Privatisation stalking-horses on the hoof

15 comments on “Privatisation stalking-horses on the hoof ”

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1. stever 1

   17 January 2011 at 3:13 pm

   The phrase “partial listing” should always be replaced by “partial privatisation”, at least. Though, given the plans, replacing it by “privatisation” would be honest.
2. stever 2

   17 January 2011 at 3:22 pm

   Mind you, the two-and-a-half pages of comments on the Herald site so far are encouragingly clear about the dangers of all this. I guess the govt spinners haven’t got onto it yet….
3. Pascal's bookie 3

   17 January 2011 at 4:00 pm

   Some have proposed that the money raised by SOE floats could be used to inject fresh capital into other SOEs, or to fund the acquisition of stakes in new, internationalising Kiwi ventures.

   Geez, Susan Watson and Chye-Ching Huang, from the University of Auckland’s Business School, could you be a little bit more transparent.

   Thing is, when you say “Some have proposed…” you mean “Not us, we wouldn’t say that”.

   That’s ok when you are putting forward what others say in order to disagree with it. But when you pull the ‘Some reckon’ line in support of your argument, you just look more like a rhetorician trying to convince by any means necessary. Going so far as to put forward arguments that you don’t actually agree with, or think are all that smart.

   Some might say that their article is all a part of their role as being the conscience and critic of society. Not me though. I prefer less flacktackularism.
4. Jum 4

   17 January 2011 at 4:28 pm

   It is becoming more obvious, daily, that business people are lazy, selfish, greedy slobs when all they can think of to grow a business is to pinch ours. Yes OURS. Kiwis’ businesses. SOEs are ours. How dare these students, who haven’t spent enough time living to know about the betrayal of Douglas and the greed of JKeyll, now try to steal our assets for business profit.

   Did Glenn, the NAct-owned millionaire, tobacco lobbyist and political liar for NAct, put these little darlings up to this – it is his building that he ‘donated’ to Auckland University and given he lied about Winston Peters because he didn’t get some plum diplomat’s job he hadn’t been promised, he will certainly be wanting payback. Nothing better than using the new generation selfish and greedy kids that Douglas, Prebble and Caygill spawned (they’re all backing National now, funny that…) to push the spin on selling what’s left of our assets.

   So that now leaves us with two generations of greedy, selfish Kiwis and predatory foreignors and stateless business jocks like Kerr, pronounced like cur, and other business rotundtable acolytes who have no loyalty to Kiwis, only to money and power and what it can do to increase their selfish greed, and don’t even live in New Zealand, but are still allowed to vote here and lobby and spin.
   • Jan 4.1

     18 January 2011 at 10:40 pm

     Yes, when are we – the people – owners of the common infrastructure that are the state owned enterprises and public assets going to have our ‘property rights’ enshrined in legislation in the way that the NACT are always demanding that personal property rights are (quite rightly) protected?

     However a National Party manifesto with lots of privatisation signalled makes for a much less attractive proposition so I guess weasel words as in the article will likely be the order of the day in any public pronouncements before the election.

     (Bill Rosenberg’s recent presentation on the Fabian’s website reviews the arguments for and against privatisation of public assets including an excellent section on the conflicts of interest and insider trading that occurred last time round) anti-spam remembering hoo hoo!;-).
5. Draco T Bastard 5

   17 January 2011 at 4:29 pm

   Some SoEs shouldn’t be SoEs as them operating at a profit is actually bad for the society/economy. The list includes, but is not limited to,

   Telecommunications
   Electricity (Generation and distribution)
   Health
   Ports (Air and water)
   Defence (R&D and manufacture)

   Putting SoEs on to the stock market won’t increase their value at all thinking that it will do so is purely delusional. We know this as we’ve tried it and have had to stump up the money afterwards when we’ve had to go back and fix them (AirNZ, Rail, Telecoms).
6. David 6

   17 January 2011 at 6:46 pm

   It would be nice to have something relatively safe to invest in like a power company for our retirement, there isnt a lot of choice around for us empty nesters trying to save for our golden years. As long as the government hold 51% and they offer it to us kiwis rather than some huge yankee corporation it could be good, AirNZ has worked really well for shareholders and NZ.
   • Marty G 6.1

     17 January 2011 at 7:09 pm

     you already own the power SOEs as a taxpayer. The dividends go to paying for services that you would otherwise pay for via tax. There’s no free lunch here, David. Privatise the SOEs and you either get fewer government services or higher tax.

     And you can always invest in Contact.
     • orange whip? 6.1.1

       17 January 2011 at 7:48 pm

       *ahem* as a citizen
       • Marty G 6.1.1.1

         17 January 2011 at 8:35 pm

         sorry, right you are
   • Jum 6.2

     17 January 2011 at 7:41 pm

     Whether the govt offers it to Kiwis or to foreigners makes no difference – foreigners or stateless marauders will end up with our assets – takeovers; NZers are totally naive about their ability to control the markets. Even financial advisers cannot be trusted to treat clients’ shares as if they were their own. The biggest fish always swallows the smallest fish. NZ is that small fish. The sharks/moneytraders are circling.

     But more importantly, we’re paying for something we already own. Whichever way we look at that no one would buy something they already owned. That’s just dumb.

     Buy the best managers but leave the ownership in our hands, where it is. Keep the profits going into our bank account. Kiwibank needs to be supported by all New Zealanders with the proviso it remains totally in New Zealand hands.

     Soft pedalling the betrayal of my country’s assets makes me angry. There is nothing honest or fair about using forked-tongue words to sell Kiwis out.
   • McFlock 6.3

     17 January 2011 at 9:17 pm

     It would be nicer to have a dignified pension and affordable power bills in our “golden years”.
     • Jum 6.3.1

       17 January 2011 at 9:49 pm

       It would be better still to have retained the super fund that Muldoon destroyed and now JKeyll and co are slowly dismantling the current super fund, and ACC both being assets that have helped to reduce the present recessionary difficulties. We know Australia’s respect for its unions and its Aussies’ kids’ futures that kept their super fund going and is now worth billions. What a shame the rightwing in this country can’t think outside its greed and individual selfishness.

       It would be better still to have retained all our power companies profits for Kiwi kids and just brought in dynamite managers to modernise the thinking, not privatise them.

       Unfortunately, the greed and selfishness at play in business nowadays will only end in more unemployment and greedier shareholders. Not the sort of country I ever thought New Zealand would become – nasty and brutish. If business had ethics, it would have refused the destructive 90day fire at will with no reason given, put in place by this government. Obviously, it was business that actively encouraged it.
7. Deadly_NZ 7

   17 January 2011 at 7:47 pm

   it’s more like Robbery by Stealth. Shonkey and his rich fucking mates are just ripping off the country for Millions. Whats needed is for these rich thieves to NOT be allowed to remove all their Ill gotten gains out of NZ and then let a company fail then bring back the company under a different name. And next time NO fucking grand a week NO Fucking houses and cars. Just the dole and the same hardships they cause the ordinary people. At the moment these rich fucks just asset strip companies ripping off the little person and then they fuck off to Aus . Maybe we need a professional hit man to go and get our money back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! IE: repay the little man or your fucking DEAD!

   Sorry but these rich thieves piss me of, and NO-ONE will do anything about them.

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1. Gabriella Turek: posted on 17 January 2011 at 9:50 am

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