Another reason why we needed VSM
May 11th, 2012 at 2:11 pm by David FarrarThe Herald reported:
An unlikely partnership has formed to fight the Government’s partial asset sales, with Grey Power and the New Zealand University Students Association launching a petition aimed at getting a referendum on the issue. …
Association Vice-President Arena Williams said it was her generation that would have to mop up the consequences of the sales and they deserved a say on it.
This is unbelievable. NZUSA (actually now the NZ Union of Student Associations) has no mandate on this issue. It is not an issue that student have a common view on. It is not an issue in any way to do with tertiary education. This just reinforces that all too often, NZUSA is the student wing of the Labour Party.
I understand that NZUSA did not even consult its member student associations on this issue of supporting the referendum. Both VUWSA and MAWSA Presidents have said that if they had been asked, they would have said that the issue is out of scope for NZUSA.
If I was a member of a students association that was a member of NZUSA, I’d be demanding to know why NZUSA is throwing away any chance it has of being seen as a professional advocacy body for students.
UPDATE: I understand LUSA is also aghast that NZUSA has decided to campaign on the issue of asset sales.
Related posts:
- VSM already working
- NZUSA faces rebellion
- Spending compulsory fees on a pro-compulsion party
- Will NZUSA survive?
May 11th, 2012 at 2:57 pm
True.
But asset sales should stop, unless there is a referendum.
Most people I’ve spoken to who voted National, did so to get rid of Helen, not to vote for asset sales.
It is essential infrastructure and should have a referendum on it.
Of course we know what National and Key think about Democracy?
Same as Labour and the Greens.
Nothing as they wouldn’t even take notice of 80%.
[DPF: You are making no sense. No one voted National in 2011 to get rid of Helen. National campaigned for 20 months on its policy promises and of course they should keep their word]
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:58 pm
It’s a wonder that the Labour Party hasn’t complained to Employment Minister Kate Wilkinson about VSM having led to the abolition of the Future Labour MP Apprenticeship Scheme
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 2:59 pm
I never realised I was in the student union until the day I weened myself off the Student Loan system and started paying the balance up front myself. i couldn’t believe it – I was a extramural, part-time adult student who never set foot on campus except for exams but here I was paying nearly $100 per semester for something I never used nor wanted. Then they had the audacity to keep my money even though I wanted out of the union. The VSM is incredibly important when in comes to freedom of choice and association.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:01 pm
@Michael McKee: Off the top of my head National never floated asset sales in the election vs. Helen Clark so it is irrelevant if those people voted against Helen but not for asset sales.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:10 pm
Yes, if evidence was needed that student politicians are clueless, this is it.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Again with the “I know that a majority of people voted for political parties that supported asset sales in the election, but it’s well known that all citizens are stupid, and they really didn’t support asset sales”.
What’s with the left and the belief that voters are stupid. Did you ever consider that perhaps the reason that nobody you talk to supports asset sales has to do with:
Vote:1. You only talk to left wingers
2. It’s not in a context of “would you rather asset sales and less debt, or no asset sales and more debt”. Asset sales all on their own, sure, I’m against that too. But asset sales and the money put to some useful purpose, that’s a different thing entirely.
May 11th, 2012 at 3:13 pm
Contrarian
It is not irrevelent.
Vote:They voted to get rid of helen and that meant National, not for asset sales.
May 11th, 2012 at 3:16 pm
Michael: different elections. The thing you should be most worried about is that some bastard stole 3 years of your life without you noticing.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:17 pm
@Michael McKee
It was only in the 2011 election National floated asset sales and Helen was already gone so it wasn’t a choice between Helen Clark or asset sales.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:21 pm
No wonder the left are stuffed. Along with everything else they suffer from amnesia as well.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:26 pm
V2 – we already knew that. It’s selective amnesia.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:27 pm
@Michael McKee I am sick of fuckwits like yourself having a cry about this. National put this policy up as part of a RANGE of things they would do if they won the election. You cannot take a policy out and expect them to be able to implement everything else they said they would. Why is this so fucking hard to understand? I feel like banging my head against a brick wall when I read the sort of BS that people like you spout about asset sales. Maybe if I did that for long enough I would also become a braindead socialist. Pull your head out of your ass and realise we live in a democracy FFS. They won an election so stop crying like a bitch about it.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:28 pm
The decision to support this followed after NZUSA was offered a place on the steering committee. Apparently the ‘opportunity’ was attractive as ‘NZUSA has a long standing opposition to privatization’ and ‘it would be a great networking opportunity’. Neither of those reasons have anything to do with the interests of students.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:35 pm
PaulL at 3.16pm:
Fantastic comment!! He does seem to be stuck in 2008, doesn’t he? Unless I missed Helen Clark’s reappearance in 2011, somehow? No? Ok then.
This ‘no mandate’ rubbish is just diversionary. National campaigned on it heavily last year, and received 48% of the vote as a result. That, Mr McKee, is a mandate.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:38 pm
This mandate talk always pisses me off. If National don’t have a mandate with the highest single vote count of any party since 1996 then no party under MMP has ever had a mandate.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:41 pm
@ FE Smith – and even more significantly, Labour’s entire campaign highlighted its opposition to asset sales, and it got 27% of the vote; a 60-year low.
John Key had his mandate the moment that he was able to tell the Governor-General that he had the numbers to form a government.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:42 pm
Cunningham
Vote:You are completely wrong.
No amount of head banging could damage you that much that you’d become a socialist.
Socialism is an illness not an injury
May 11th, 2012 at 3:43 pm
Key specifically stated that there would be no assets sales in the first term. Key specifically campaigned on asset sales for the second term. Key won – both times. This is why 1) Clark is not the PM and 2) there will be asset sales.
KS: Phazackerly.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Right Nookin and we will pay for it in the future.
