1,2,3,…What are we voting for?

(apologies to Country Joe and the Fish)

John Key says that the election provides National with a mandate for asset sales. He is right.

Many people from both the left and the right are complaining that the “majority” of the country (i.e of a few polls) do not want asset sales and that Key should now test this by a referendum. The left, of course, would love this as it enables them to set the government’s agenda. Those right-wingers who want this are simply confused as to the purpose of an election.

An election does not enable you to choose a selection of policies that you like (unless you vote for a single-issue party like Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis). The Party mechanism provides you with a package of policies and you must vote for all or nothing. It would be an exceedingly rare event that a voter finds every policy of a party to be entirely acceptable to him/her. I suspect even John Key does not like every single policy of National (though he is expected to say he does in public).

If we have a referendum on every policy that is not universally popular, government would come to a grinding halt. A referendum is an expensive, cumbersome vehicle for democratic processes. Even the Swiss, with their binding referenda have very precise rules on how these things can be held. A referendum has it’s place. It is particularly useful when an unpopular policy is introduced after an election, particularly where the policy has large social implications, such as the smacking referendum.

That is not the case, though, for assets sales. Regardless of whether you agree with them or not, there is no doubt that National explicitly stated EXACTLY what they intended to do after the election. Labour also diligently campaigned against asset sales so that the position of both sides was made abundantly clear. It is therefore not possible for voters to say that they were unaware of National’s intentions. Moreover, National has built a sizable portion of its economic recovery plans into this policy – it is not a mere addition that can be dispensed with. Much of National’s manifesto revolves around the sales. To remove asset sales from National’s plans would be to extensively revise their manifesto and, frankly, commit political fraud. They would be saying one thing and doing something radically different.

I, for one, would not be happy to vote for one thing and get something entirely different. Part of Key’s popularity is that he has proven reasonably trustworthy for a politician, going back on very few promises in his first three years, despite very trying circumstances where temptation would have been high. Now would not be a good time to do anything except stick to his word. While the MacDoctor would prefer to see National sell those assets in their entirety, he appreciates both the reasons why this is politically difficult and why Key must stick to doing exactly what he has promised.

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