Today I’m launching a new campaign to protect Auckland’s community assets. It’s called Not Yours To Sell.
Over the last few months of the super city debate, and the last four days of select committee hearings on the super city bill, it has been clear to me that Aucklanders fear the super city may be the prelude to privatisation of our assets.
Last week my member’s bill – the Local Government (Protection of Auckland Assets) Amendment Bill – was pulled from the ballot. Over the next three weeks I hope we can mobilise public support for the bill, and particularly pressure on Auckland’s National MPs to support it.
If passed the bill would give Aucklanders the right to a referendum before any public assets were sold off. The Prime Minister has said the Government has no plans to sell Auckland’s assets and it would be up to future Auckland Councils. Well…yes, precisely. It is not so long ago that they sold off shares in the airport, and tried to flog off the port. Add to that the fact that we have a Minister of Local Government who advocates privatisation. And a Rodney Hide-led Cabinet review that seeks to scale back local government to ‘core services.’
So if you want to help save Auckland’s ports, water company, transport, libraries, parks, sports grounds… go to Not Yours To Sell, sign up, and take action.
Well the assets aren’t the Auckland Communities to own. To have them in the ownership of a governmental body is to simply force all those that “belong” to that body to be shareholders in those assets. Nobody has the right to force even one of those people into such a situation even if it is believed to be in their benefit. No person or group has the right to infringe upon the liberties of people and one such liberty is to make decisions such as ownership for themselves.
Libertarians, you crack me up.
Firstly Phil, does it really matter who owns what assets? Its not like those nasty Canadians could pack up and move Auckland airport is it? Not too many months ago, Labour was willing to sell shares in Auckland airport till Labour saw political capital in it, scuppered the deal and lost many shareholders thousands of dollars each.
Secondly, its about the best use of money. There is a lot of money tied up in these assets; could it be that instead of continual upping the rates, monies are released from partial or total sale of these assets. Or, would you prefer that rates carry on their merry upward ride to assets sales to release cash are never required.
I love the fact that while you are “saving Auckland” – you are advertising wotzon.com on the front page (Wellington region’s events and ‘good times’ website.
We don’t need lessons in successful business management from the political party that paid 100% too much for Kiwirail. All Cullens blocking of the sale of AAL shares to the Canadian Pension fund did was damage the stock market investments of retired New Zealanders.
Your post says nothing about why we should own these assetts as ratepayers ?
Bryan Spondre
Like others I wonder why not sell assets that the council does not need to own and can be run better and more efficiently by the private sector.
Governments (local and Central) should only exist to govern – Why do they need to own the port, the and other infrastructure assets. You are also a liar in that you deliberately mislead – I have not seen any where any proposal to sell Parks, libraries and sports grounds – is there any such proposal – or is this Labour scare-mongering??
No wonder Labour is 33 points behind National in the latest Roy Morgan poll.
Monty – “You are also a liar ”
I believe that the reds prefer the term “your nose is growing, your nose is growing”
Anyway Phil – Monty raises a very good point – can you please give specific info on where they are looking to sell parks and libraries?
Phil is just trying to launch his campaign for Auckland Central early by scaremongering since it worked so well in Mt Albert.
There isn’t shred of evidence that parks or libraries are going to be sold let alone even thought about being sold and he clearly doesn’t understand existing local body law which prohibits the privatisation of Water.
So all round a massive own goal from the candidate Labour were too afraid to run in Mt Albert.
The proposed bill is NOT a prohibition on the sale of assets, but simply that it should be put to the people of Auckland as to whether they want it to happen. I doubt that any referendums would take place outside the voting cycle, so basically when you make your other votes you would also have the opportunity to vote on whether to sell some of the port (for example).
What I think the big advantage of this bill is that it would force whoever wants to sell a council asset to really justify their reason for doing so. To use the port example again, if the proceeds of selling the port were spent on building the CBD rail loop tunnel then quite possibly people would vote for such a thing (if there was no other way to fund it).