So 48% of the country wants to sell the infrastructure.
National’s Electricity reforms helped the industry and kept prices down didn’t they?
Not to mention the improvements of the national grid?
Yeah right.
sad that the other 52% will have to nationalise it back again and all those mom and pop investors Key is talking about will lose their investments. shame.
ah well swings and rondabouts, the way of the world.
You think Cunliffe or Robertson won’t?
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:52 pm
Haha markm (43) good call!
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 3:59 pm
Michael Mckee (667) power went up 70% under Labour so what makes you think power would go up even more then this? Remember it was 48% PLUS their support partners (whom were voted in by people knowing they would support it) so yes they have a majorty and mandate. Labour and their lunatic supporters are doing nothing but waste tax payer money chasing a referendum which will achieve nothing. Besides they approved the sale of Wellingtons electricity grid to the Chinese, approved more farmland being sold to foreigners then National and bought a fucking dog of a railway without any referendum at all. They are nothing but hypocritical wankers.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Looking forward to that nationalisation, McKee. I assume to celebrate the great and noble repatriation, Labour will paint all dams and power stations a lurid crimson, and pay several times too much for it.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:09 pm
David did a post a number of years ago about the price of the “average” power bill over time. He found that the power price actually dropped in real terms between the reforms in 1998 and the reforms introduced by Labour in 2002.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:16 pm
dubya
Vote:That’s what they do isn’t it?
May 11th, 2012 at 4:21 pm
I have difficulty with the logic that not all of the 48% who voted National supported asset sales but 100% of those who did not vote National emphatically opposed asset sales. It’s a bit like fiddling the books, really. Just change things around to suit whatever argument you are advancing at any particular time.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 4:38 pm
Micheal McKee and others with his view point have not realised what most NZers have worked out —the country cannot go on living on debt. We have to work out ways of improving things without extra debt –yes in the short borrowing is required to continue but in the med/long term we have work our way out of it. Hence Key trying to do the deal on the Convention centre ( get built with no tax payer funding).
Vote:The banks have just reduced interest rates but some economists have said it will do very little because most NZers are looking at reducing personal debt and not borrowing for consumption ( hence the sluggish economy) . So the average Kiwi can “see the light” for his personal situation and when they look at what the Government is trying to do they can relate to it from a “big picture” point of view. This is why Labour and the rest cannot get traction in the polls. Times and attitudes have changed but they cannot see it.
May 11th, 2012 at 6:38 pm
I can’t believe anyone, with a brain, can grow up being called “Arena” and not expect every bloody stupid word He/She/It says not being seriously contested to be honest!
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
This from OUSA on Facebook:
So obviously Otago hasn’t support the NZUSA action either.
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 6:52 pm
Perhaps a group of law students could take out an injunction against NZUSA for acting unilaterally. Wouldn’t it be a shame if the CIR petition was derailed by legal action?
Just thinking out loud, of course
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 10:42 pm
The real question at the heart of this issue is… what “assets?”
An asset brings you new wealth….a liability takes wealth away…..for the long put upon kiwi taxpayer just which term best fits the SOE’s?
The truth is that “State assets” are assets to the STATE….not the taxpayer who’s robbed to fund and prop them up at the cost of losing the ability to spend their money on something they personally valued more. Its Bastiat’s”That which is seen…and not seen” writ large.
To my knowledge no NZ Taxpayer has ever personally received a State cheque for a net return generated by an SOE greater than what they have paid in tax to prop up that SOE. The day that happens then you can then talk of assets…..but until then….no…
Vote:May 11th, 2012 at 11:13 pm
The scorned… hmmm. I agree with asset sales, but I don’t agree with your argument.
An asset is one that returns something to it’s owners. The state owned power companies return a divident to the state, that dividend effectively reduces the tax we all have to pay. So they are an asset to the state.
As to whether they are an asset to taxpayers, well, that depends on who you are. For arguments sake, if you buy your power from Contact, and the govt charges over the odds to every other taxpayer for power, then you are better off. But if you get your power from one of the state owned power companies, then yes it seems a rather complex way of converting taxes (that you would have other paid) into increased power bills so as to generate a dividend so as to reduce your taxes.
Bottom line, and thing all the “no asset sales” mob don’t get, is that these companies aren’t particularly effective in govt ownership. To be fair, they’re not as incompetent as the old school railways or telco, but they still arguably would be better performing (with lower prices) if exposed to a bit more competition. And since they’re charging “market” prices and returning dividends to the govt, I’m not clear what bad thing would happen in partial private ownership – the customers are already getting gouged.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 12:02 am
NZUSA is a joke. OUSA is the best in the country by far. NZUSA should just straight out affiliate themselves to the Labour party.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 9:20 am
One has to wonder the same for grey power seeing as a lot of its members might appreciate somewhere to park their loot. Aligning themselves to this shows remarkable stupidity for an apolitical organization particularly when 47% of their members voted National. Going forward any position these muppets takes will be seen as a continuation of their alliance with the Greens and I doubt many of their members voted that way.
Vote:May 12th, 2012 at 11:22 am
I left Grey Power at the last election – obviously a good thing – what do they think they are playing at – now being a branch of the Labour Party.
Vote:They used to be apolitical but now ???????????????.
May 13th, 2012 at 6:04 am
@ Michael McKee… Your reasoning is as retarded as NZUSAs reasoning that they represent all students in NZ.
National campaigned hardcore on partial asset sales. Labour said hell no. Guess what genius? Who had their worst election in a generation – Labour. Your rationale that National should have to ask again and again because you didn’t get it the first time is beyond stupid. Fuck I am sick of people like you that just don’t get it.
Sell everything as far as I am concerned. As long as they know how to run them I have no concern who runs my TV stations, airlines, power companies or whatever.
Vote: