1
              17 December 2013 at 12:07 am

              @ 1prent : “I was comforting a miserable and coughing Lyn.”

              Ahh, now I feel like a right prick ! My moaning was meant to be tongue-in-cheek (albeit with just the slightest modicum of irritation underneath), but reading my comments back, I can see it comes across quite clearly as LOUD UPPER-CASE SHOUTING, with explanation marks to boot !!!

              I gave all the appearance of a spoiled brat.

              Apologies to both you, Mickey (and, indeed, Lyn).

  10. red blooded 10
    16 December 2013 at 6:41 pm

    Hey, let’s turn back the clock, so that the referendum might have a hope of actually influencing policy and saving the assets, then see how many people feel passionate enough to vote.

    Given the dire circumstances in which the referendum was being held, the turn out was reasonable.

    • Paul 10.1
      16 December 2013 at 6:45 pm

      Hooton knows that only a tiny minority of people actually support asset sales and that an even smaller group has actually bought these shares.
      It’s his job to represent that tiny group’s interests, so he’ll spin and spin statistics here and there and hope that some people will believe him. His masters need those people to vote against their own interests.

  11. greywarbler 11
    16 December 2013 at 6:45 pm

    MOM? Meeting of Minds? Memorandum of Markets? It won’t come – can someone advice what it means please.

    • KJT 11.1
      16 December 2013 at 6:53 pm

      Mixed ownership model.

      And yes, I don’t like overuse of initials, either.

      One of the annoying things when you work with North Americans.

      Especially when it should be CTONZA (Continued theft of New Zealander’s assets).

      ETC (“Enclosure of the commons”) would be another good description.

      • greywarbler 11.1.1
        17 December 2013 at 9:47 am

        KJT
        Thnx. It obviously is important to reduce everything to its skeleton in our time-poor culture and understanding is unimportant as so much has no meaning or rationality anyway.

        One of my bugbears is the practice of not giving businesses actual word names. ABC Motels doesn’t convey anything except a desire to be near the top of an alpha list, AAA Motels better. The actual AA stands for Automobile Association.

        If it is a short form for an already well-known longer name and used as a logo, there is a basis behind the letters ie the old social service group Crippled Childrens Society is now called CCS, which is better shorter, and doesn’t spell out literally the Crippled word that now has negative connotations that don’t indicate the positive activities of the Society and its clients.

        There is a legal firm in Nelson who have named themselves with three English alphabet letters, they might as well make them Russian or Arabic, as they don’t convey any recognisable identity.

    • Paul 11.2
      16 December 2013 at 6:54 pm

      Mixed Ownership Model.
      This is a neoliberal word, translated from the word part privatised. This way they tone down the term and avoid the word privatised which has negative connotations for most people.
      People like Hooton know the power of language so ensure they use neo-liberal vocabulary to frame discussions.
      The most famous example would be the use of the word consumer to describe people, not citizen.

      • Colonial Viper 11.2.1
        16 December 2013 at 8:06 pm

        The neolib think tanks have the absolute best psychologists and PR types. You just have to wonder at the efficient, destructive, invasive beauty of it all, quite like the Ebola virus.

      • Tracey 11.2.2
        17 December 2013 at 3:30 pm

        Has to be MOM, cos Selling what we already own to enable tax breaks for the top earners and overseas companies wouldnt work

        SWWAOTETBFTTEAOC

    • Plan B 11.3
      16 December 2013 at 11:27 pm

      It says Mom, like apple pie, no one hates their mom, it’s the american way

  12. Paul 12
    16 December 2013 at 7:39 pm

    True fact

  13. Paul 13
    16 December 2013 at 8:23 pm

    Something happened to that comment…sort of disappeared off my screen.

  14. fabregas4 14
    16 December 2013 at 8:35 pm

    I really hate to say it but Hooton is correct. Most Kiwis hate asset sales – the 80’s bullshit did that to us all. But they don’t care enough to change their vote – evidence last election. I reckon this is because we have, in the main, become so disenfranchised that most of us think that we can’t do anything about it and vote on things that affect our day to day survival – little stuff mostly – until asset sales can be linked to widespread poverty/job loss etc then no one will care much past knowing that it is kinda a bad thing.

    • Enough is Enough 14.1
      17 December 2013 at 9:29 am

      I agree,

      This isn’t an election winner.

