Opposition MPs were understandably crowing about the results of last week's referendum result, which they claimed was an emphatic win against the Government proceeding with its partial sale of state assets.
The programme, although well signalled before the last election (one which saw National receive more than one million votes), does not sit well with the Labour and Green parties.
Only 44% of eligible voters bothered to vote in the referendum.
That equated to around 1.3 million voters, with two-thirds of them voting no to more sales and about a third voting yes.
When the total number of New Zealand eligible voters are considered, less than 30% of the voting population voted against asset sales in the referendum, which cost taxpayers about $9 million to run.
Put bluntly, the referendum was a waste of money and time - a political stunt which took the country nowhere.
It will not escape attention that the Government has already partially sold down Mighty River Power and Meridian Energy.
It has also reduced its stake in Air NZ.
Genesis, the smallest and probably the hardest to sell of the energy assets, will be up for sale - in some form, either in parts or as a whole - some time early next year.
Did the referendum change anything?
Not a thing.
Prime Minister John Key indicated Genesis will be sold down next year, despite calls from Labour leader David Cunliffe saying Kiwis do not want assets sold.
Mr Cunliffe claims the Government tried to mitigate the result by claiming it would ignore the result, by holding the referendum close to Christmas and by saying the programme is all but over.
In fact, if the Green Party had not tried to gerrymander the earlier version of the petition, the referendum may have been held earlier.
Enlisting Grey Power and the New Zealand Students Association to front the initial petition, the Greens resorted to paying people to stand on street corners to drum up support.
The petition had double signatures, false names and addresses and did not stack up.
A second attempt to get the required number of signatures was required.
Mr Key made it clear he would not be swayed by the results of the referendum.
No wonder.
National campaigned on the sales programme; Labour and the Greens campaigned against.
Labour slipped to one of its lowest election results ever.
That is not to say the programme has been a runaway success.
Indeed, one of the downsides to asset sales is the Government will receive less income than it anticipated: instead of $5 billion to $7 billion, reaching $5 billion is expected to be unattainable.
Yesterday, Mr Cunliffe gave a strong indication his party will buy back state-owned assets if it becomes the government next year.
He said on Morning Report he ''will probably'' buy back the assets but did not indicate where the money would come from.
Simple economics suggests a future Labour-led administration will need to borrow to buy back the shares in the companies already sold.
Fair enough - that is his (and Labour's) right.
But while the share prices of Mighty River and Meridian may now be lagging, it must be accepted that any suggestion of a government-led buy-back will likely see the shares push well above their listing prices as investors seek to cash in on taxpayer largess.
One presumes Mr Cunliffe will now go into the next election with the buy-back of state-owned assets as a major campaign promise.
This will provide voters with a clear alternative, just as National did at the previous election.
There is no room for any prevarication.
Too often, political parties go into elections with promises only to backtrack once they ''open the books''.
If Mr Cunliffe is prepared to borrow to buy assets back, he needs to make his position clear.
If he and the Labour Party do so, they will be applauded by many - but to others, the idea of governments returning to previous policies of ''borrow and hope'' will probably prove unappealing.