The last time Auckland has a major local government reorganisation we very nearly did see the wholesale privatisation of the city’s assets. If I recall correctly it was only one person on the ARC who stopped the full sale of the port from going ahead. In subsequent years the port has been an excellent cash-cow for providing funds for stormwater and transport upgrades. One would hope that we would have learned from that experience – but judging from the comments above I think perhaps not.
Given the performance of NZ management (generally recognised to be mixed at best) and its private sector operations (see this week’s NBR discussion of currency hedging, for example), one wonders why the adherents of privatisation are so certain of its advantages. It can’t possibly be the prospect of windfall profits and asset stripping, surely.
Assets are not the only issue to be considered. The ARC is looking at growth scenarios, one of which (the developers’ preferred model and one that might well find favour with this government and a new Supercity council) proposes a massive erosion of the MULs. This is, I submit, just as important for the future of Auckland as the threat of asset sales.
Monopoly assets such as the port and airport are profitable enterprises? Why shouldn’t the Auckland Council be allowed to take the profits to re-invest in public infrastructure. Why should we hand the profits to Macquarie Bank to splash on their executive bonuses?
Why should valuable capital be wasted on monopoly infrastructure and not our export earning companies?
The fruitcake right is up in arms! I can see this is going to be very successful.
best of all it cuts through the the minutiae to the heart of the issue that everyday people can understand- like a good work of art it allows people to see it in terms that mean something to them.
And most voters arent going to be thinking ´why does the council need to own this’.
Hide allready has that 3% of the population
@Jarbury – “The proposed bill is NOT a prohibition on the sale of assets, but simply that it should be put to the people of Auckland as to whether they want it to happen…”
The assumption of the wingnuts that the bill would be a prohibition speaks volumes on which way they think any vote go.
Again you all miss the point, the people of Auckland do not have the individual right to say no to ownership of these assets and you nor the rest of humanity combined can justify ignoring their right to choose what happens with THEIR property (including income).
The profitability of an ‘asset’ has nothing to do with if it is right for a governmental body to own it and the question of where the profits go is quite xenophobic. The fact of the matter remains the business of government is in no way to run commercial ventures.
Indeed! Quite funny that they have all jumped to the conclusion that people would obviously vote against selling assets and are now pushing ideological arguments about why council supposedly shouldn’t be involved in owning assets.
I think that’s the most hilarious thing I have ever read on this blog. Why the heck should government actually benefit from a profitable asset when we can sell it off and have a bunch of rich Australians benefit from it instead? LOL, keep it up Stuart!
Meanwhile, Phil, I do hope you’d also support taking the same approach to “significant” asset purchases being rammed through by Council without proper scrutiny — or isn’t there any Winston-lite milage in that?
If the proposition is that the government does not need to own airports, ports, power stations etc why not go the whole hog and sell all the motorways, like they have with Tollways in Aussie. Then the new owners could charge tolls (like in medieval times and repratriate all the profits to Australia, England, France etc.. forever in perpetuity.
In fact roads are on of the very few public assets which I would favour user pays as it would expose the motorists to the real cost of building and maintaining roads. Unlike the airport, power stations and the ports we actually have a choice as to which one we will take and when.
@ Robert – “Given the performance of NZ management (generally recognised to be mixed at best) ”
I have worked over a lot of the world in a professional management capacity – and happy to say that a lot of the management I have dealt with in NZ has been world class.
Robert – you would do well to look at some of NZ’s world class business and the people running them – you will obviously learn something.
Dear Bikerkiwi
I don’t want to waste Red Alert’s space, so let me direct you to just one of many studies and other commentaries (from the NZ ‘Porter Report’ in the early 1990s onwards) that conclude, whilst some managers and firms perform well, there is, to quote Knuckey et al., “a long tail of New Zealand businesses lagging behind (in terms of a variety of performance indicators), more so than comparable research suggests is found in other countries”.
S Knuckey et. al. Firm Foundations, MED, 2002 at:
http://www.med.govt.nz/upload/5254/firm-foundations.pdf
And I spend much of my time doing exactly what you suggest -looking at a very wide range of NZ firms – and Knuckey et al’s conclusions make sense to me.
