Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Spoink!

Winston Peters, signed election pledge, August:

I pledge my party will not initiate or support the sale of Kiwibank.

Winston Peters, campaign billboard:

nzf-hoarding-banks-sml

Winston Peters, campaign speech yesterday:

The first step is to separate Kiwibank from New Zealand Post to eventually establish it as a stand alone commercial bank.

The second is to float shares in the Bank that can only be bought and owned by New Zealanders - they cannot be on-sold to foreigners.

So, having pledge not to sell kiwibank, and made opposing privatisation and protecting "NZ owned banks" a core part of his platform (he has another billboard pledging to protect NZ jobs and assets), he's planning to sell it. And while he says he'll sell it to kiwis, that makes no sense (why sell people something they own anyway?), and it didn't work with Auckland Airport (which Petes also sold); the revenue stream will be offshore quicker than you can say "tie me kangaroo down, sport".

Clearly, Winston's promises mean nothing. But anyone who has observed him for more than five minutes already knew that. You have to have Alzheimer's to vote for this man.