0.6 per cent Dunne selling New Zealanders out

Unless Peter Dunne puts Kiwi interests ahead of his own, the casting vote to sell our state-owned power companies and national airline will be delivered by a party that gained 0.6 per cent of the vote at the last election, says Labour SOEs spokesperson Clayton Cosgrove.

“Eighty per cent of New Zealanders don’t want our state-owned assets sold.

“If Peter Dunne makes it possible for them to be sold with his casting vote, it will be a travesty of democracy.

“His United Future Party gained just 13,443 votes nationwide at the 2011 election,” Clayton Cosgrove said. “To put that in perspective, he gained only 1705 more votes than the Aotearoa Legalise Cannabis Party. Imagine the outcry if that party was in a position to decide such a critical issue as the very future of assets we have built up and proudly own.

“Peter Dunne’s position is even more disreputable because he campaigned on the asset sales issue using language designed to confuse voters.

“He said he would never vote to sell control of our water assets, but the reality is that once we start down the slippery slope to asset sales, there can be no guarantee what will happen in the future,” Clayton Cosgrove said.

“Peter Dunne is not in the business of looking out for New Zealand’s future, however. He’s interested in his own future, and that’s all.

“If he thinks the best way of securing that is to line up with the National Party, that’s what he will do,” Clayton Cosgrove said.

“His guiding principle is ‘me first’.

“Peter Dunne will go down in history as the man who gave the National Government the one vote they needed to sell New Zealanders out.”