Privatisation, as we came to understand in the 1980s and 1990s, is at best a curate’s egg. That does not mean, however, that there not other configurations (for example, some forms of public-private partnerships) that might be explored.
“In fact roads are on of the very few public assets which I would favour user pays”… As long as someone else pays for all the things you use, right?
“Given the performance of NZ management [...] one wonders why the adherents of privatisation are so certain of its advantages.” Er, so the performance of government run organisations has been so amazing that they should all be run by the state?
Good work guys
Last thing we need is another round of privatisation for the sake of it.. Our investment income balance is bad enough already without the prospect of more of NZ’s assets ending up in foreign ownership.
Ah good old Bryan Spondre, a man who seems to think that the way to prosperity is to flog everything not nailed down to the highest bidder.
Surely we should be capable of running our own airports, water, etc.
I find your new belief in direct democracy quite interesting.
If you really believe in the principle that all local governnet assets should have a referendum required to sell them, why not apply this to ll councils, and not just Auckland?
And will your belief in direct democracy extend to the citizens initiated referendum on smacking coming up?
Jarbury, I think the most hilarious thing anywhere has to be the fact you demonstrated the very xenophobia of those who think like you in the response you intended as ridicule. Australian’s (be they rich or not) are people and I for one would not deny them their human rights to be free from the initiation of force. To, in any way, interfere with their completely consensual interaction with others (such as buying New Zealand assets) is to deny them and the New Zealand owner(s) their right to be free of force, their right to voluntary association etc etc.
I do enjoy the way that Jarbury exemplifies the xenophobia and envy of the rich that I alluded to earlier. I so also enjoy the way that he/she ignored my point that if even one person who is forced to be a shareholder of the asset(s) would chose otherwise given the option then their rights have been violated. Obviously he/she realizes this is the case and either unwilling or unable to come to terms with this.
As an aside (and an irrelevant one I might suggest as what is economically prudent is only relevant in situations already filtered through objective morality) I suggest you study economics, then you will see why profits heading overseas really doesn’t matter too much in the scheme of things.
Stuart, as I said above this bill does not prohibit the sale of council assets – it only requires a referendum before that takes place. Surely your bizarre ideology would be in favour of the people giving their consent to the sale of a council asset rather than having the council make that sale against their wishes? Or you only like that theory when it fits with your privatisation agenda?
In the end, ideological arguments can be made for and against privatisation. What really matters is what the sensible decision is – sometimes that might be for the asset to be retained and sometimes it might be for it to be sold. This bill gives the people a stronger say in making that decision.
Your argument of why should we not deprive those overseas of access to our assets would make sense if they were just as generous to us. However in general they have the sense to not be quite so generous. We tried the “trail-blazing free market” approach in the 1980s and got most of of the costs without the benefits. No wonder it is so hard for us to get free-trade agreements with Europe and the USA these days – we have nothing to offer them as we got rid of most of our tarriffs 20 odd years ago.
That said, one could extend the ideology promoted by this bill to argue that referendums should be used for buying big assets or embarking on activities outside “core services”. I certainly don’t think that is a path that Labour would necessarily want to go down – which is perhaps a weakness of this bill.
This seems unfair to me. If Aucklanders get a say in asset sales, then all the country should have the same rights extended to them. More importantly there should be public input into purchases as well (a bit late to prevent the kiwifail travesty but perhaps we could prevent a repeat).
Yes, god help us, Labrat if we actually have a fully functioning railway network. We should just rip it all up and turn them into roads for those nice and sexy trucks.
All those who moan about the KiwiRail purchse never actually get around to looking at what the alternative (ongoing subsidies to Toll) would have cost.
The “why just Auckland?” question is a good one though.
Jarbury again you miss the point; if even one person who is forced to be a shareholder of the asset(s) would chose otherwise given the option then their rights have been violated. That is the only thing that is important.
