Labour and the Greens are trying mightily to get the signatures they need to force a referedum on partial asset sales. But as Pete George asks at Your NZ, who's actually doing the initiating? He blogs:
The Green Party are promoting a petition for an asset sales referendum. They – and other groups in the Keep Our Assets coalition including the Labour Party – are using the Citizen Initiated Referenda process to continue campaigning they began during the last election.
It’s easy to make an assumption as per Wikipedia “The Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 allows for citizens to propose a referendum“, that a CIR is a means of citizens petitioning MPs in parliament. So why are political parties (and MPs) so heavily involved in this petition?
Of course MPs are citizens too – but they have their own ways of influencing parliament, they are Members of Parliament.
Greens and Labour had said that they were only a part of a citizen based coalition, but they seem to be more open about their involvement now.
The latest Green Party newsletter says:
Over the winter months, the Green Party and our coalition partners have collected over 240,000 signatures on the Keep Our Assets petition.We. We. We. That shows clearly it’s a significant Green Party campaign.
That’s an outstanding victory in itself, but we now need to finish the job off.
Today we launched The Spring Collection, our month long push to get the last remaining signatures to force a referendum to stop the asset sales.
We need your help one last time.
And David Shearer’s weekly newsletter is along similar lines:
Your MPs will be out working in our regions and local communities next week, with Parliament taking a break from sitting. It’s a chance for us to make another big push to get the signatures we need for the asset sales petition.Us. We.
Both parties have taken clear ownership of the petition. It seems like a case of political parties hijacking a means for citizens to influence parliament.
It is an established fact that the Greens have spent public money on what is essentially a political stunt. And they were at it again yesterday, with a re-launch, in cahoots with Labour.
It must be worrying for both Labour and the Greens that only 240,000 people have signed their petition after months of publicity. After all, check out the party vote figures in the diagram below from last year's General Election:
Less people have signed the PPIR petition than voted for the Greens in November. Add in Labour's party vote (614,937), plus those of NZ First, the Maori Party and the Mana Party, all of whom voted against the empowering legislation, and the petition strike-rate is around 25%.
And they'll need at least a 10% tolerance over and above the 310,000. We have heard plenty of reports of teenagers as young as 13 signing the petition, of duplicate signatures, and of those (not including ourselves, we might add) with a mischievious streak signing with all manner of false names. The petition will need a thorough audit before it is accepted.
So let's drop the pretence of this being anything other than party political propaganda. Patently, this is an opportunist attempt by Labour and the Greens in particular to hi-jack the CIR process. Pete George calls it as it is; Citizen Initiated Referendum my asset.
24 comments:
"Your MPs will be out working in our regions and local communities next week, with Parliament taking a break from sitting. It’s a chance for us to make another big push to get the signatures we need for the asset sales petition."
Not only will they be wasting money on an exercise in futility if the petition gets enough signatures to initiate a referendum, we're paying them to collect signatures.
It doesn't say much about their priorities if they think this is the best use of their time and our money.
Pete George, like yourself, is relentlessly anti-Labour and anti-Green. His comments, therefore, and yours, on anything the incoming Government parties do, are not worth considering. His and your programme of undermining the Labour and Green parties is obvious and quite frankly, boring.
Let me get this straight Sam. Pete George believes something different to what you do, therefore his opinion is irrelevant and boring; is that what you're saying?
It's nice to see that you're so open-minded!
@ Seaweed Sam - "Pete George, like yourself, is relentlessly anti-Labour and anti-Green."
That's total nonsense. I've voted for both Greens and Labour in the past. I support and promote both having a strong presence in parliament.
I was the most frequent promoter of Labour policy and David Shearer at The Standard until they banned me - they seem to prefer undermining Labour unhindered.
I'm not a stong supporter (or opponent) if asset sales.
I'm highlighting a separate issue - the misuse and abuse of CIR and the misuse of MP time and parliamentary funds for extending election campaigns through the term.
Well said Pete. But isn't it interesting how quickly people like Sam shoot the messenger rather than actually bothering to listen to or read the message?
You are both poised at every opportunity to attack the Greens, it's patently obvious from watching you both post and comment over time. Your rationale here is nonsense, to borrow Pete's apt word. No one with even an ounce of reason could think of either of you as genuinely non-partisan. I laugh at the suggestion.
He he haw haw, haaa!
Laugh all you want Sam; laughter is good for the soul. However I've never pretended to be non-partisan, and my political leaning is pretty obvious to anyone who comes here.
I thought most of us voted in favour of asset sales at the last general election? Was I mistaken?
Cadwallader
You are clearly mistaken in David Shearer and Russel Norman's opinion Cadwallader. But I suspect that might not cause you too much distress...
