Dam workers object to sale of state assets

11 May 2011 04:34p.m.

Wilbur wrote:

What no one mentions is that the vast majority of SOEs sold (By Labour I might add) made huge losses before being sold and privatised. Telecom and most others now make massive profits. This is probably because our Public sector is grossly overpaid compared to their Private Sector Counterparts! Stragetic sales of percentage stakes in these assets from overseas investors is a great way of making our SOEs viable and profitable as well as getting out of all this debt. People moan about us Kiwis having ownership of our assets, in truth we haven't had true ownership in years! To GG I agree totally....but for the record and I'm sure most will agree Phil Goff has no chance whatsoever of leading Labour to victory this year!

10 May 2011 05:03p.m.

Sam wrote:

Privatising civic services like electricity and water is just a back door way of achieving a state of taxation without representation. A primary motivation and slogan from the American Revolution. These sorts of strategies remind me of the legendary British East India Company. Stop trying to enslave New Zealanders!

10 May 2011 03:44p.m.

Mike wrote:

The clyde dam is owned by Contact, it has already been privatised. Dont worry it wont be privatised as it already has been.

10 May 2011 03:20p.m.

J&M wrote:

I say don't sell. It's best to keep it NZ owned or we will go through whats happing now. Where offshore investors will be manipulating the NZ market & we will be back to borrowing money to stay afloat again.

10 May 2011 01:53p.m.

Mike wrote:

What is Labour Policy?

We have this party political broadcast care of John Campbell about 'No to Asset Sales'. We have the Labour party sending out to every household in NZ a postcard saying the same - paid by the taxpayer. Because its not within 3 months of the Election it also avoids the restriction on party spending and is blatant snout in the public trough.

Who has sold more public assets? National or Labour? The track record shows Labour has sold more, but they are putting on their party political broadcast face of lies, and the media is lapping it up.

What is Labours policy? We still haven't heard any policy as they dont have any. They say no to asset sales, yet they were the last to sell assets not National. The say no to accountability of governement expenditure, so if they get in expect no open accounting for MP's expenses, more hip hop tours and the likes. They say yes to more welfare, and any other hand thats put out for a helping hand from the public purse. So if they aren't going to sell assets, how are they going to pay for all this increase in governement spending? Only leaves borrow bigger/ lie louder, borrow even bigger.

If look at the public debt while Labour was last in government they tell us they paid back public debt. Labour propaganga, aka 'Lies'. While they had surpluses of like 9 bil/yr they repaid no debt, instead they just increased government spending and changed their reporting of the debt to cover how much their snouts were in the trough. By changing the reporting of debt from a dollar figure to % GDP it gave the appearance of shrinking while public debt actually grew under Labour!

Labour also told ACC that it was too conservative in its investments, as they wanted higher returns. The result, around $28 bil in value wiped from ACC thanks to Labours management direction! That 'one' disaster Labour knew about before the last election, but they hid it for a nice 'welcome' present when National took over.

09 May 2011 11:09p.m.

michael potter wrote:

I agree with john key , sell it all ,they borrow another $20 billion. that adds up to , no assets and heavily in debt.
the guy is a genius. key loses election, he goes overseas
and we go to the debt collectors, can we sell the ocean around nz ,no the act maori nat gov't sold it in a secret deal. well done voters.

09 May 2011 08:51p.m.

Phil wrote:

I don't see how we can still be borrowing $300m a week when so many cuts to services have been made already. $300 million also seems a rather arbitrary amount, why not $285/$299...etc. Also it may sound a bit paranoid but it wouldn't surprise me if an extra $1m here and there may be ending up in offshore accounts. Is the treasury accounting for every dollar spent? (or would that be too much work)

09 May 2011 08:49p.m.

darrenw wrote:

Good ole Labour boys trotting out the party line for a desperate leader. Staunch unionists who can offer no sound economic basis for their views hardly provide us with informed or educated debate. What a load of staged hogwash. Since when has Campbell Live been the host of party political broadcasts? Can we expect more of this one sided tripe in the coming months?

09 May 2011 08:34p.m.

Bruce wrote:

Selling our assets and farms to overseas interests is not what most New Zealanders want. It didn't work last time, in fact we are much worse off today because of it. We need these assets to create jobs and pride that will benefit us all into the future. Don't let another stupid Government sell out our future again.

09 May 2011 08:21p.m.

jj wrote:

Here goes this government at it again,Sell Sell Sell,only hope they sell them selves out of parliament in November.It is up to New Zealanders,Either Keep Nats in or Keep our assets?