As to the ‘free market’ ‘experiments’ of the 1980’s I can only say it is a shame we didn’t have any. The reality of what occurred in the 80’s is nothing more than a softening of the regulations in some areas and strengthening in others. I would love to prove this to be the case (as I can very easily do so) but it is neither here nor there as this should be about human rights (which only a true free market system can uphold). As to other countries holding onto protectionism; that is their problem and in the end regardless of what they choose to do the best course of action for us is to institute free markets (Which I argue on the basis of human rights even though it will result in the best economic outcome too).
I’m still not figuring out why it’s in our best interests to sell off council assets. And it looks like around 85% of residents on Auckland’s North Shore feel the same.
The North Shore is a National stronghold – I wonder if the Nats will take heed of this poll and adopt this private member’s bill as a government bill. It seems like their supporters would like for them to do so.
And, Mr Hawkins, let us go through the reductio ad absurdum argument that if my rights as an individual to belong to a collective which collectively owns prooerty are offended…….there is an essential circularity in the argument, created by its impossibility as, of course, perfect individual freedom, as perfect market competition, is an ideal type,never existing or to exist. Sadly, reductionism of this type misses the important point – in a world in which some regulation is vital, what configuration of constraint meets our collective needs (as individuals and as collectives) best? Practically, of course, few governments are more interventionist than neo-liberal governments proclaiming freedom.
Jarbury, again you ignore my point entirely; if even one person who is forced to be a shareholder of the asset(s) would chose otherwise given the option then their rights have been violated. It does not matter if they are the only one that objects out of the entirety of the planet, the violation of one person’s objective rights is unacceptable for any reason. The ends do not and can not justify the means. The 85% that want to violate other’s rights are just awful people.
What is right has nothing to do with popularity.
Robert, unfortunately you have also missed my point. The collective is the problem. It is an artificial entity that by its imposition necessitates the violation of individual rights. As it violates the rights of individuals and given that the ends do not and can not justify the means it must be abandoned.
Also I don’t think what you wrote makes any sense, you state to examine my reducto ad absurdum argument (which I didn’t make in the first place, unless you are claiming you were making one against my statement but I discounted that as you didn’t try to) but only give, what can only be described as, a single premise (of the if variety but with only the antecedent and no consequent) which contains no contradiction at all. You then make a completely unsubstantiated claim about ‘perfect individual freedom’ and ‘perfect market competition’. Then make a statement about reductionism, another unsubstantiated claim (and an extremely scope ambiguous statement) about the need for some regulation, assume that a collective is necessary a necessary entity and finally make an unsubstantiated claim about ‘neo-liberal governments proclaiming freedom’ as being the most interventionist. I am sorry if I sound rude or arrogant (I have read my statement and can see how someone could be mistaken about such an assumption) but I can not see you saying anything that I would need to respond to. I would be more than pleased to have your statement clarified but as it stands you haven’t actually said anything.
It’s not really that people don’t get your point Stuart, but that your point is a nonsense. You simply state that everyone has an objective right to something, without explaining where that right comes from.
Any right, any right at all, has to be recognised in order to exist. A right that is not recognised by society is yet to exist in that society.
One can certainly advocate that we should have some right that does not yet exist, but it is fruitless to pretend that it already does exist, even more so to make that pretense the basis of your argument for instituting that right.
It’s that same old fail that Randians always trot out, and I’m sure everyone here has seen it all before. In fact, Randian notions about property are the mirror image of old school communist thought, in that they make the same error.
Communists back in the day used to just assert that private property is theft, and the only true kind of property was public property. That society should wholly determine how things were allocated because individuals could not produce things outside of social networks.
They just assumed, in other words that a certain set within the superset ‘types of property rights’ was the one true form. Randians just assume that a different set of property rights (unrestricted private property) is the one true form.
In fact of course, rights are determined by societies. In our society we have democratic processes to determine what rights we all will have. If you don’t like them you are free to try and change them. But just because your ideas are widely seen as unworkable, immoral, and well, a bit silly, does not mean your actual existing rights are being denied.