      The abject poverty and bullshit capitalist system we live in needs to be the 2014 focus

    • srylands 14.2
      17 December 2013 at 3:35 pm

      Whether or not the Crown sells down a few SOEs is just not important. Unbelievable this obsession you people have with who owns electricity companies. Most countries have privatisation programmes that are mature – over 30 years old. Get over it.

      • Tracey 14.2.1
        17 December 2013 at 3:38 pm

        Unbelievable the obsession you have with people who object to asset sales.

      • Colonial Viper 14.2.2
        17 December 2013 at 3:52 pm

        Hi srylands.

        Thanks for reminding us that the theft of neoliberal privatisation has been a globally co-ordinated phenomenon.

      • KJT 14.2.3
        17 December 2013 at 3:54 pm

        Yep. And the results have been just as bad worldwide.

        • srylands 14.2.3.1
          17 December 2013 at 4:23 pm

          Yes I am sure Comm Bank and Telstra should have stayed in Australian public ownership. It would have been so wealth enhancing. And the current Australian Government is just kicking their predecessors for selling Qantas. They would really love that headache to manage.

          You do realise that it was the Australian Labor Party that was the chief driver of privatisation in that country?

          Anyway it is a battle you have lost. In 10 years the NZ Government will have nothing left to sell. New Zealand Post is a dog. Kiwibank is a dog. Met Service doesn’t matter. Genesis is about to go. Landcorp will be sold by National in 2021. Solid Energy will either go broke or recover and be sold in 2021. Crown Fibre Holdings will be maintained. KiwiRail is a dog. TVNZ had value but will end up a dog.

          So the next privatisation round (for which we will need to wait until after the next Labour Government) will be:

          – 100% of the MOMs
          – Landcorp

          The rest will either by wound up, or remain a drain on the Crown.

          The whole thing is a battle you lost – in reality you lost it 25 years ago. Move on to things that matter. New Zealand deserves a better opposition.

          • Tracey 14.2.3.1.1
            17 December 2013 at 4:36 pm

            ” Move on to things that matter.”

            Examples of which are?

            • srylands 14.2.3.1.1.1
              17 December 2013 at 4:42 pm

              “Examples of which are?”

              Long term benefit dependency.

              Poor education outcomes

              High reliance on income taxes.

              High marginal tax rates.

              Poor quality roads.

              Poor regulation.

              Urban land supply.

              Local government compliance costs.

              Poor management.

              ACC costs for small business.

              Unsustainable retirement income policy.

              Shallow capital market.

              Poor savings rates.

              Minimum wage too high.

              Finishing multilateral free trade efforts.

              Complete all regulatory harmonisation with Australia.

              High levels of wasteful public spending – e.g interest free student loans.

              .. I could go on but you get the picture.

              • McFlock …
                17 December 2013 at 4:58 pm

                myth
                national’s fault
                not a problem
                a problem that they’re not higher
                less trucks would help
                not enough regulation
                discourage profiteering developers – national housing expansion
                not a problem
                make management training mandatory for private sector employers of >5 staff
                up the cullen fund
                not a problem
                increase incomes so more people have disposable readies to save
                on the contrary, far too low
                I agree – cancel them all
                no, because we’re not a continent-sized desert.
                that’s not spending, it’s a paltry investment in our future GDP.

                • srylands …
                  17 December 2013 at 5:00 pm

                  You are an example of the problem.

                  • Tracey …
                    17 December 2013 at 5:05 pm

                    as are you

                  • McFlock …
                    17 December 2013 at 5:18 pm

                    you base that on categorical assertions that are not replicated or even replicatable.

                    Your religious dogmatism is part of the problem

                    • Rogue Trooper …
                      17 December 2013 at 5:40 pm

                      I’ll just reply here so I’m free to go and learn some more magic tricks. 😀
                      That reply regarding “adept” was beautifully put, even looked it up old school.
                      When you know the model you are working on you need less tools.
                      The benefits to me from a paper in Cognitive Psychology, apart from adopting that system of models to satisfy, was the concepts of ‘networking’ and ‘parallel-processing’.
                      Yet, you know, information-processing models abound, ‘modules’ yadda yadda.

                      Whereas, fMRI and related-imaging reveals real-time support for my preference for a ‘wave’ model, involving NT’s, Hormones, Glia, Neurons etc in sympathy; The very waves the more adept in their fields manipulate consciously, personally, or otherwise.

                  • Colonial Viper …
                    17 December 2013 at 6:15 pm

                    You are an example of the problem.

                    Ahhhhh the natural drift into neo-fascism/feudalism.

