The hikoi against asset sales begins today

Aotearoa Not for Sale Hikoi begins today

A two-week long hikoi protesting against asset sales, privatisation, overseas land sales and the Transpacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) will begin today in Cape Reinga.

The ‘Aotearoa is Not For Sale’ hikoi aims to reach Wellington on Friday, May 4, after stopping in several North Island towns.

Its progress through Auckland on Saturday will coincide with a public demonstration at Britomart on Queen St, which organisers expect over 10,000 people to attend.

The hikoi, which is open to everyone, “is about standing up and sending a clear message to the Government that we, our land, what's under our land and what's been built on our land, is not for sale”, organisers say.

The environment is once again heating up for the National government who have been floating on Key's popularity to govern despite a raft of very unpopular policies.  National's announcement of asset sales put their relationship with the Maori Party on shaky ground, with Sharples threatening a walkout.  As the Asset Sales Bill has passed its first hurdles, Mana's Hone Harawira together with the Maori Council have put through an urgent application to the Waitangi Tribunal to block asset sales through the protection of Maori rights to water. The announcement of a two-week long hikoi that has the support of Labour, the Greens, Mana, New Zealand First, Greenpeace and many of the unions looks to increase the scrutiny and pressure on National over the asset sales, with the broad support for the movement demonstrating how National are currently stepping on the toes of groups with a broad range of interests.  The march includes concerns of environmental groups, who are alarmed at the secrecy around the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement on trade and its implications for mining, an issue which has previously brought large amounts of numbers out on the streets. If current polls have shown National's government riding high in popularity while more than 60% of New Zealanders oppose the sales, the renewed media attention and investigation that will come over the next couple of weeks could place an increasingly besieged Key government further under the microscope for policy.

That the Maori Council application to the Waitangi Tribunal is focussing on water rights signals potential further headaches for National, whose coalition partner United Future campaigned on partial privatization but not of water, rail, TVNZ or Kiwibank. Peter Dunne has recently demonstrated that he does have the teeth to occasionally step out from under National's wing with his criticisms of National's veto of the Paid Parental Leave Bill, meaning that once the discussion reaches the water privatization provisions allowed for in Rodney Hide's changes to the Local Government Act 2002, National may have quite the fight on their hands with not one but two coalition partners refusing to play ball. Given the difficulty for any government in achieving three terms in New Zealand, this could spell the end for any hopes of an additional term in power. Not only does it diminish National's argument over asset sales which focusses on establishing opposition as a kind of Luddite veto, it will show up the schism in just how different Act and National are ideologically than the other elected parties.

Despite National's strong record in its ability to play hardball with other parties citing the economy as an excuse for their approach to policy, most recently seen in their abandonment of their Memorandum of Understanding with the Greens, there are signs that this is beginning to wear thin. No more so was this evident when English was under fire from Holmes over the Paid Parental Leave Bill, where finally we began to see policy decisions being placed in a matrix outside that shifted from the current mantra of any spending is bad to one where commentators were increasingly positioning government spending as a balance between policies.  In an environment in which the pillars of National's successful campaign against Goff's number flubbers are beginning to look less sturdy (most notably in the Ministry of Economic Development doubting the job creation figures of 170,000 jobs and English's concession that the $5-7 billion generated by asset sales was a figure drawn out of thin air), it is clear that the political climate is heating up and National are potentially in for a larger fight than they previously anticipated. Unfortunately the chances of the Prime Minister being able to ignore the hikoi by meeting a sheep instead are not high this time. Unlike previous hikoi, this is one that has a broad base of political support.

The Aotearoa is Not For Sale hikoi reaches Britomart, Auckland on Saturday 28 April at 3pm.