New Zealand Conservative

The Green Party says critics of its proposals to regulate the electricity sector should declare any financial relationships they have with industry, claiming many are "in the pockets" of power companies (source: Whoar ) If I understand the Greens properly, they are saying that anyone who has some kind of relationship with the power company are "in their pockets" and incapable of expressing their own opinion, and are not to be trusted or given a voice in this debate. A bit like Jeanette Fitzsimmons, when she had shares in wind farms and was involved in government committees and policy setting for electricity companies. Very good point. Let's broaden it further - anyone who is being bribed by a political party with direct rebates for supporting their plans to control power pricing is obviously in the pocket of that particular political party, and cannot be trusted to express an independent opinion, let alone have the power of the vote. In this case, in t...

WARNING: THIS IS NOT SATIRE. It is just silly.  But 300 protestors?  Come-on! A massive 300 protesters turned out in NZ's largest city to protest the imminent sale of the nation's Bassets. Basset hound owners are up in arms over plans to sell 49% of the bassets under National Party policy. Does this mean nearly half the bassets will be sold, or just the ears of each basset, whch represents half the size of the basset? "Bassets are something owned by all New Zealanders" said Prime Minister John Key, so this move just opens up the opportunity for mums and dads and kid investors to have a truly great pet without having to actually pay for its upkeep.  For those unable to experience the thrill of taking a basset for walkies, we will keep all the little plastic bags of poo and declare them as dividends." The Labour and Greens have suggested that a new government department would be created to allocate dog walking privileges fairly to the market by reg...

Unbelievable! A Waitangi Tribunal began today after the Maori Council lodged a claim over the issue of water rights . The hearing has been fast-tracked because of National's asset sales programme and will consider whether Treaty claimants are being denied a future stake in the state-owned power companies and the broader questions of Maori water and geothermal rights. The Tribunal will consider how water and geothermal resources may be covered by the Treaty of Waitangi and government plans to partially sell off 49 per cent of state owned energy companies. Opportunism at it's finest. Maori Council spokesman Maanu Paul told the Tribunal the spirit of the group's claim had been lost in the words of the claim. "What is freshwater? It is a spirit." It was a sacred thing, he said. "I am the water, the water is me." Taipari Munro, of the Whatatiri Trust, spoke of the angst of his people who had lost control of the Poroti Springs. He rejec...

I'm not ideologically opposed to partial privatization of state owned assets. So that makes my current opposition to the sale of Mighty River Power one based on pragmatism (we'll get a low price) and lack of trust in the National Party. I just don't buy into their story. First, I recall them talking about how much money they could unlock to help reduce the debt. Then later, they say they will use it not to reduce debt, but "invest" in infrastructure . Looking at the world economy, now seems hardly the time to make a killing floating shares. And what will the impact be to open up these places to foreign investment? On one hand we have National saying that it will never be more than 49%, and on the other hand...we have the classic misdirection technique of the magician. What if the percentage doesn't actually matter? What if the mere act of floating the companies changes the governance structure so that the ultra rich can skim profits in ways that w...

Mighty River Power or Genesis Energy are likely to be the first State Owned Enterprises (SOEs) to be floated in the National-led government's mixed ownership share sell-down, Prime Minister John Key says. Many people vote not so much for particular parties, but against others. For instance, I would absolutely hate having Labour in power again, but I really don't like National either even though I did vote for them in 2008 and again on Saturday for my electorate vote.  But in voting for them, I did not vote for all of their policies - for instance, I really opposed National Standards. I also think many voted National because they wanted them in charge of the country - but not because they agreed with all their policies. The only way to know for sure would be to add a survey of the major polices to the voting system. I bet if that was done the politicians might get a bit of a shock. So now we have John Key saying that he has a mandate for asset sales because his party...