Well, Prime Minister John Key is in no doubt the public at large is set to give the Government's asset sales programme a big thumbs down in the current referendum.
But he has got some support from Interest.co.nz readers.
The citizens-initiated referendum on the asset sales programme is due to close next week (December 12).
And while it has become a largely academic exercise, given that of the assets listed in the question, only Genesis has not yet been sold, there's reasonable interest in the outcome.
Key has already got in early, saying: "'It'll go against us, everybody knows that. The question is what will the turn out look like."
We asked readers what they thought, specifically whether they were for asset sales, against them, or thought they would not vote as it was "a waste of time and taxpayers money".
Given the Prime Minister's pessimistic view of how the Kiwi public will view the programme, the results were mildly surprising.
Of the 840 respondents to our poll, 46.7% supported asset sales, 40.7% were against and perhaps a surprisingly low number, 12.6% said they were not voting as they thought the referendum was a waste of time and taxpayers' money.
Perhaps readers were mindful of what has happened to the prices of the assets since they were sold.
At time of writing the Mighty River Power shares were changing hands for $1.98.5, versus an issue price of $2.50, while the Meridian Energy instalment receipts were at 92.5c ($1 issue price) and Air New Zealand were on $162.5 (against a Government sale price of $1.65).
On that basis you could say the Government got a good price.
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Foreign fund manager says no:
An overseas fund manager has branded New Zealand as risky as Pakistan after losing money on investments in Chorus, Meridian and Mighty River Power.
Jason Pidcock, manager of the London-based $8.7 billion Newton Asian Income Fund, was quoted in investment newsletter Citywire overnight saying New Zealand's political environment was a disincentive to investment.
"We are not going to invest any more money in New Zealand for the foreseeable future," he said.
"We have to rank it up with places like Pakistan in terms of political risk. This is a shame because it ought to be a developed and stable country."
Pidcock's fund lost 7.2 per cent since the end of October and the performance was mostly attributed to its New Zealand investments. Read more
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