Greens trying to buy a referendum

Stuff reports:

The Green Party is spending $50,000 paying people to collect signatures for a citizens-initiated referendum on asset sales.

The equivalent of 10 fulltime staff have been hired for the next six to eight weeks in Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington, Christchurch and Dunedin.

The Greens also have a volunteer army of about 2000 Auckland-based “issues assistants” helping with the campaign and have budgeted a further $28,000 for related sundries.

The bid for a citizens-initiated referendum was launched last month and is sponsored by a coalition of Grey Power, the Council of Trade Unions, Greenpeace, the Union of Student Associations, Labour and the Greens.

The sheer hypocrisy. The Greens spend years railing against money in politics, yet to use their language they are trying to purchase a referendum.

Greens co-leader Russel Norman said the funding was coming out of the party’s $1.3million annual leader’s fund.

`It’s very important to us to stop the asset sales and it’s very important to us that New Zealanders are given a voice because they currently don’t have one,” he said.

What bullshit. A referendum will not stop the partial asset sales. It is just an expensive publicity stunt. And Dr Norman is mad if he thinks people don’t have a voice on the issue. There was a 10 month debate on the partial asset sales last year, known as the election campaign.