In fact, objectively speaking, and going by the last election result, you are claiming that your alleged property right trumps the political rights of all the people that do not want to live under the system you propose.
For the record, your mob got an order of magnitude less votes than ‘Bill and Ben’.
Just saying.
Stuart H says: Jarbury again you miss the point; if even one person who is forced to be a shareholder of the asset(s) would chose otherwise given the option then their rights have been violated. That is the only thing that is important.
Sadly, I’m old and simple. I have unwittingly been forced to own a great whack of roading, some hospital beds, the odd school desk and quite a lot of Aucklands footpathing. What can I do to enfd this violation, and to regain my freedom and not be party to such nefarious(though entirely unwitting) shareholding/ownership?
I would appreciate some of your divine guidance here.
Though I have to admit that secretly I quite like owning some of this sort of stuff. I’m not to shook on sewage though- I’ve met much too much of that already in the comments threads that ooze from some of Df’s stuff on Kiwiblog.
RE Pascal: the problem is that Mr Hawkins posits an a priori and immutable right(that of the individual). Once asserted, the logic of his argument flows inevitably. This is why, incidentally, Hayek is so interesting as he follows that logic so clearly. The problem is, as you note, such a right does not exist and, I suggest, can never exist in the form posited by Mr Hawkins, for the required separation of the individual from the social cannot be achieved.
Galeandra has more fun with this than I do! I’m just pleased that Mr Hawkins’ tradition is down to 1% in current polls.
Pascale, It is obvious they don’t get it because they do not even try to refute it and failing to attempt they affirm they do not understand. That said I will give bullet points of why you are wrong.
1. I stated that objective rights are what matters, these rights are the logical implication of what we are as individuals possessed of the capacity to reason. That is the basis of human rights.
2. Any right that is not recognized does not cease to be a right, otherwise we can not speak of human rights violations in other societies, of the past etc. Such an argument is an argument that slavery is fine, ethnic cleansing is ok, and any other awful violation is justified if enough people agree with it. As this is an unavoidable implication of your statement I can only assume you didn’t mean to say that.
“It is strangely absurd to suppose that a million of human beings, collected together, are not under the same moral laws which bind each of them separately.” Thomas Jefferson
3. Your statement that I assume a right to something that does not exist is nonsense as I only state we have a right to be free from the initiation of force, a right to ‘just’ freedom.
“Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.” Thomas Jefferson
4. Unlike you “Randians” do not assume so much, there is a philosophical base from which all Objectivist proscriptions arise. I can state my philosophical basis, the premises upon which it stands and see if you can ‘knock’ one or more down but seeing as several hundred years of intense philosophical debate has yet to kill libertarianism I doubt you will have a chance.
5. We do not assume one set of property rights is the true form, we derive from the application of reason to the real world which is the just and correct version.
6. Well the logical implication of the societies comment is listed above and if you are saying representative democratic elections can give us ruling bodies that can decide what rights people have then you must accept every terrible thing done by such despots as (if anyone quotes Godwin’s law then they should realize they are the ones that need to be ignored as this is a completely justified invocation) Hitler. After all he received over 40% of the vote meaning he can decide that my ancestors (the Jews) had no rights at all. Also I don’t see you advocating the removal of the treaty of Waitangi? It is an impediment to the will of society, yet you seem happy with it? And that being said you must either alter your blank, unsupported assertion that societies create rights or accept the treaty must be scrapped. To do anything else is to self inconsistent and therefore ignorable.
Galendra, (seeing as your tenor is rude and condescending I shall be the same) How nice for you that you are happy other people are forced to do what you want, I suggest you go out and buy some slaves as this is morally equivalent to what the ‘Democratic’ system we currently ‘enjoy’ is doing. I and every other person in this country is restricted in what we can do, above and beyond what is objectively dis-allowable (the harm of another), and we have some of what we produce taken from us by force (if you think otherwise try refusing to pay tax). All we argue about now is the degree to which we are enslaved and I saw any degree is too much.
