Government Consultation on Partial Sale of SOE’s

The Government today announced a series of hui in early February to discuss with Māori the partial sale of state-owned assets. It also announced that a formal written submission process will be undertaken in February.  This process will be important for those Māori (and New Zealanders in general) who want to have an influence on the legislative scheme for the partial sales.  This will not, however, be an opportunity to stop the partial sales from proceeding.  The Government has decided to proceed with the partial sales and will not deviate from this decision.  What this process allows is for interested parties to have their say on how the partial sales proceed, and what safeguards are built into legislation to ensure that our interests are best preserved.

Perhaps one of the least appreciated, and used, method of influencing a Government’s decision-making process is to provide high-quality feedback on consultation papers, discussion papers, and draft legislation.  Parliament will leave a lot of the technical details of any given policy programme to officials and, in my experience of engaging with such officials at this stage of the process such officials remain open to significant technical changes provided that a strong case can be made.

I will be preparing a submission on the consultation document when it is released on 1 February 2012, and I will write more on that when the information is released.

For those interested in attending the consultation hui, the dates and locations are set out below.

8 February	10.00am	Distinction Rotorua	Rotorua
8 February	3.00pm	Waikato Stadium	Hamilton
9 February	3.00pm	Whanganui Racecourse	Whanganui
10 February	9.30am	Toll Stadium	Whangarei
10 February	3.30pm	Novotel Auckland Airport	Auckland
14 February	10.00am	Waihopai Runaka Murihiku Marae	Invercargill
14 February	4.00pm	Chateau on the Park	Christchurch
15 February	10.00am	Emerald Hotel	Gisborne
15 February	3.30pm	Te Puni Kokiri	Wellington