After hearing 150 oral submissions and receiving thousands more written ones, National’s members of the Finance and Select Committee shut down the Committee’s consideration of the evidence they had heard on the asset sales bill after just 1 hour. And why not? They had had Treasury write the Committee’s report before the submitters were even heard. Now, the legislation goes back to the House 6 weeks early to be slammed through its final stages.
Expect the Opposition to put up a fight with a mountain of amendments to both highlight the deficiencies in the policy and to slow things down, for several days at least. Filibustering is a valid, democratic tool for an opposition to draw public attention to the actions of the government.
Speaking of which, does the Keep Our Assets coalition have an overall estimate of how many signatures it has collected? Apparently, they’re something like 15%-20% of the way there only a month after the campaign launch.
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