Citizen's Initiated Referendum - transparent return envelopes and general discussion

Forums › Off topic › Citizen's Initiated Referendum - transparent return envelopes and general discussion

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 12

629 posts

Ultimate Geek

#939936 24-Nov-2013 16:53

1080p:
k14:
Kyanar:
geekiegeek: I could be off topic here but didn't we already vote on this a few years back? I think it was called a general election. you know, the one where the parties say what they will do in the next 4 years and you vote for which plan you think will make you the least worse off.

That would actually be an argument against asset sales then, because National did not receive a majority of the votes. That's the problem with MMP - the party that gets in does not necessarily have the mandate they inevitably claim to have.

Not to mention the fact that just because you vote for a certain party doesn't mean you 100% agree with every single one of their policies. So IMO using the "we were voted in with that mandate blah blah" argument is a load of bs. If they had of run the referendum in parallel with the election then they would have been able to unequivocally say one way or the other what the "people" want.

They ran the election with this as one of their main objectives; not something they hid in their policy drawer for later but something they deliberately created discussion on. In this case they do have a mandate.

Yeah they probably do have a mandate to do it but its semantics. The voters narrowly voted blue over red because both parties were two slightly different flavours of turd. So the party with the least turdy policies got in but that still doesn't make it right that they went ahead putting their heads in the sand touting the mandate line when I think pretty much every opinion poll (and I dare say the referendum) came out against the sales. Personally I am indifferent to the asset sales, I bought some of the shares even. I just am fed up with John Keys arrogance when I think he is clearly doing the wrong thing.

I would like to see the final numbers. Way back around the election some economists were saying that at best the upside was something around $70-100 million vs borrowing the money. I would be surprised to see the numbers come in that favorably now that the Mighty River float was a complete flop which led to Meridian probably not getting as much as they wanted and with Genesis still to come. I reckon the whole thing has been a debacle with no one coming out ahead. I still can't work out the reasoning for it, aside from political ideology.

In regards to the referendum I am undecided if I will even cast a vote. I think the people that initiated it are as bad as John Key. Wasting all those millions to prove a point that everyone already knows. If I say yes I support John and his cronies but make a statement against the people that initiated it, if I vote against then I am vindicating the people that initiated it but if I don't vote then I am just one of the thousands of apathetic/ignorant sheep that don't have a clue about anything...

Linuxluver

5828 posts

Uber Geek

Trusted

Subscriber

#939981 24-Nov-2013 20:27

scuwp: Total waste of money and time. Turnout will be interesting however - I doubt the postie will have that many to check ;-)

I don't agree on the wastage.

Is an entirely legitimate process we have at our disposal to express our support - or not - on an issue.

I'm glad of the opportunity.

If the government chooes to ignore it they are accountable for that decision when the time comes. We won't be left with "what if....?"

We will know.

It's good to know.

_____________________________________________________________________

I've been on Geekzone over 16 years..... Time flies....

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#940017 24-Nov-2013 22:06

Linuxluver:
scuwp: Total waste of money and time. Turnout will be interesting however - I doubt the postie will have that many to check ;-)

I don't agree on the wastage.

Is an entirely legitimate process we have at our disposal to express our support - or not - on an issue.

I'm glad of the opportunity.

If the government chooes to ignore it they are accountable for that decision when the time comes. We won't be left with "what if....?"

We will know.

It's good to know.

Even if it was binding, many of the shares are now sold, so those can't be reversed.
It may be a legit process, but that doesn't mean it isn't a waste of money. At the very least it should be bundled with other referendums

jnawk

176 posts

Master Geek

#940024 24-Nov-2013 22:41

Not to mention the fact that just because you vote for a certain party doesn't mean you 100% agree with every single one of their policies. So IMO using the "we were voted in with that mandate blah blah" argument is a load of bs. If they had of run the referendum in parallel with the election then they would have been able to unequivocally say one way or the other what the "people" want.

