Sign the petition against taxpayer money for Sky City

The Taxpayers' Union has a petition against any taxpayer funds going towards the Sky City convention centre, on top of the regulatory concessions that were agreed to.

The petition says:

Back in May 2013 when the SkyCity convention centre was announced, the promised a national convention centre suitable for between 3,500 and 5,000 attendees in return for allowing SkyCity to have more pokies and tables. Throughout the 2014 election, the Government told New Zealanders that we were getting a ‘free' convention centre. The deal was done, the ink was apparently dry.

Now SkyCity are trying to rip us all off. They've filed plans for a convention centre for only 1,500 and 3,000. As a result, John and Steven Joyce aren't ruling out dipping into our pockets and forking out for SkyCity.

Sign our petition to tell John Key not to use taxpayer money on SkyCity – we'll deliver the signatures to later in this month.

Over 300 have signed in a couple of hours. It takes 20 seconds. And you won't get any e-mail spam as a result of it (unlike certain political parties) unless you opt in to them.

On this issue it was interesting to hear Andrew Little on Larry Williams show on NewstalkZB tomorrow. I thought he did very well, for the following reasons:

  • He didn't do the normal rant about National just wants to look after its big mates
  • He didn't try and demonise Sky City because it has a casino
  • He focused on the issue of a deal is a deal
  • He focused on how it shouldn't suddenly cost $130 million more barely a year later
  • He also didn't say under no circumstances could the Government not put any money at all in, but $130 million is way too much – a couple of million could possibly be okay
  • This made Little sound reasonable, and not against a convention centre, just against a huge taxpayer contribution after a deal was signed which said there would be no contribution
  • Little also correctly analysed that while the Govt has a lot of political capital tied up this and doesn't want it to fail, neither does Sky City want to have the deal not happen which means no centre, no licence extension and no more pokies. So the Govt should hold fast

Little's performance was vastly superior to the previous Opposition Leaders because he sounded rational and flexible, not just sloganeering against the Government.

He has made mistakes such as the talking about Maori sovereignty, but his instincts generally are proving better than his predecessors.

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