“Imagine the lunacy of using the past to help us understand the future, when there is speculation and supposition to rely on instead.”

Using the past to help understand the future is one thing. Expecting something not to happen in the future simply because it hasnt happened in the past is another.

“And yes, the influence of politicians over asset sales prices, where they are the mainline decision makers, is greater than their influence over power prices, airline tickets, and so on, where they are not. Would you like an organisational chart to help you understand this?”

Oh no, I understand it. I also understand that an asset sale is a one-time event, while management is on-going. Which would give political motivation one opportunity  to influence asset sales, but an infinite number of opportunities to influence management.
“And it is good to see your famously blinkered sense of humour is still with you.”

You tell a joke so bad that it is unrecognisable as a joke, and that is MY fault?

Pardon me for taking your unprompted, confused reference to John Key to be an indication of obsessive partisanship.

Yes, Kimble, yes. Imagine the lunacy of using the past to help us understand the future, when there is speculation and supposition to rely on instead. I remember that great saying supporting your point here: He who does not learn the lessons of history is bound to, er, be right about the future. Yes, that’s it.
And yes, the influence of politicians over asset sales prices, where they are the mainline decision makers, is greater than their influence over power prices, airline tickets, and so on, where they are not. Would you like an organisational chart to help you understand this?
And it is good to see your famously blinkered sense of humour is still with you. Any jokes about right-leaning politicians CANNOT POSSIBLY BE JOKES, and must be taken entirely seriously. Because left-leaning people are pathalogically incapable of levity. Good-o.

Are you suggesting I should buy an apartment?

Kimble has a point that public choice theory also suggests that the scope and role of government will be inappropriate – as a result the net argument against/for asset sales is cloudier in this type of context.

Which is why the solution is to increase transparency and accountability where possible, and then see what policies fall out.

There you go trying to reassure us with past behaviour, when what we are worried about is the future.

You have said yourself that the motivations of politicians will distort the price received for the assets. But for some reason the influence of those motivations stops at the boundary of asset sales and could never be found in the future operation of SOEs,

Oh, unless it is John Key. Who is the devil. 

As in “a bad idea that you would never do unless you were forced to”? Yes.

Yeah, right on Kimble! Those idiot politicians didn’t even set up those commercial enterprises at arm’s length specifically to try and prevent that kind of meddling, or anything. Wait, they did?! And we have some of the most efficient SOEs in the world as a result?! Huh.
Anyway, who was the last politician to consider meddling in an SOE for political gain? Oh, it was that commercial neophyte John Key with his great Coro St timeslot gambit.
And nice try with the Jedi mind trick at the end, but these really are the droids I was looking for.

Isn’t that a bit like saying a commercial entity may be forced to sell its assets at a bad time due to the economic cycle and therefore might not realise the best return possible? e.g. Terry currently flooding the Wellington apartment market. 

Does the government’s commitment to sell within an electoral cycle not prevent it from choosing to sell when the market is most favourable? I would have thought that would slightly reduce the expected price. In addition, this government appears to prefer to sell to domestically, which may reduce the price relative to selling in the international market.

In any case, there must be empirical evidence on such sales. Does anyone know what it says?

Rob,

I don’t pretend to be an expert in politician perceptions of voter perceptions of policies, but my sense is that John Key is very attuned to the median voter. And I suspect that the median voter is much more likely to be throwing around the “selling the family silver” cliche than to be a mum-and-pop investor looking to buy the family silver and feeling gratitude for a healthy capital gain after the event