referendum

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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.

800,000 referendum votes in already

Written By: - Date published: 7:46 am, December 3rd, 2013 - 41 comments

John Key set us a challenge on the referendum: get more an a million ‘no’ votes. That would mean more votes against asset sales than National won in 2011. So far, so good. The Electoral Commission has processed 805,204 votes. Doubling that would be an outstanding result that would almost certainly mean a million ‘no’ votes. Get your vote in now.

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.

Over half a million votes received already, have you posted yours?

Written By: - Date published: 7:40 pm, November 29th, 2013 - 63 comments

The Electoral Commission has reported receiving and processing nearly quarter of a million referendum votes per day on Wednesday and Thursday this week. All up, 530,000 votes are in so far – an impressive 17.50% turn out already. That’s far better than you would expect from a council postal ballot at this stage. Now, let’s get the rest in.

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.

Coleman’s disgracefully cowardly display

Written By: - Date published: 8:38 am, November 15th, 2013 - 151 comments

National’s, weird, favourite line at the moment is to say ‘we’re going to ignore the asset sales referendum and the opposition are hypocrites because they ignored the smacking referendum’. Russel Norman finally had had enough yesterday, and asked Jonathan Coleman just who had been PM when the referendum happened. Coleman’s answer was textbook cowardliness.

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.

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.

Spendthrift Key objects to cost of democracy

Written By: - Date published: 8:01 am, September 3rd, 2013 - 282 comments

Key’s big whine today is that the referendum on asset sales, which over 10% of Kiwis have requested as required by law, will be ‘extremely costly’ at $9m. This guy’s joking, right? Mr ‘2-billion-of-tax-cuts-in-the-middle-of-a-recession’ is whining about $9m on democracy? All up, Key’s squandered well over a hundred million on asset sales so far.

Breaking: Citizen’s Initiated Referendum Is On

Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, September 2nd, 2013 - 99 comments

Russel Norman’s let the cat out of the bag with a series of tweets: “We’ve done it!! Citizen initated referendum on asset sales is on! #fb” and “OOps, there was an embargo on the CIR result until 1pm which I didn’t realise until after I tweeted. Apologies to Clerk of the House”

Should a country be run like a business?

Written By: - Date published: 2:50 pm, June 22nd, 2013 - 102 comments

Many business people say that a country should be run like a business. Maybe they are right. It should be run like a SUCCESSFUL business. It is appropriate for Government to take lessons from business success, and the reverse. But when it comes down to details, right wing Neo-Liberal business do not want Government and country they govern to become too successful or democratic…

Judith Collins, MMP, “consensus” & democracy

Written By: - Date published: 6:33 pm, May 14th, 2013 - 69 comments

Holly Walker dragged out of Judith Collins that the government will not  implement the Electoral Commission’s recommendations for MMP.   Collins argues there is no “consensus” between all political parties on possible changes.  The Greens say National has not kept the promise of changes, out of self interest.

Why Doug Heffernan wants you to keep paying too much for power

Written By: - Date published: 7:32 am, April 29th, 2013 - 52 comments

John Key has committed to giving up the National Party’s leadership if he loses the next election. That didn’t stop him from committing the next National Government from reversing NZ Power and putting up electricity prices whenever it comes to power . It got me thinking about the people who are so keen to kill NZ Power in its cradle and why. Today: MRP CEO Doug Heffernan.

Farmers unhappy about lower power prices?

Written By: - Date published: 8:32 pm, April 28th, 2013 - 40 comments

Former banker Bruce Wills and current head of Federated Farmers has joined the chorus attacking NZPower. Given the tired old  arguments he raises, it would be interesting to know if his farmer members would rather have lower power prices, or banker Bruce as their spokesman.

Keep Our Assets petition submission

Written By: - Date published: 7:25 am, March 12th, 2013 - 51 comments

The Keep Our Assets petition will be submitted today at 12.30 at Parliament with approximately 400,000 signatures. It is the largest petition in New Zealand history. The referendum that will follow will test National’s mandate for asset sales – clearly and unequivocally. Well done to the thousands of collectors and all the signatories. National – stop the sales and listen.

Random thoughts on MMP

Written By: - Date published: 4:14 pm, November 6th, 2012 - 36 comments

Colin James has expressed my response to Judith Collin’s politicialising of the MMP review. “Elections do not belong to MPs. Elections belong to the people. MPs should be very wary of appropriating what belongs to others.”.  Self-interested bleating by Act and United Future doesn’t mean that National should go off and do another short-term hack of the good proposals as they did in after 1993. The recommendations are clear and an accurate reflection of public mood. Just implement them as they are.

CIR & the silience of the citirats

Written By: - Date published: 11:28 am, September 10th, 2012 - 6 comments

The Nats’ lines on the citizens-initiated referendum on asset sales are very weak: ‘we don’t care because we have a mandate’ and making up stories about invalid signatures. Those lines will only hold until the petition is certified by the Clerk of the House later this year. Then, they’ll have to grow up a little. Their first decision will be when to hold the referendum.

