John Key said in his victory speech that 'nearly half New Zealanders voted for National.' That is a falsehood. First, the voter-turnout was an abysmal low--only 68.8%, reported to be the lowest turnout since the 1880s. National won only 47.99% of that on the day, and if the specials continue the downward drift we saw as counting went on during the night it will end up with even less. Mr Key needs to get his thinking aligned to the truth.
If he thinks on those numbers that he has a mandate to do even more damage to New Zealand's energy assets than National did before Helen Clark's long reign he is deluding himself even more.
47.99 of 68.8% is only 33% of the voting population. Against him, in the vote, is 52.01% of 68.8%, which is 38.8%. He has no mandate. A mandate is a majority. He does not have one. To say he does is a blatant lie.
Or to look at the election result a different way, National got 60 seats out of 121. When you add its crutches, ACT and United Future, it has 62 seats. Therefore 59 seats are against it. Not a thumping vote of confidence.
On top of that is the fact that 31.2% of the population did not vote at all--not far off the 33% won over by his party. The Did Not Vote Party has almost as much support as National. National's 33% may drift down; the 31.2% is set in concrete. The Did Not Vote may end up winning the election. December the 10th will tell us that.
Anais Nin put it perfectly: 'We do not see things as they are. We see things as we are.' Key is seeing what he is, and in saying what he sees he is telling us what he is.
As the generation of energy becomes ever more important we must not have any impediment between us and 100% democratic control. Deluded, dishonest reasoning should not be allowed to create the huge impediment of selling 49% of our generation. The people must own their power. National has already messed up the energy sector quite enough with all the hocking off led by Max Bradford years ago. Now it thinks it has a mandate to trash it even more. It does not. It is lying to itself and us.
