Russel Norman has tried to force a hold on the Mixed Ownership Model Bill until the outcome of a referendum is known.

A referendum that we don’t even know will happen or not.

I’ve also been asked about this on blogs, in this case by “John M”:

Is this why you don’t support even arguing for holding off on the sales until the result of the referendum (as a compromise to Dunne pulling the pin on the legislation)?

I’ve replied:

We don’t even know if there will be any referendum. It would be ridiculous to set as precedent of holding off any legislation pending the possibility of a referendum.

Apart from making a nionsense of our democratic process it would encourage even more abuse of CIR as a means of massive filibustering.

If we had a Labour/Green led government do you think they would put CGT legislation on hold for a couple of years to wait for the possibility there could be a referendum that could indicate majority opposition that they could ignore anyway?

Do you think any government legislation should be put on hold if a referendum is promoted as a possibility by opposition parties?

I think it would make a mockery of our democracy.

If the Greens got into a position of pivotal power would they delay addressing “child poverty” until a referendum had been held? Did Greens and Labour wait until the results of a referendum to decide how to vote on a “smacking” bill?

They are playing politics. And abusing taxpayer money to fund an extended election campaign, as illustrated in this comment yesterday from Robert Guyton:

The referendum will reflect the country’s real feelings and will come at a time when it counts – just prior to the election. Perfect. Bye bye Mr Dunne. Bye Mr Key. Sayonara.

The referendum looks like it has been hijacked by opposition parties using it as a massive taxpayer funded campaign tool for 2014.

That is highly unethical and a a cynical and hypocritical abuse of both taxpayer money and the Citizen Initiated Referendum.