as to bringbackdmocracy etc, it is not a referenda if it is being paid for by poltiical parties with taxpayer’s money, designed by the political parties. referenda are designed to represent the voice of ‘people’ not ‘parties’. If the nats put forward a referendum paid for by taxpayers money to abolish the Maori seats and also to mine in conservation areas and got 10 percent, you would shut the fuck up I imagine.

“Do you support the Government selling up to 49 per cent of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?”

Yes, a bit lazy of me not to have checked beforehand, but, as predicted, the question has no reference to the circumstances or reasons for the proposed sell down. (It also shows that I avoided the CIR pushers for some 9 months.)

The lack of reference to circumstances/consequences risks responses related to an ideal position, rather than the reality of what happens if we don’t adopt the MOM. Correlating polling on the issues over the past year or more, and the election result, suggests there might be a significant number of people that would prefer not to sell down the assets, but accept that circumstances necessitate (or at least justify) it.

I want to say …

There are so many people who voted for St. John.. The first time because they wanted change… The second time because they gave him the benefit of the doubt.. ” Not enough time “..

I think that St. John is pushing his luck if he thinks that he will receive those votes again with out some real action..

NATIONAL SOCIALISM !!..

No that is not a vote for Hitler or Mussolini.. Or even that Wonk in Christchurch..

Why did Fonterra sell 40% of their new issue off shore when NZ money wanted to own it ??..

Thus ensuring 40% of dividend money will leave this country..

Madness !!.. New Zealand people wanted to buy at the same price as offered and taken by overseas people..

It is over time for NZ’d to BUY BACK New Zealand..

St. Johns last opportunity to impress..

That’s brilliant Rex. Seriously. Using that simple concept to drive the idea home to Joe and Jane Sixpack that their choices actually WILL affect their school, their benefit, their take-home pay or whatever, is a brilliant insight into how to finally wakeup the people to the consequence of their choices.

You could extend that concept into any number of micro or macro political choices, to the same effect, with one proviso. No made-up numbers. If a party wanted to use such a graph on their website or on any campaign, they must by law be guaranteed always to use the same source (e.g. Treasury) for their figures and the sliders must be audited and certified to accurately reflect the adjustments made by the voters.

Finally, instead of being presented with a big thick book called “The Budget” with lots of big words, Joe and Jane could eschew their furrowed brows with a few simple sliders, pointing out that the more P that Joe smokes and the more housie that Jane plays, the more prison time they will get, the less they are going to get in benefits and the more wretched their kids lives will become, with every passing day.

Etc.

That too would be a leading question unless the proceeds were tagged to fund broadband, hospitals and schools rather than anything that might take English’s fancy.

I’d then like to see – and it’s perfectly possible to do with current web technology – a question which simply asks “Do you support the government proceeding with its announced program of asset sales?” (with a list of the assets and their estimated value beside the question. Let’s say anticipated value = n).

Answer “yes” and you’re done. Answer “no” and the systems then asks “The government had intended to use the proceeds to fund:
- Broadband $x million
- Hospitals $y million
- Schools $z million
(and so on)

Please move the sliders beneath each one to indicate to what extent you would prefer the reduction in increased spending to affect each category” (x + y + z would have to = n)

That way the government is forced to be honest about where the money will go and the punter is forced to face the entire impact of his or her choices.

“Do you support the Government selling up to 49 per cent of Meridian Energy, Mighty River Power, Genesis Power, Solid Energy and Air New Zealand?”

http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/8141848/Asset-sales-petition-gets-its-numbers

Are you making a prediction you’re prepared to stake your reputation on, bhudson?

I am predicting that the result will be meaningless for (at least) a couple of reasons:

1. Participation won’t be high enough to provide an unequivocal result
2. The question is being worded by opponents to the mixed ownership model and the final wording will create a natural bias to the a to-position, despite the ‘advice’ of officials [cannot recall off hand who/which office 'assists'.]*

The referendum question will likely end up being something like “Do you support the partial sale of public assets by the government?” Which will naturally bias responses towards ‘no’.

If the question were more along the lines of “Given current economic conditions and forecasts for the near future, do you support the government selling minority shareholdings in some State assets to help fund new assets such as broadband, hospitals and schools?” then the answer would be far more likely to tend to ‘yes’.

anything but small change over 10% would seem to be the best they could have achieved

Which would mean that only 10% of the population (say 12% to be generous) will vote “no” to asset sales in the eventual referendum.