Seaweed Sam said... "You are both poised at every opportunity to attack the Greens, it's patently obvious from watching you both post and comment over time."
I repeat again, that's nonsense. You probably don't see most of what I do.
I've praised Gareth Hughes and Kevin Hague in the last few days, and they week before I exchange emails with five Green MPs on parliamentary behaviour, an issue we have strong agreement on.
I praise the Green and Labour parties at least as much as I criticise them.
"We wonder how many times Rufus Paynter has signed the PPIR petition..."
I was wondering why the Caropotamus was standing behind a table on Onehunga Mall...whatever the answer to your question is, KS, it will shortly be +1
BRB
Something about Seaweed Sam's laugh conveyed a picture of a braying ass.
I like the way you think James...
rgeen rgass (Dislexia eh! It's a pass in the ain!)
Sam's braying was well directed though. Keeping and Pete, anti-green tag-team.
Pete George said "I praise the Green and Labour parties at least as much as I criticise them."
Pete - there's a pyschological phrase that describes your behaviour, but not wanting to pin it to you in public, I'll respond by saying this,
you praise the Green and Labour parties so that you can criticise them. I'm aware you'll not be able to follow my meaning, but some unblinkered reader might.
You're welcome.
I see my comments in an earlier post did stimulate a response, KS. :-)
No matter how much you claim that the Greens and Labour have captured the CIR process in the end it still leads to a thoroughly democratic end result. A referendum will truly settle the argument about where public feelings really lie.
National claim the election gave them a clear mandate to sell assets and the table you published is an attempt to support this view. However all the information needed to inform voters of the true nature of the asset sales was not available during the election. Since then a number of disturbing facts have emerged and a BERL report has revealed more concerns. A referendum will give the public a chance to to give a clear mandate to the government that they support the sale or otherwise.
As I said earlier I am more concerned with the $120 million of public funds being used to promote and progress the asset sales than the thousands used to support a democratic process. The only reason that anyone would complain about the Labour and Green's involvement would be that the referendum result may not support the governments agenda.
You miss the point though bsprout. What the Greens and Labour are doing is fundamentally dishonest; the CIR process was intended to give the average bloke like you or me or Norm Withers the chance to make a difference. It certainly wasn't intended to be hijacked by political parties to relitigate election results that didn't go the way they had hoped.
Silly me. I thought the Greens were above such things.
"Pete - there's a pyschological phrase that describes your behaviour"
Yeah, it's called calling things as I see them.
I've been accused of many things for doing that - was it 'passive aggressive' you don't want to "pin on me in public"? I've had that thrown at me too, by political hacks who have to be passive with their own party and are aggressive to anyone who thinks differently. It's a bit pathetic.
I don't miss the point at all, KS, the Greens and Labour would have never have supported the CIR unless there was already strong public support. It is Grey Power that has led the activity and protests in Invercargill and you could hardly claim that their membership has been bullied into this action by the Greens.
Your suggestion that many signatures have been dishonestly gathered is also a concern because you would know that a proper audit will occur and there would be no benefit in collecting signatures that would be considered invalid.
I would be more concerned with the public money being used to promote asset sales and the government's refusal to take advice from the treasury or the BERL report or recognise the numerous polls that demonstrate clear opposition.
If Labour were to win the next election and then try to force through an initiative that had doubtful public mandate, are you saying that National would never support a CIR that opposes it?
What do you mean "if" bsprout? Have you forgotten the cessation of our link to the Privy Council and the establishment of the Supreme Court? There was certainly never an election contested on that plan.
I don't see the parallel, KS, was there huge public outcry about those iniatives and did it involve huge financial implications?
I think there is general support for New Zealand to operate more as an independent nation and the progress towards becoming a republic seems like a natural evolution (even within many in the National Party). Selling state assets and control of our essential infrastructure is an entirely different context.
I bet if there was a move to make union membership compulsory the National Party would entirely support a CIR that could oppose it.
"I bet if there was a move to make union membership compulsory the National Party would entirely support a CIR that could oppose it."
CIR hasn't been used by parties like this before, so I don't know how you can claim that. This sets a precedent, and a bad one.
If that had any idea of how long a petition/referendum would take, and the likelihood the results would be ignored, they wouldn't waster their time and our money.
" What the Greens and Labour are doing is fundamentally dishonest; the CIR process was intended to give the average bloke like you or me or Norm Withers the chance to make a difference."
You have missed the point entirely. The average bloke can and will have his say. The person holding the clipboard is merely making it possible for him/her to do so. Your fear of the result has clouded your understanding significantly.
The referendum is initiated by those signing the petition. This is pretty damn simple, I wonder by George and IV2 have such a hard hard time understanding it. It's almost willful...
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