NZ: Contempt for democracy

The fact that we have 32 % that agree, in Stuff's poll, with the contention that the government should ignore the referendum, means that we have 32 % who do not believe in democracy

Government to ignore asset sales referendum

Two hundred people have gathered at Parliament to hand over a petition trying to force a referendum over the Government's asset sales programme.

Stuff,

12 March , 2013

The Government has vowed to proceed with asset sales irrespective of whether the referendum comes out against the issue.

Grey Power president Roy Reid said the petition, with about 392,000 signatures, was the largest ever presented to the New Zealand Parliament.

Supporters hope to force a referendum on asset sales.

Labour leader David Shearer said National must pay attention to the opposition.

"More than 80 per cent of New Zealanders are against the sale of our assets. We call on John Key to listen to the will of the people."

If the Clerk of Parliament accepts that 10 per cent of New Zealand's eligible voters signed, it would force a citizen-initiated referendum some time over the next 12 months.

Shearer said the petition would make the Government listen.

''This is about the transfer of an asset we all own, into the hands of a very few. That's what it's about, it's about fairness, it is not fair.''

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the crowd ''stand here on behalf of the millions of New Zealanders'' opposed to asset sales.

''It is despicable that the Prime Minister has said the people who signed this are children and tourists. Prime Minister you do not know New Zealanders.''

NZ First leader Winston Peters congratulated Grey Power for initiating the petition, and vowed that after the election ''we intend to take those shares back at no better price'' than they were sold for.

Finance Minister Bill English however said a referendum would make no difference to the process.

"The sales are going ahead," English told TV3's Firstline. "We've already launched the Mighty River Power float and there will be others.

"This is an issue that was campaigned on right through election year, we laid out the policy in detail, the opposition parties had a year to debate it, and they didn't win the election so we're proceeding with the sales on the basis of that mandate."

English said the Opposition had taken a year to collect 300,000 signatures with the help of "paid Parliamentary staff" collecting names.

"We've now got 250,000 plus New Zealanders interested in buying the shares in 10 days," he said, referring to the number of people pre-registering for shares in Mighty River Power.

The Government has made the asset sales a flagship policy, with up to 49 per cent of Mighty River Power set to be sold by the end of June. Partial sales of Meridian and Genesis Energy would follow.

Speaking from Brazil, Prime Minister John Key said that while in Opposition National had strongly opposed some Labour policy but "we didn't bother with a citizens initiated referendum on that because we knew we had a referendum called the election".