They ran the election with this as one of their main objectives; not something they hid in their policy drawer for later but something they deliberately created discussion on. In this case they do have a mandate.

This is still disingenuous. Just because they said that they'd do this didn't necessarily mean people agreed with that. Those people may have been the ones who signed on for the referendum. What certainly wasn't said at election time was "if you start a referendum on this pet policy of ours, we'll just ignore it". It's one thing to do nothing with the result of a referendum, it's completely another to say, before the votes have been cast, that it'll be ignored. Remember the head of Telecom who came out and said they weren't playing fair, and that was OK, because everyone knew? She's not head of Telecom anymore, and John has basically taken a page straight out of her book. I hope NZ doesn't forget this come election time.

Also, as has been put forward already - what realistic options were there in the last election? Labour with all their crazy policies? No other party had a hope of getting sufficient support, and the next best bet was a total and utter waste of time. In my opinion, National + no asset sales = better than Labour, and would probably also have taken many many more votes. Better to have only one policy to disagree with, than the entire package!

mattwnz

20141 posts

Uber Geek

#940034 24-Nov-2013 23:17

jnawk:

Not to mention the fact that just because you vote for a certain party doesn't mean you 100% agree with every single one of their policies. So IMO using the "we were voted in with that mandate blah blah" argument is a load of bs. If they had of run the referendum in parallel with the election then they would have been able to unequivocally say one way or the other what the "people" want.

They ran the election with this as one of their main objectives; not something they hid in their policy drawer for later but something they deliberately created discussion on. In this case they do have a mandate.

This is still disingenuous. Just because they said that they'd do this didn't necessarily mean people agreed with that. Those people may have been the ones who signed on for the referendum. What certainly wasn't said at election time was "if you start a referendum on this pet policy of ours, we'll just ignore it". It's one thing to do nothing with the result of a referendum, it's completely another to say, before the votes have been cast, that it'll be ignored. Remember the head of Telecom who came out and said they weren't playing fair, and that was OK, because everyone knew? She's not head of Telecom anymore, and John has basically taken a page straight out of her book. I hope NZ doesn't forget this come election time.

Also, as has been put forward already - what realistic options were there in the last election? Labour with all their crazy policies? No other party had a hope of getting sufficient support, and the next best bet was a total and utter waste of time. In my opinion, National + no asset sales = better than Labour, and would probably also have taken many many more votes. Better to have only one policy to disagree with, than the entire package!

But you don't vote for a party if you strongly disagree with one of their core policies, and this was a core one. Also it is a National type of policy for things to be privatised more. But the thing is the tax payer does still own a majority of shares in these companies anyway, so we do sill get 51% of dividends that are paid out. Your argument is more about the poor choice of party options there are in NZ.

1080p

1332 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#940045 25-Nov-2013 00:22

jnawk: This is still disingenuous. Just because they said that they'd do this didn't necessarily mean people agreed with that.

That is literally what it means.

If I buy a set of headphones that have a list of features on the front of the box, I cannot then return them to the retailer and complain that I didn't like one of those core advertised features.

Asset sales were a core election issue, something National believed were necessary to alleviate our debt issues. At the end of the day people voting for National accepted that premise. National didn't win votes purely because the other guys were wearing crazy hats, their plan had to make sense to citizens on some level or the only correct course of action would be to abstain. If you do not like your options an abstention is a perfectly valid option.

People think they can micro-manage government on every issue they need to make decisions on. This is ridiculous, at some point you need to let governors govern.

New Zealand voters gave their vote of confidence that a widely publicised National party economic plan was sound and now a few detractors are trying to change that decision through alarmist tactics. Pathetic.

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#940078 25-Nov-2013 07:00

1080p:
jnawk: This is still disingenuous. Just because they said that they'd do this didn't necessarily mean people agreed with that.

That is literally what it means.