Robert, I am sorry but again you are misusing terms. The basis for rights is not a priori but a posteriori, it is conditional upon the possession of the capacity to reason, that people are individuals, that we posses the many other faculties that humans do etc. Being that is it dependent upon properties of the real world it is a posteriori, we must look at the world to come to the conclusions that I advocate.
Second claiming an individual needs to be separated from an abstract entity (society) is unsupported and patently false. I do not require that at all (in fact it can be argued I support a form of society)
Finally I am still waiting for you to correct my interpretation of your last post.
What utter nonsense Stuart. Go Galt fergawdsake. Show us how it’s done and stop littering Red Alert.
As others have commented, there does seem to be a flaw in the proposal, that if selling assets is seen as something the community needs to be consulted on, then why not consultation on asset acquisition?
Mr Twyford, if presented with the facts, are you reasonably assured that the public would have voted to spend twice the value of Kiwirail on buying it back? Would that be a good use of taxpayers’ money? Do you think councils would be wise to purchase anything, at any cost, without voter consultation?
It seems to me, if the message is “not yours to sell”, then the other side of that message needs to be “not yours to buy”.
There doesn’t seem to be a big appetite among councils to sell assets, either now or in the near future. Conversely, there does seem to be a much larger appetite in the community to see councils spend money efficiently, rather than wasting it on empire building and think big schemes.
As others have commented, there does seem to be a flaw in the proposal, that if selling assets is seen as something the community needs to be consulted on, then why not consultation on asset acquisition?
Mr Twyford, if presented with the facts, are you reasonably assured that the public would have voted to spend twice the value of Kiwirail on buying it back? Would that be a good use of taxpayers’ money? Do you think councils would be wise to purchase anything, at any cost, without voter consultation?
It seems to me, if the message is “not yours to sell”, then the other side of that message needs to be “not yours to buy”.
There doesn’t seem to be a big appetite among councils to sell assets, either now or in the near future. Conversely, there does seem to be a much larger appetite in the community to see councils spend money efficiently, rather than wasting it on empire building and think big schemes.
“, rather than wasting it on empire building and think big schemes.”
because parks, footpaths, libraries and swimming pools are all evil arent they
I’d probably be willing to support the bill, so long as Labour amend it so that any purchase or construction of new assets also be subject to a voters referendum.
Why would you demand referendums only for sales, but not for acquisitions?
So people have to beg the votes for permission to build a new libaray or fix our roads. Your willingness, Farrar to have people put up with green swimming pools, libaries with books that are 40 years out of date (’we hope to land men on the moon by 1970′), crumbing footpaths and substandard parks, reveals you as the money grubbing social darwinist you are. New Zealanders deserve quality infrastructure and assetts, and I will not let a [...deleted: abusive - Phil] like you deprive them of it.
Well millsy unfortunately we blew the bidget on the trains, so yes you do have to have 40 year old books in your run-down library
And whats wrong with trains? Oh thats right, you didnt get a trainset when you were a kid, so no one can have one. And if that means 500 extra trucks on the road, so be it.
I’ve got nothing against trains, I even bought a Thomas set for my son. It was on special for $22.99. I had a budget of $40. It meant I had money to buy him books as well. See how that works?
I’m teaching him to spend wisely. His name isn’t Michael.
Well done. No doubt he will be a good little consumer.
The passion with which the opposing argument is fought is a good sign this bill is a Good Thing.
One point though, Currently the assets in question are in local government ownership and yet the “crumbing footpaths and substandard parks” are already happening.
Just Saying.
Pascal, I responded in a logical, reasoned, and polite manner. I explained in plain terms what I meant, explaining why the criticisms you leveled against me were unfounded. The only conclusion a reasonable person can make from your comment “What utter nonsense Stuart. Go Galt fergawdsake. Show us how it’s done and stop littering Red Alert.” is that you are unable to argue against my statements but are still unwilling to change your beliefs and so do not wish to be exposed to the inescapable logic of my position.
At the risk of sounding condescending the only way you can justifiably make the statement you did would be to prove my points completely baseless, yet you haven’t even attempted this.