Our State (peoples') Assets are all but gone!

One day we will look back at the time when successive governments sold off New Zealand’s valuable State Assets with anger. We will rue the day when from Rogernomics to the present Key Government, the very best of our collectively built up and owned treasures have been sold off, sometimes for a price that is less than their real worth. What for? To pay off debt we are told.

We have seen the same pathway followed by Conservative Governments in the UK, then only to see the buyers flog off the   some of the assets, run them down and then need the State to come back in to support them; name the railway system.

IN New Zealand’s case the driving force has been to reduce the amount of money owed by the state and to take the State out of ownership, selling to those who can afford; namely overseas and local investors. Either way, much of what we had taken a century to build up has been sold off, to make friends of the Government richer and reducing the investment by New Zealand as a whole in strategic assets.

We are going to rue the day of this repugnant selling of our assets as overseas owners begin to exert an influence in our economy that leaves us without the power to make important decisions about our future. All that is left now are smaller remnants of what was once a ‘public portfolio ‘ of assets and the only one left is the water that falls into our rivers and lakes. There have even been moves in that direction too. We must not let that happen.

I advocate a buying back process, much like we saw re Air NZ. We should wait until these companies face pressure re profits and then watch their price fall. We used to balance that out between good times and bad under the State ownership model, but in a profit only driven model, there comes a time when we can buy back the assets. Let’s do this and keep them where they belong. 

Under private ownership there is no moral or social conscience behind the running of these assets. NO account is taken about providing services to all NZers or employment for NZers.  We have entered a time whereby NZ is carving itself up to be made available to the highest bidder. Is it that we are going to be charged for the very air we breathe because there is precious little left to sell?

www.authorneilcoleman.com