If I buy a set of headphones that have a list of features on the front of the box, I cannot then return them to the retailer and complain that I didn't like one of those core advertised features.

Asset sales were a core election issue, something National believed were necessary to alleviate our debt issues. At the end of the day people voting for National accepted that premise. National didn't win votes purely because the other guys were wearing crazy hats, their plan had to make sense to citizens on some level or the only correct course of action would be to abstain. If you do not like your options an abstention is a perfectly valid option.

People think they can micro-manage government on every issue they need to make decisions on. This is ridiculous, at some point you need to let governors govern.

New Zealand voters gave their vote of confidence that a widely publicised National party economic plan was sound and now a few detractors are trying to change that decision through alarmist tactics. Pathetic.

"A few detractors" over 300,000 signed the petition that forced the referendum. That is a very large "few".

Equinox IT

Cloud spending continues to surge globally, but most organisations haven’t made the changes necessary to maximise the value and cost-efficiency benefits of their cloud investments. Download the whitepaper From Overspend to Advantage now.

jnawk

176 posts

Master Geek

#940081 25-Nov-2013 07:23

1080p:
If I buy a set of headphones that have a list of features on the front of the box, I cannot then return them to the retailer and complain that I didn't like one of those core advertised features.

1080p:
If you do not like your options an abstention is a perfectly valid option.

Buying headphones is not a civic duty, and if you do buy, you are not obliged to use the feature you don't like. If you don't use it, it's not going to use itself. Headphones are not autonomous, they don't act for themselves, governments are, and do. Furthermore, if you don't like a core feature of the headphones you purchase, you are right, you don't complain to the retailer, you complain to the manufacturer. The only realistic parallel between headphones and government is if you aren't happy, you complain - that's exactly what a Citizen's Initiated Referendum is - the complaint process.

If one exercises the option of not voting, then whenever they have a problem with the government that did get elected (which, undoubtedly, they will), they can't complain, for fear of comments like "well did you vote?". The moment one admits that, regardless of how the statement it qualified, or justified, everybody stops listening.

Using your headphone analogy: You gotta have headphones. Everyone needs headphones. Not having headphones is not a feasible option. Anarchy would ensue. Faced with poor choices of headphones, what do you do? You analyse your options, and pick the one that sucks the least. Having chosen, does this mean you have no right to complain to the manufacturer about the bad features? No, of course not! If anything, it actually gives you more right to complain. If you don't buy headphones, you've got no right to complain - for instance, about the earwax on that set you borrowed the other day. Asset sales are unwanted earwax. Not yours to complain about if you didn't buy headphones, but if you did buy headphones, complain away. There's a process for that - referendum. If the manufacturer doesn't listen, well, next time you need headphones (they only have a working life of 3 years, after all), you pick another set - hopefully this set doesn't suck too.

jnawk

176 posts

Master Geek

#940082 25-Nov-2013 07:27

KiwiNZ:

"A few detractors" over 300,000 signed the petition that forced the referendum. That is a very large "few".

Yup, more than 10% of the voters, in fact. Imagine what would have happened if these 10% had exercised their so-called right to not vote? We might have had a different election result. Not voting is not an option, for this reason.

doozy

245 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#940093 25-Nov-2013 08:28

KiwiNZ:
1080p:
jnawk: This is still disingenuous. Just because they said that they'd do this didn't necessarily mean people agreed with that.

That is literally what it means.

If I buy a set of headphones that have a list of features on the front of the box, I cannot then return them to the retailer and complain that I didn't like one of those core advertised features.

Asset sales were a core election issue, something National believed were necessary to alleviate our debt issues. At the end of the day people voting for National accepted that premise. National didn't win votes purely because the other guys were wearing crazy hats, their plan had to make sense to citizens on some level or the only correct course of action would be to abstain. If you do not like your options an abstention is a perfectly valid option.

People think they can micro-manage government on every issue they need to make decisions on. This is ridiculous, at some point you need to let governors govern.

