Even John Key is now admitting that the asset sale program is facing a serious legal challenge:
John Key concedes likely asset sales delay
Prime Minister John Key has conceded the first asset sale could be delayed because a legal challenge from Maori over water ownership is looking increasingly inevitable. …
The Government is due to sell 49 percent of Mighty River Power in September, but the Prime Minister now admits legal action from Maori may force the sale to be delayed. …
Court action from Maori has always been an option, but now Mr Key has gone a step further, saying it seems inevitable. “I think we should work on the principle that there is a high probability that we will be going to court.”
Any delay will have several effects:
It will give fresh impetus to the collection of signatures for the citizen’s initiated referendum. Depending on the timing of any legal process, hearings and appeals, there is now a possibility that a referendum could be held before any assets are sold. The mandate that Key claims would be further undermined.
It will highlight the Nat’s irresponsible “creative accounting” in booking the proceeds of the sale of the assets well before the sales were certain or the price was known. It may even get the media looking in to the other dodgy numbers surrounding the sales.
It will increase the odds of scaring off investors, and therefore the odds that the whole sales process will turn in to a mighty flop.
It will strengthen Maori interest in water rights and increase the already incredible pressure on the Maori Party to finally stand for something and walk out of a government that has been so arrogant and dismissive. That would leave the Nats entirely dependent on Peter Dunne, and John (currently under investigation) Banks.
Interesting times.
[update. Key has compared the odds of a delay to the odds “a meteorite will hit the Earth this afternoon” – guess he doesn’t realise there are five hundred meteor impacts a year]
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