assets

Categories under assets

Glen Innes ‘war zone’

Written By: - Date published: 9:08 am, March 6th, 2014 - 52 comments

A  photo/video documentary project in March Metro Magazine shows Glen Innes as a war zone.  The National Government’s war on the poor continues with the sales and removal of state housing.  Protest this evening at Glen Innes.

Militarism and the NZ Left?

Written By: - Date published: 12:28 pm, February 28th, 2014 - 31 comments

Two uncritical articles in Auckland’s local press, raise questions about the role of the NZ military, and the educational and cultural impact of a military charter school.  Unstated and unquestioned, is the nature of NZ’s relationship with that of militaristic US imperialism.

The Genesis share float has problems

Written By: - Date published: 8:21 am, February 27th, 2014 - 17 comments

The Government has effectively conceded that the Genesis share float will not meet expectations and is softening New Zealand up to the prospect that only 30% of the shares may be sold. It makes you wonder why they are still going a head with the sale.

National – a party for wastrels

Written By: - Date published: 1:08 pm, January 24th, 2014 - 13 comments

The Crown Financial Statements to the end of November 2013 show that the sale of Meridian and Air New Zealand added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the asset sales programme. Combined with the cost of the Mighty River Power sale and ancillary costs such as the Rio Tinto payout, the total cost of the asset sales now stands at $440m. National just likes burning the money of the taxpayers for no productive purpose.

Obama’s TPPA bid to over-ride democracy

Written By: - Date published: 6:47 pm, January 10th, 2014 - 16 comments

There’s a tussle going on as Obama pushes to seal the deal and to limit Congress’s say on TPPA deals.  But, Congress would still have more say about the deals than NZ MPs. It’s about democracy & sovereignty.  It could slip under the radar over summer.

John Key’s patchwork ‘job machine’: user pays

Written By: - Date published: 8:08 am, December 28th, 2013 - 47 comments

John Key’s great idea for job creation – his cycleway project – has produced some benefits, but is a patchwork production.  Some sections will be user pays to fund maintenance.  Meanwhile the job creation benefits have been limited.

NRT: John Key lied to our faces

Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, December 23rd, 2013 - 36 comments

No Right Turn is annoyed at having a deliberate liar for a Prime Minister. Who wouldn’t be pissed off with the incompetent lying slimeball. It turns out that John Key lied to our faces when he said that no decision had been made on when his government would sell Air New Zealand

Last day to vote

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 am, December 12th, 2013 - 43 comments

This is the last day that you can vote No in the referendum on asset sales. So dig that form out, mark it and send it. This referendum vote is a clear way to send a message that even a self-serving delusional National MP can understand. Being able to form a government is not a mandate to do whatever you feel like with our assets.

1.2 million people have voted in the no asset sales referendum so far

Written By: - Date published: 7:59 pm, December 10th, 2013 - 175 comments

But we need more.  So persuade your family, friends, colleagues, acquaintances or people that you have a passing relationship to send in their voting papers.  Time is running out …

‘Mum & Dad’ right to be angry with Nats

Written By: - Date published: 9:42 am, December 5th, 2013 - 40 comments

Mighty River, Meridian, and Air New Zealand are all now trading well below their listing prices costing ‘mum and dad investors’ who were taken in by National’s ad campaign tens of millions of dollars of their savings. Bill English’s angry response is ‘you would be complaining if they had made windfall gains too’. He’s right. And there’s the rub.

Transmission Gully: they profit, you pay

Written By: - Date published: 8:53 am, December 4th, 2013 - 34 comments

The proponents of Public-Private Partnerships offer two justifications for the extra cost compared to normal government financing: 1) a mystical claim that the private sector will find efficiencies in a PPP that they wouldn’t find if they were just contracted to build a project normally and 2) risk is shared between the taxpayer and the private investors. Except it’s not.

Don’t forget to vote no

Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, December 2nd, 2013 - 44 comments

NZ Herald editorial smears the Referendum

Written By: - Date published: 10:42 am, November 30th, 2013 - 28 comments

NZ Herald editor/s selectively reports, omitting the full facts, in favour of the National government.  It misrepresents the referendum on asset sales, ignoring significant facts – thereby also seeming to discredit the Green Party, the referendum, & democracy.

Assets sales make Crown a billion poorer

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, November 29th, 2013 - 122 comments

In the Budget, the Government said asset sales would increase the net worth of the Crown by half a billion dollars because eager mums and dads were going to snap the shares up for more than they were worth on the government books. As we know, it didn’t quite work out that way. The Greens have updated the Budget and found the impact is $1.5 billion worse than expected.

Only 6,500 ‘mums and dads’ for Air NZ

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, November 23rd, 2013 - 69 comments

It just gets worse. Only 6,500 ‘retail investors’ bought shares in the Air NZ asset sale. These are the so-called ‘mums and dads’ who National said would flock to buy into the asset sales. 0.15% of the population. And these are some rich ‘mums and dads’ – they bought $23,000 of shares each on average. Let’s face facts: the asset sales have failed in their own terms. National has failed New Zealand.

Who wants some Genesis shares?

Written By: - Date published: 7:20 am, November 21st, 2013 - 120 comments

So, Mum and Dad Kiwi, you listened to the multi-million dollar ad campaigns and the years of propaganda from National, and you bought shares in one of their asset sales. How are you doing so far? Don’t listen to English, who claims you haven’t lost anything unless you’ve cashed up – that’s the same as saying your house or your Kiwisaver isn’t worth anything. Let’s look at your losses.