New Zealand voters gave their vote of confidence that a widely publicised National party economic plan was sound and now a few detractors are trying to change that decision through alarmist tactics. Pathetic.

"A few detractors" over 300,000 signed the petition that forced the referendum. That is a very large "few".

It would be damn interesting to know how many of those 300,000 who signed actually voted in the general election. I ran into one of the people trying to get signatures on the street this particular person was worse as far as their pushy attitude than ... well a bad thing that works in this scenario ... the one thing I do remember is they actually said "think of the children". So personally I think this is a bit of a waste just given my experience with how the signatures were appropriated. In saying that I thought the same thing about the anti-smacking one.

A quick office survey tells me that everyone who has admitted receiving their papers voted YES with the unanimous reason being "stick it to the greens".

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#940099 25-Nov-2013 08:51

if the majority votes in favour of the sales then the "mandate" is confirmed. If the majority votes against the sales then there is no mandate, that is democracy in action

doozy

245 posts

Master Geek

Trusted

#940100 25-Nov-2013 08:56

KiwiNZ: if the majority votes in favour of the sales then the "mandate" is confirmed. If the majority votes against the sales then there is no mandate, that is democracy in action

I do not agree. Yay the system works!

Tarawera Ultra 2015 done, bring on 2016

MikeB4

18435 posts

Uber Geek

ID Verified

Trusted

#940104 25-Nov-2013 09:00

doozy:
KiwiNZ: if the majority votes in favour of the sales then the "mandate" is confirmed. If the majority votes against the sales then there is no mandate, that is democracy in action

I do not agree. Yay the system works!

what don't you agree with?

k1wi

484 posts

Ultimate Geek

#940110 25-Nov-2013 09:03

From what I've picked out from this debate and the TPP debate is that those people complaining that the government doesn't have a mandate are those who don't agree with asset sales... While those who do believe the government does have a mandate support asset sales...

Flip things around and I'm pretty sure it would be the same.

1080p

1332 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#940127 25-Nov-2013 09:28

jnawk:
1080p:
If I buy a set of headphones that have a list of features on the front of the box, I cannot then return them to the retailer and complain that I didn't like one of those core advertised features.

1080p:
If you do not like your options an abstention is a perfectly valid option.

Buying headphones is not a civic duty, and if you do buy, you are not obliged to use the feature you don't like. If you don't use it, it's not going to use itself. Headphones are not autonomous, they don't act for themselves, governments are, and do. Furthermore, if you don't like a core feature of the headphones you purchase, you are right, you don't complain to the retailer, you complain to the manufacturer. The only realistic parallel between headphones and government is if you aren't happy, you complain - that's exactly what a Citizen's Initiated Referendum is - the complaint process.

If one exercises the option of not voting, then whenever they have a problem with the government that did get elected (which, undoubtedly, they will), they can't complain, for fear of comments like "well did you vote?". The moment one admits that, regardless of how the statement it qualified, or justified, everybody stops listening.

Using your headphone analogy: You gotta have headphones. Everyone needs headphones. Not having headphones is not a feasible option. Anarchy would ensue. Faced with poor choices of headphones, what do you do? You analyse your options, and pick the one that sucks the least. Having chosen, does this mean you have no right to complain to the manufacturer about the bad features? No, of course not! If anything, it actually gives you more right to complain. If you don't buy headphones, you've got no right to complain - for instance, about the earwax on that set you borrowed the other day. Asset sales are unwanted earwax. Not yours to complain about if you didn't buy headphones, but if you did buy headphones, complain away. There's a process for that - referendum. If the manufacturer doesn't listen, well, next time you need headphones (they only have a working life of 3 years, after all), you pick another set - hopefully this set doesn't suck too.

I have no issue with you complaining to the manufacturer. My issue is with your complaint that the manufacturer won't listen to you because their market research indicates the majority of their customers like the product.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | ... | 12