Asset sales

via the tipline

The Greens are stating they are “desperate” to collect the extra signatures and describe the petition as a debacle in an email sent to recruit more to the cause.

From: Sarah Bracey <[redacted]@gmail.com>
Date: Sat, May 11, 2013 at 6:19 PM
Subject: [G@V] Greens@Vic Update No. 2
To: “Greens@Vic” <greens-at-vic@my.greens.org.nz>

Hey Guys,

A couple of things –

Almost immediately after sending the last announcement, the Keep Our Assets petition debacle (am I allowed to say that? I think we’re all thinking it!) came to my attention. The Keep Our Assets coalition desperately needs another 16,000 signatures to be collected in the next two months in order to force a referendum to stop further asset sales.  Read more »

Regular readers will know that I’m no fan of Bill English.

But yesterday he gave the Green Taliban a solid kicking for their attempted sabotage of the Mighty River Power float.

Sledge Of The Day.

Read more »

Chris Trotter discusses the failed Green/Labour petition to re-write an election result.

The attempt to use the Citizens Initiated Referendum process to halt the Government’s partial privatisation programme was always a risky strategy. Political parties, in particular, take a huge risk in associating their names with operations in which so many things, over which they have no control, can go wrong. And now, of course, they have gone wrong – badly wrong – and at the worst possible moment.

It’s the perception that the “Keep Our Assets” petition has failed, on the very eve of the Government learning how much Mighty River Power’s shares are worth, that’s done the damage.

Political insiders may know that CIRs almost always fall short on the first official count. That someone has only to shift flats, and write their new address on the petition form, for the Clerk of the House to disallow that person’s signature. Unfortunately, 90 percent of the voters don’t know. If John Key tells them that one-in-four of the petition’s signatures are “fake” – they’re quite likely to believe him.  Read more »

Russel had intended to celebrate the news that the Asset Sale Referendum was “on” by getting a “Green Appropriate” new car.  One that he could use right into the election, and of course, continue to drive as Finance Minister.

So it is all up to you now.  Make sure you sign the petition to get the Greens over the 16,500 mark so that Russel can finally celebrate!

The finger pointing has started.

Apparently the 16,500 signatures that are still needed were the ones Labour failed to collect.

I can just see a Labour/Green coalition last, can’t you?

The Green/Labour petition opposing asset dales has failed. Despite the thousands of dollars of taxpayers money the Green/Labour parties threw at this petition it has failed, coming up 16,500 signatures short.

The Clerk of the House has released the following press statement:

The Clerk of the House of Representatives Mary Harris has today certified that this petition has lapsed because she cannot be satisfied that the threshold required by the Citizens Initiated Referenda Act 1993 has been met. The Clerk has been assisted in reaching this conclusion by advice from the Government Statistician.  Read more »

As I said the other day:  When will the media stop pumping these “protests” full of hot air, and start reporting the reality of it?

Once again, the media reports “hundreds” protested, and yet their own photo can’t back it up.

The article that goes with the photo reads like it is written by one of the protesters, with only people sympathetic to the protest being quoted and no balancing comment from anyone else.

Any sane newspaper would report that 6 people turned up indicating the Stop Asset Sales protest had run out of steam and lost the support from the public to come out and protest.  But no, “hundreds” protested, always away from the cameras it seems.

Would the paper come out to an event I organise with 6 people attending, and then report it as “hundreds” of people had a rally to support [insert your cause here]?   Of course not.

So why are they doing it?

Source:  Nelson Mail

Oh dear. “Hundreds of Protestors”

Radio Live/TV3

Not thousands……hundreds.

Spies forwarded footage and Police reports of just 300 people tired old hacks marching.

This matches Labour stooge Arena Williams’ glowing report via twitter. Wow 300 people!!  This woman is apparently a future Labour super-star.

We know the numbers were that light because The Standard started the excuses early on.  They ran a mile from the debacle and silly comments from Ms Williams.  Old heads like Lynn Prentice know this was a cluster fuck of the highest order for the left.

Read more »

Via the Tipline:

NEW ZEALAND GREEN PARTY PRESS RELEASE

EMBARGO: Noon, Thursday 18 April 2013

In an unprecedented joint-policy statement between the Green Party and the Labour Party, Green Party co-leader Dr Russel Norman and Labour Party leader David Shearer announce that the next New Zealand government will claim back New Zealanders’ electricity supply using a multi faceted strategy.

“New Zealanders are sick of seeing their power prices rise year after year. They are sick at seeing their power companies being sold off to foreign interests, and they are sick of seeing outdated methods of energy generation such as oil, coal and gas being used to create expensive electricity that pollutes the environment”, said Dr Russel Norman.

“It is time for new thinking in the electricity generation sector. With global warming driven droughts and floods, our hydro generation assets are becoming less reliable, and generating electricity by burning fossil fuel is costly, dirty and inefficient”.

“In New Zealand, we don’t just have a problem with economic power generation, but we also have the challenge where the generation of electricity is mostly done in the least populated part of Aotearoa, and then we have the challenge of transmitting it to the most populated parts via a tenuous cable that runs between Te Ika-a-Maui and Te Waipounamu (North and South Island)”.

“Today, the Green and Labour Parties announce our new Electricity Generation Policy based on Micro Nuclear Power generation. We intend to deploy modular, scalable Light Water Reactor nuclear power plant systems, each unit producing 45MW of electricity throughout New Zealand, starting where it is needed most: in Auckland”.

“The advantage of this system is that the plants are scalable, so a generation facility can have just have 1 unit, or as many as 24 units, depending on the demand for electricity, and the multimodule plants are highly reliable, so one unit can be taken out of service for refuelling or maintenance, or a new unit added without affecting operation of the others”.

“Fuel will be provided by the nuclear waste materials already collected from our hospitals and public and private research and engineering facilities. Until now, nuclear fuel pellets that are no longer viable for medical, research or engineering use have been stockpiled for bulk shipping to an overseas processing facility. The Micro Nuclear Power plants will utilise these pellets to generate electricity for our country”.

“Rivers can be returned to the wild, generation lakes can be returned to the land, and our people can once more enjoy the natural beauty of our country without the scars that hydro generation has caused to date”.

“In practical terms, the cost of electricity generation utilising Micro Nuclear Power generation will be approximately a third of what it costs using fossil fuels and expensive hydro transmission today, while at the same time using clean, safe nuclear power. The fact we can utilise nuclear fuel pellets that were previously wasted fits within our Green reduce, reuse, recycle philosophy.”

Comparative electricity generation costs – New Zealand Green Party

“Nobody is scared to go to hospital because they use nuclear materials in their facilities. There have never been any accidents or incidents. It is this same, safe, efficient fuel that will power our homes and our industries”.

“We will be the envy of the world”, Dr Russel Norman added. “People have been demanding we show them our “Green Tech”, and today we are proud to lead New Zealand into a new and secure era of electricity supply”.