Are you making a prediction you’re prepared to stake your reputation on, bhudson?

I could argue, with equal validity, that if they’d kept going and knocked on every door in the nation they’d have 90% signed up. Of course I’d be talking nonsense

Well, given that they have been working in earnest trying to collect signatures for some 9 months or more now, pretty much anything but small change over 10% would seem to be the best they could have achieved.

“Barely 10%” are all that are required to sign. Why would the organisers keep collecting when the referendum will do the job of polling the opinions of a far larger number?

I could argue, with equal validity, that if they’d kept going and knocked on every door in the nation they’d have 90% signed up. Of course I’d be talking nonsense

There will, of course, always be those who just don’t give a damn about anything as Cunningham notes above. Just try collecting for an unimpeachable charity (some childhood disease, for instance, not some controversial environmental mob) and see how many passers by indicate they couldn’t give a toss. But neither side can claim their support because apathy =/= approval any more than it indicates disapproval.

So a referendum will tell us what a majority of those who can be bothered engaging want to occur. Hopefully the total turnout will be at least 51% or we’ll have soothsayers from both sides arguing that laziness and ignorance amounts to a ringing endorsement of their particular perspective.

A general election elects parliament, which includes the voices of the minorities, even if only as opposition to the government.

So provided the minority gets a say before they’re over-ruled by the majority that’s okay?

Let’s take an extreme example. Let’s say NZF holds the balance of power at the next election and let’s imagine that he says a ban on further immigration is his price. And let’s imagine a party, we’ll say Labour so as to avoid nightmares plaguing a majority of readers, agrees but its minority MPs – Su’a William Sio, Raymond Huo, Kris Faafoi and even Rajen Prasad (we’ll assume for the purpose of argument he awakens long enough to comment), object on behalf of their respective communities but are overruled.

They’ve done their duty as “voices of the minorities” so is that a democratic outcome?

You’re working from the assumption that the majority are always a bunch of unfeeling brutes who, by virtue of their overwhelming numbers, want to trample the rights of the minority. Yet we’ve had “landslide” elections from time to time and no one has ever suggested outlawing the party which lost heavily. We’ve actually got a fairly good record as a nation for respecting minorities… after all, we were the first to accord women the vote after over 31,872 people signed 13 separate petitions collected by women’s suffrage supporters in 1893. Which suggests we’d use our referenda powers in a more enlightened fashion than the Swiss mentioned above.

http://keepingstock.blogspot.co.nz/2013/01/the-silent-majority.html

Now you are being just polemic, Rex.

A general election elects parliament, which includes the voices of the minorities,even if only as opposition to the government.
A referendum, on the other hand, has merely a yes/no answer. Comparing the two is disingenuous.

There are a number of reasons why a referendum is a bad instrument. Mostly because it is impossible too reduce complex questions to a yes/no answer. And secondly the reason why we have general elections is precisely to elect representatives to deal with these specific questions and not to bounce them back at us.

This referendum is nothing but a populist measure by labour, greens and other opposition to asset sales which one day will come back to bite them, one way or the other. It only shows how incompetent labour and the greens are to exploit the public unease with asset sales for purely ideological reasons by other means. It is also why National fear such a referendum, because it may erase whatever slim mandate they had through the election for those asset sales.

“Of course if I had my way you’d need to pass a simple test before you exercised your franchise in a general election. If, for instance, you’re one of the 48% (of the last survey, taken in 2008) who still don’t understand that your party vote determines who’ll govern after years of trying to educate you, well tough luck.”

Well I couldn’t agree with you more. It grates me how many people just don’t give a shit about politics and issues facing the country. They say it is frustrating because politicians just lie but that makes it even more important to take an interest! People don’t know how lucky they are to have the opportunity to take an interest in how this country is run. Most people only take an interest on election day and only for what things they will gain rather then whether it is good for NZ or not. Quite sad really but a fact of life.

That’s what referenda do. It’s about the majority trampling the rights of the minority. Which is why they should never ever be binding.

Yes, those General Elections, where the majority get to decide who governs, are so damned undemocratic. Pity we didn’t appoint, say, Helen Clark as Empress, and then she could look at the results of subsequent elections and determine whether the rights of her favoured minorities would be affected by the outcome and, if they were, ignore it.

As Emma Goldman (who also said “If voting changed anything, they’d make it illegal) put it, “people have only as much liberty as they have the intelligence to want and the courage to take”. It seems we lack the intelligence, the courage, or both.