John Key, the NZ Prime Minister has announced that for the second time he will ignore the result of a citizen's initiated referendum - this time over the sale of state commercial assets: News item. The first time was in 2009 over the result of a referendum to repeal the anti-smacking law passed by Parliament a couple of years earlier: 87% of voters answered no to the question "Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand?" John Key said the law would not be changed.
Now he makes the same pronouncement in respect of the forthcoming referendum over the government's plan to sell off the company's power producers, among other assets - whether or not the majority vote against it won't affect his plans to go ahead with it. He says that the last general election decided that; but as he well knows, elections these days are a lot more about personality on TV than about policy.
What then is the point of holding referenda in NZ if they are not binding - simply an expensive opinion poll?
We think the PM's attitude is appalling, this despite our being mildly in favor of his plans to sell off these businesses, because of the possibility of achieving better management of them. In NZ, aggression and bean-counting are highly rated traits for managers, whereas little value is attached to the far more important attributes of forward thinking, seeing the big picture, diplomacy, people skills and basic common sense. At least with individual shareholders having a direct stake they have a better chance of having their views on management heeded than if all the shares are held by the Minister of State Owned Enterprises.
2 comments:
From listening to friends and people I have addressed at meetings over the past few months along with feedback on social media sites, there has never been so much anger or head shaking towards any Government as this one. Key is a fool in so much as he believes people are on his side, sadly for him and his party they are only achieving one thing, to be our worst ever Government , Key is more suited to being a televison personality, wants everyone to like hs smiles and graces whilst his party members fair no better. Meantime NZ continues the slide into darker regions of poverty and third worldness for many.
not that the parliamentary Opposition can claim any moral highground on the matter either, as they also refused to change to anti-smacking law.
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