Enrol for the referendum by the 21st

Written By: - Date published: 3:57 pm, November 19th, 2013 - 41 comments

If you aren’t currently enrolled or are unsure, then you will have to be enrolled in the next few days. We can shove the lie of “mandate” straight back into this National government’s lying face. Maybe when National are deprived of that silly excuse for their theft, they will stop stealing.

Nats’ demolition derby

Written By: - Date published: 5:20 pm, November 18th, 2013 - 107 comments

John Key’s government is going full tilt at dismantling everything of value in NZ, and selling as much as possible to the overseas investors.  It’s the government of Drill It, Mine it, Sell it.  Find out about the asset sales referendum & how to vote.

Air New Zealand sale starts tomorrow

Written By: - Date published: 4:40 pm, November 17th, 2013 - 294 comments

The Government has announced that the sell down of Air New Zealand shares will occur over the next two days.

Air NZ sale coming on the quiet

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 pm, November 13th, 2013 - 121 comments

Word is out that National is going to slam through the sale of its Air NZ shares early next week ahead of the referendum. No mention of ‘mum and dad’ investors this time. No ad campaign imploring you get ‘get your share’. Nope. It’ll be a quick and dirty sale to some big institution which will then divvy it up to other institutions. We might not even be told until after the fact.

Key rewrites history for “Crazy Colin”

Written By: - Date published: 5:00 pm, November 13th, 2013 - 68 comments

Answering questions on the up-coming Asset Sales referendum, John Key spoke some appalling un-truths.  He is rewriting political history to suit “Crazy” Colin Craig’s possible coalition bottom lines on the “anti-smacking” law.   Cunliffe finally got there in the General Debate, but the opposition was too slow in countering Key’s lies & spin.

Couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery

Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, November 6th, 2013 - 99 comments

National was warned not to give the main ultrafast broadband contracts to Chorus. All it would do would restore and strengthen the monopoly that had kept internet prices too high (which Cunliffe has addressed). Of course, National ignored that. And now, once again, National finds itself in a corner, about to bailout out a large corporate that is using its market power to threaten its political agenda.

Key says ‘damn the torpedoes’ on asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 7:30 am, October 30th, 2013 - 44 comments

The asset sales have been an unmitigated failure. They’ve raised less money than expected, they’ve cost more than twice as much as National said they would, no ‘mums and dads’ have shown up to buy the shares, and the public is waiting for its referendum. Now, it turns out that Treasury warned Key not to flood the market but Key plans to keep on flooding it.

National’s failed asset sales

Written By: - Date published: 12:07 pm, October 26th, 2013 - 17 comments

asset sales promise vs reality

Asset sales: Key’s scorched earth tactics will backfire

Written By: - Date published: 9:14 am, October 25th, 2013 - 60 comments

Granny supported little Johnny’s plan to go off to market and sell the family’s cash cow. But even she’s furious that what he’s come back with amounts to nothing more than a hill of beans. As Granny Herald notes, the Nats’ determination to push ahead with the remaining sales regardless is all about ideology, and the knowledge that they’re going to lose the next election.

The Meridian flop

Written By: - Date published: 7:29 am, October 24th, 2013 - 143 comments

National’s trying to blame it on Labour and the Greens for the Meridian sale flop, which attracted only a quarter of the expected ‘mums and dads’ (rich ‘mums and dads’ who put in $18k each). But let’s just get this straight: the decision to sell was National’s. If they don’t think they’re getting the price that they should for the sales, then they should stop them.

Where did Mighty River get that spare $50m?

Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, October 16th, 2013 - 44 comments

So, Mighty River Power has so much spare cash at the moment that it just doesn’t know what to do with it. Rather than pay out a special dividend, they’re going to buy back some shares. This, naturally, has raised eyebrows because these shares were only just sold to ‘mum and dad’. But the bigger question is: where did Mighty River get a spare $50m in the first place?

From failure to farce

Written By: - Date published: 7:44 am, October 11th, 2013 - 95 comments

“John Key’s asset sales have descended from failure to farce” – that’s how Metiria Turei described the announcement that Mighty River Power will be buying back shares just five months after they were privatised. Clayton Cosgrove put it more bluntly: “It’s a good thing the government doesn’t own a brewery cos they couldn’t organise a pi .. a DRINK in one”.

Mighty River Power is buying back shares

Written By: - Date published: 11:32 am, October 10th, 2013 - 45 comments

The Board of Mighty River Power has announced that it is buying back up to 2% of its shares because this is a prudent use of capital and will be value enhancing.  It is a shame that the Government was incapable of seeing this.  Expect a surge in its share price to occur and I suspect that this will be beneficial for the Meridian float.

$1.6 million a week lost net dividends from Meridian

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, October 7th, 2013 - 12 comments

The asset sales costs just keep on rising. The tally so far is $124 million. The ‘buy now, pay later’ scheme for Meridian is going to cost $61 million. There will be tens of millions in other sales costs. Now, the Greens have calculated the lost net dividends from Meridian alone at $1.6 million per week. Makes the referendum seem like a good investment in telling Key this is not OK.

Your Brighter Future: Burn.

Written By: - Date published: 1:13 pm, October 2nd, 2013 - 15 comments

“I just utter one fear…”

Remember that?

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