Quarter of a million signatures to Keep Our Assets

Written By: - Date published: 9:26 am, September 3rd, 2012 - 41 comments

The Keep Our Assets Coalition has now collected 250,000 signatures for the petition for a referendum on asset sales in just four months. You need to help with the big final push – the Spring Collection – to get the last 60,000 signatures and the 10% spares within the coming month.

Greens have 100,000 signatures to Keep Our Assets

Written By: - Date published: 5:54 pm, July 28th, 2012 - 39 comments

The Greens have collected 100,000 signatures for the Keep Our Assets Coalition petition to force a referendum on asset sales – in fact, my Asset Keeper email says they were up another thousand at the end of Friday. The Coalition’s total is rapidly approaching 200,000. That’s after just 3 months. Another 150,000 or so to go – with margin for invalid signatures. Play your part.

Nats’ pollster reveals asset sale plan

Written By: - Date published: 9:34 am, June 23rd, 2012 - 250 comments

National pollster and Herald columnist (I know!) David Farrar has revealed what National has up its sleeve for asset sales. No, I’m not talking about how they would put ‘mums and dads’ at the ‘front of the queue’, or any such nonsense. I’m talking about how they will attempt to de-legitimise the referendum or, alternatively, try to slam the sales through before it happens.

Good on the Greens

Written By: - Date published: 7:13 am, June 19th, 2012 - 104 comments

The Greens have hired the equivalent of 8 full-time staff for two months to get their signature collecting as part of the Keep Our Assets Coalition rolling. It comes out of the fixed budget allocated to the party’s leaders’ office – not one additional cent from the taxpayer, just a choice: other parties spend millions of taxpayer money on polling. It’s a good use of our money.

Quarter of the way there

Written By: - Date published: 6:49 am, June 17th, 2012 - 66 comments

The Keep Our Assets Coalition has collected a phenomenal 80,000 signatures already, quarter of the way there. The signatures are pouring in. Collecting will get harder closer to the end but we’re going to get our referendum – if we all play our part. If you haven’t signed, or your friends and family haven’t, download the form and send it in.

Telling it like it is

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 11th, 2012 - 19 comments

Not for sale hikoi arrives in Wellington

Written By: - Date published: 7:21 am, May 4th, 2012 - 99 comments

The Aotearoa is Not For Sale hikoi departs from Te Papa for Parliament at midday today. There has been great turnout in towns and cities all over New Zealand. Join in if you can. Also, remember to sign the Keep Our Assets petition and get involved (via Labour or the Greens) in collecting signatures. We can still save our assets.

10,000+ at Auckland anti-MOM protest

Written By: - Date published: 3:14 pm, April 28th, 2012 - 87 comments

Lots of people… get down to Britomart.. Mind you Britomart is filling up rapidly. They need a few more megaphones by the look of the crowd. Penny Bright sucks at chants. 😈 Slowly moving off.  This is mining protest levels… A lot of people… Seriously slow. Walked 50 metres. Really good humoured and highly social. […]

Keep our assets petition is live!

Written By: - Date published: 9:20 am, April 28th, 2012 - 28 comments

The wording for the citizens-initiated referendum has been approved. Now, we just need to get 300,000-odd signatures. The petition form is here but the Keep Our Assets Coalition needs more than your signature, you need to help get signatures too. The Greens and Labour are signing people up for the campaign. Rallies in Auckland and Nelson today as part of the Hikoi. Official campaign launch: Wellington, May 10.

Asset sales petition to be launched

Written By: - Date published: 8:03 am, March 6th, 2012 - 149 comments

A petition for a citizens initiated referendum is to be launched by a coalition led by Grey Power, the Greens and Labour. I would kick off with getting every activist in Wellington to do blanket coverage of Ohariu. This is going to be a massive thorn in the government’s side. If I was Key, I would almost be praying Dunne decides to go against the legislation

Crowd-sourcin’: asset sales question

Written By: - Date published: 11:37 am, February 21st, 2012 - 47 comments

Economic sovereignty is suddenly the hot issue with the vast majority of Kiwis opposed to more foreign ownership and asset sales. The Nats are in a spin: Key is desperately trying to upgrade English’s ‘guess’ on the fiscal impact of asset sales to a “best estimate”. Time for that asset sales referendum petition. Maybe you can help draft the question.

Carmel wins, Nats down 1, MMP to stay

Written By: - Date published: 2:16 pm, December 10th, 2011 - 196 comments

Official Election results are out. Carmel Sepuloni takes Waitakere back for Labour by 11 votes, and National loses one seat to the Greens. MMP wins by a mile. Well done Carmel – I’m really glad she stays in Parliament. I don’t think a recount will change anything – I scrutineered the official count last election and the people doing it were very very careful.

Greek democracy

Written By: - Date published: 8:20 am, November 3rd, 2011 - 82 comments

So, a government says that the people will have the say on its budget, and global markets plunge. Was there ever a clearer sign that the interests of the capitalist elite and the people are at odds, and the capitalists know it? It’s interesting that Papandreou has chosen to force a crisis and headed off a coup. Around the world, ordinary people want radical change.