NZ Politics, the Luxon Era

[smartcooky]

In 1990 the National party campaigned on preventing asset sales that they accused the Labour government of secretly planning, then turned right around and sold off Telecom NZ to two American companies (Ameritech and Bell Atlantic) at a discount price.

Are you old enough to remember the "contract set in stone" when Telecom was sold?

If so, then you might recall that it was the Labour government under Geoffrey Palmer and Michael Moore, that sold Telecom in 1990... NOT National.

Bolger: Telecom sale a mistake - NZ Herald

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Now like you, I am a Labour voter (Have never voted National; and never will) but we need to be honest and not hang Labour's bad policies and poor decisions on the other party. It was Labour (under David Lange and Roger Douglas) who split the NZ Post Office up in 1987 and set up the sale.

You will also recall that Roger Douglas went on to form the ACT Party with Derek Quigley, conservative party more right-wing than National

 

[Roger Ramjets]

Are you old enough to remember the "contract set in stone" when Telecom was sold?

If so, then you might recall that it was the Labour government under Geoffrey Palmer and Michael Moore, that sold Telecom in 1990... NOT National.

You are right, and I apologize. All these years I thought that it was National's doing. This may have been due to my misunderstanding the nature of the 'Kiwi share' owned by the government, or perhaps I was just too busy working and didn't become aware of it until after the election, when the change in status started to affect us. In any case, thanks for setting my faulty memory straight!

As you say, Roger Douglas left Labour to form the ACT Party, which is now in coalition with National. Some of the reforms he instituted were needed, including making Telecoms more customer orientated. But as is so often the case, he then went off the deep end into hardcore libertarianism (which doesn't mean more 'right' than National - just a different kind of 'right').

However my point about National still stands. After promising they wouldn't sell off our national assets, over the next 9 years they sold (among other things) our railways to overseas interests, the Bank of New Zealand (my bank), Government Computing Services, and its share in the Auckland and Wellington international airports.

Bolger said he did a good job with the railways, yet it was run down so badly under prviate ownership that the government had to buy it back again. If selling Telecoms was such a mistake, then why couldn't his government buy back the 50% NZ share and keep a controlling interest? Answer:- he would have sold it too. And today we have another National leader promising not to gut our national assets when we all know know what his real intentions are - sell sell sell to pay for tax cuts.

National also did their best to run down the health system so they can now claim it isn't working and needs more private involvement. One of their campaign promises in 2023 was that Labour had let it run down and National would fix it. We all thought that meant better working conditions, training more doctors and building new hospitals, when it reality it has just been cutting funding and sacking staff.

BTW to refresh my memory I pulled out the Certificate of Service that Telecom Central gave me when I was made redundant in Augiust 1991 - and noticed that they spelt my name wrong! The final insult from a manager who didn't appreciate my service and tried to fire me for not wearing a tie.

 

[smartcooky]

You are right, and I apologize. All these years I thought that it was National's doing. This may have been due to my misunderstanding the nature of the 'Kiwi share' owned by the government, or perhaps I was just too busy working and didn't become aware of it until after the election, when the change in status started to affect us. In any case, thanks for setting my faulty memory straight!

No need to apologise. Labour with Roger Douglas as finance minister, followed by Labour under Geoffrey Palmer (with, of all people, bloody David Caygill holding the purse strings) might as well have been a National government. Roger Douglas hijacked the Labour party with his economic policies, especially that bull-**** flat tax proposal of his. The whole lot of them were definitely leaning conservative - and selling off the family silver is very much a conservative thing to do.