Telling it like it is

Written By: - Date published: 9:45 am, June 11th, 2012 - 19 comments
Categories: petition, privatisation, referendum - Tags:

National flip-flopped on increasing class sizes, not because it was a bad policy but because the pressure came on and the polling showed the public was strongly against it.

With over 75,000 people having signed the petition to have a referendum on asset sales already and all the polls showing people against asset sales 3 to 1, when can we expect a flip-flop on that dog of a policy too?

19 comments on “Telling it like it is ”

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  1. ad 1
    11 June 2012 at 10:01 am

    Having banked the proceeds of the sales a couple of budgets back, Key doesn’t have a choice. It’s not in the relatively small scale of the eduction cut reversal.

    The question for me is: if he really is determed to shrink the public sector from 34% to 26% of GDP, where is his plan to replace this part of the economy?

    It is totally irresponsible to cut such a major part of the economy without such a plan. It will consign the country to a decade of recession or negligible growth.

    Key is behaving like his only concern is the public sector, and he has no leadership responsibility for the rest of the economy. That is simply not Prime Ministerial leadership.

    • tc 1.1
      11 June 2012 at 10:16 am

      ‘That is simply not Prime Ministerial leadership’ never was never will be, it’s all about the Hollowmen script with the NACT.

      Key was headhunted by Boag to deliver it’s agenda, understand that and the rest is obvious.

  2. Carol 2
    11 June 2012 at 10:06 am

    National are trying to rush the asset sales legislation through parliament. Time to Blockade the Beehive during its passage? With posters of the above image showing Key’s duplicity held aloft?

  3. weka 3
    11 June 2012 at 10:24 am

    Where does the 75,000 already signed figure come from?

    • Draco T Bastard 3.1
      11 June 2012 at 10:35 am

      The Greens are saying that they’ve already got 20k and I suspect the other parties and independent people will be doing about the same so, 75k would be a reasonable estimate.

  4. Draco T Bastard 4
    11 June 2012 at 10:26 am

    when can we expect a flip-flop on that dog of a policy too?

    We can’t. Selling the country out is the reason National want power for.

  5. grey lynn girl 5
    11 June 2012 at 12:06 pm

    Key HAS to proceed with asset sales – not to balance the budget – but to fulfill ‘promises’ made to those (backers) who want to pick up the assets at dirt cheap prices. Wait till just before the sales – some ‘expert’ will pop up saying intrnationally things are so bad we will need to ‘lower our expectations’ pricewise to get them sold.

    • Draco T Bastard 5.1
      11 June 2012 at 4:52 pm

      Wait till just before the sales – some ‘expert’ will pop up saying intrnationally things are so bad we will need to ‘lower our expectations’ pricewise to get them sold.

      That will probably be Key himself or perhaps Blinglish.

    • Hami Shearlie 5.2
      12 June 2012 at 12:11 am

      And what’s the bet that Key will swan off when everything is sold and have a lovely cushy job with these same “backers” – more like backstabbers!

  6. tracey 6
    11 June 2012 at 1:46 pm

    The point about the backdown is that middle class parents disagreed. National was not listening to the sector which is actually knowledgeable and experienced in teaching and wont. They got polling from white middle nz and freaked.

    • Draco T Bastard 6.1
      11 June 2012 at 4:54 pm

      Yep. National doesn’t listen to the professionals unless those professionals are telling National what it wants to hear.

      • mike e 6.1.1
        11 June 2012 at 6:26 pm

        treasury you mean dtb

        • Draco T Bastard 6.1.1.1
          11 June 2012 at 6:43 pm

          Oh, I’m sure they’ll listen to other professionals. Professor Hattie being one – they listened to him saying that increasing class sizes was good and then ignored everything else he said. It probably helped that increasing class sizes was also supported by Treasury though.

  7. sweetd 7
    11 June 2012 at 8:18 pm

    Is there a link for this quote?

    • Te Reo Putake 7.1
      11 June 2012 at 8:28 pm

      Indeedy doody. From one of the sources comes this:

      Full Quote:

      “Well personally I don’t believe that’s the big issue that’s gonna turn the New Zealand economy around, if someone can convince me that floating 25% of Meridian is somehow going to be the salvation to the New Zealand economy.”

      John Key, July 2009.

      Quote Source: TVNZ – Q + A: John Key interviewed by Guyon Espiner – 19 July 2009

      http://tvnz.co.nz/q-and-a-news/q-john-key-interviewed-guyon-espiner-2852186

  8. sweetd 8
    11 June 2012 at 8:40 pm

    Thanks TRP.

    Helps if you read it in the full context.

    GUYON Isn’t it true though that you are constrained essentially by political expediency? Nine out of ten of those CEOs wanted partial privatisation of state owned enterprises. It’s an idea that your own Finance Minister was promoting a year or so ago, you’re simply not doing it because you were frightened by the Labour Party that you’d get too much criticism for it.

    JOHN KEY Well personally I don’t believe that’s the big issue that’s gonna turn the New Zealand economy around, if someone can convince me that floating 25% of Meridian is somehow going to be the salvation to the New Zealand economy.

    GUYON Well don’t we want companies to invest in rather than just housing?

    JOHN KEY We do, but that’s about growing companies, and that’s one of the reasons why if you go back to the speech on Wednesday it was hugely focused on saying why is 90% of New Zealand’s exports coming from 5% of the companies. So yes we want investment opportunities, and I happen to agree with Mark Weldon we want more things on the Stock Exchange, more companies to invest in, but you can get completely distracted in government on very small debates, one of those debates is about partial privatisation, we campaigned that we weren’t gonna do that in this term, and I’m not about to start breaking my word.

    • felix 8.1
      11 June 2012 at 8:46 pm

      How does that extra bit of context help you sweetd?

      He’s saying the same thing: that selling off bits of SOEs is no way to fix the economy. If anything I thought the context made the point more strongly than before.

    • Draco T Bastard 8.2
      11 June 2012 at 9:48 pm

      Having more companies on the stock exchange only helps if they’re blue sky companies and that’s probably the worst place for them – especially in NZ where all our blue sky companies get bought out by foreign investors leaving us with nothing.

  9. jack 9
    11 June 2012 at 9:17 pm

    Then in the 2011 election campaign Key stresses asset sales. That was one of his major platforms because he knew there was very little opposition with the Farrar’s polling results. Winston Peters was more of a threat. Didn’t Key also say that National wouldn’t be doing a good job if they raised GST?? Would you buy derivatives from this guy?? Ireland did.