Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Select Committee Chair Todd McClay has announced he expects to report the Asset Sales Bill back to the House six weeks early, instead of the original date of 16 July.
How 1448 submissions, of which 9 were in favour and 1421 were opposed, (0.6% in favour and 98.1% against) can be adequately condensed beggars belief.
But as we know National will try almost anything and when you have Treasury write its departmental report before hearing all submissions, anything is possible.
In doing so the government has abused the normal processes of the select committee and bequeathed a series of problems for future governments to rectify.
Unless there’s urgency and whether you’ve won an election or not, governments put legislation through a select committee process for two good reasons.
Firstly, you want to get it right. This bill is full of holes – many of which you can drive a bus through. The copious faults identified by expert and community submitters are compounded by a process of inadequate consideration and pre-emptory deliberation.
Secondly, you should give submitters the right to have their say because they might actually have some good ideas to improve or amend the bill. So why did they bother even going through the select committee process? This is the government telling the experts and the community that they don’t want to listen.
It’s clear that these tactics were used to limit adverse publicity and attempt to undermine the nation-wide petition for a referendum, rather than enable the committee to go about its business in a thorough and properly considered way.
No evidence was given showing this bill will improve the economic, social and fiscal position of New Zealand. This legislation will only increase power prices, increase asset inequality and make New Zealanders poorer and more indebted to the world in the long-term.
We will know early next week if they plan to sell our assets under urgency. In the meantime listen to my interview on Radio New Zealand this morning.
Clayton
reporting early is a smart move. The Nats campaigned on the issue partial asset sales through all of 2011 and won the election hands down – 47% compared to your lot with 27%.
They have the mandate. I voted knowing that a vote for the nats meant a vote for partial asset sales and I am looking forward to purchasing shares later this year.
The petition (unbelievably being funded by the taxpayer as exposed by Keeping stock and WhaleOil) is a waste of time. This was the main election issue. So why do you not admit that the Nats have the mandate?
Michael Cullen once famously said “we won you lost – eat that” doesn’t the same now apply?
Clayton, what chance is there of Labour announcing this legislation would be repealed, with all it’s possible repercussions, when they regain the treasury benches?
If you want to stop these asset sales just get together with all the other parties that want to keep them (You, Greens, NZ1st, Mana – ie, the entire friggen opposition) and say that you will renationalise them without compensation on the day you get power in 2014. Doesn’t matter what laws NACT pass to sell the assets then as nobody will buy them due to it being a guaranteed loss.
If you say but that’s not how it’s done well, what NACT are doing with its rushing these things through without proper consultation and ignoring Select Committee submissions isn’t supposed to be how it’s done either.
I agree with Draco T Bastard. The Labour Party needs to be brave and show some leadership. You’re not the Middle Ground Party. You’re the Labour Party. Say you’ll renationalise them or change you name.
Obviously the Government needs the money urgently as they are having to rush things, just like the 1980′s fire sales of State Assets.
There should be some procedure in place in which if there is a citizens-initiated referendum question gazetted by the Clerk of the House that pertains to a bill, a motion to read the bill a third time cannot be initiated until the petition lapses or the referendum is held – in a similar way a government can stop a bill at its third reading if it affects its budget. Then the earliest the bill could pass is April 2013.
Obviously we did not learn anything from the Asset Sales in the 1980′s.
Labour no like these asset sales!
!
If the election count is the be all and end all as to whether the government has a mandate to sell off our revenue generating assets or not, then it should be noted that more people voted for parties who were against the sale of our assets and thus it should be acknowledged that based on the vote at the last election, the government does not have a mandate for asset sales. It is fallacious to say otherwise.
Should alarm bells be ringing with respect of the part sale of the SOEs now that it has been revealed that NZ negotiators working on the Pacific Rim Trade Agreement would seem to be happy to allow overseas shareholders to sue the NZ govenment if NZ policy compromised the expected profit of those overseas partners?! Would the consequence of such litigation probably result in the required sale of the 51% held by the government? After all we have been reassured by the Nats that the government majority stake would be used to safeguard NZ`s best interest! BUT surely this may well compromise the profits of overseas shareholders! They will be quick to use any legal rights to maximise profits. Government part ownership seems incompatible? Do the Nat`s realise this and so will soon reluctantly(?) allow full sale of our essential infrastructure? Many of us believe that that is an inevitable consequence of the part sale, which is just a plausible con to facilitate full sale.
Could this be the basis for a question in the House?
To rush things through just to avoid the submissions, and hearing what the public actually think Is CORUPT. There are processes for a reason. And it is to stop corruption .
Wendy…You mean like the Seabed and Foreshore Bill, the anti smacking bill and the real doozy of them all, the Appropriation bill?
What sort of “mandate” has 98% of New Zealanders opposing it? Especially when one considers that it is bill submissions that *should* actually be used in understanding the public will for a particular legal issue.