              • Tracey …
                17 December 2013 at 5:00 pm

                Thanks for the chuckle srylands

          • greywarbler 14.2.3.1.2
            17 December 2013 at 6:05 pm

            You do realise that it was the Australian Labor Party that was the chief driver of privatisation in that country?

            Srylands you do realise the hegemonic pressure of free markets neo liberal economic thinking and big business propaganda has a great effect on the voting public and of course the funding of political parties is always a concern, and then there are the lobbyists offering sweet deals that will sound good to the guileless voters. Who actually often think they are smart if they are in a business-type situation such as contractors, but who are really just wage workers who provide their own resources.

            • Tracey 14.2.3.1.2.1
              17 December 2013 at 6:24 pm

              Remember srylands thinks that pro and anti assets is about whether you re in the labour or Nact “team”. he struggles to understand anything much deeper than that.

      • lprent 14.2.4
        17 December 2013 at 4:25 pm

        We have had 30 year old asset sales as well. They mostly failed because they provided a way for private companies to take monopoly profits while running down the infrastructure that the rest of the economy required.

        Why do you think that there is no frigging interest in having more dumbarse asset sales with no economic validity?

        • srylands 14.2.4.1
          17 December 2013 at 4:36 pm

          “Why do you think that there is no frigging interest in having more dumbarse asset sales with no economic validity?”

          Because a majority of people are stupid.

          • Tracey 14.2.4.1.1
            17 December 2013 at 4:42 pm

            a majority voted for national and act. Which party did you support srylands?

          • McFlock 14.2.4.1.2
            17 December 2013 at 4:47 pm

            Funny, contempt for democracy is the criticism you fuckers are supposed to make about socialists, not the other way around.

            As if you’re really so awesome that you wouldn’t be in the loading dock of the soylent green factories that your deranged religion will feed us with.

            • Tracey 14.2.4.1.2.1
              17 December 2013 at 4:50 pm

              remember when one of the biggest criticisms by the right of Ms Clark was her supposed contempt for the people and the notion she knew what was best for everyone else? Never is a right winger more angry than when the left make them share…

            • srylands 14.2.4.1.2.2
              17 December 2013 at 4:54 pm

              “Funny, contempt for democracy is the criticism you fuckers are supposed to make about socialists, not the other way around.”

              I have no problem with democracy. When Greens/Labour win in 2014 they can stop the partial sell down, reverse it, set up new SOEs making garden gnomes or whatever.

              I do have a problem in running a country via referendum. It is mad. What would happen in 2015 if National organise a petition for a CIR that put the question : “Do you agree with the new rich prick MTR of 42%” and the referendum said “No” (which is entirely plausible). Is that how you want NZ to work?

              Referenda should be binding and they should be confined to questions like changing the constitution, the electoral system, etc. Not bloody fiscal measures.

          • KJT 14.2.4.1.3
            17 December 2013 at 6:13 pm

            The fact that the majority oppose further asset sales, after the disaster that was the first round, proves you wrong Srylands.

            Some people learn by their mistakes.

    • Tracey 14.3
      17 December 2013 at 4:41 pm

      Do you know where I can find a list of the public assets that have been bought from the proceeds of the asset sales?

  15. Fisiani 15
    17 December 2013 at 10:18 pm

    The referendum was so last week. Not one person will give a jot about it by election time. Employment is growing and the economy is booming. National are currently polling 45-48% and by election time should be over 50%. Add in Conservatives currently 5.7% on Ipredict and UF and MP and that is a stable government of 60%+.

  16. DS 16
    18 December 2013 at 1:49 am

    Asset sales have never been popular (IIRC there was a poll done during the sale of Telecom that showed Nat voters hated it as much as Labour voters). Because of this, the neoliberal Right has put much energy into trying to make it a better sell…

    – Calling it “mixed ownership model”, rather than privatisation. The name even evokes the old “mixed economy”.
    – Referring to “Mum and Dad investors”. Who (insofar as they exist) promptly onsell the shares to big overseas concerns.
    – Using the fawning media to talk about using this to raise revenue. Renationalising “means fewer hip operations”. Never mind that privatisation is sacrificing long-term revenue for a short-term one-off.
    – Discredit the referendum. Now I’m not a fan of CIRs myself, but they’re the system we have. If the Government considers them a waste of money, abolish them. Don’t complain that the avenue of a CIR exists.

    As pointed out up thread though, privatisation is no longer enough to actually get people to change their vote. It’s no longer an issue over which people feel they have any power.

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