Quote of the day:
. . . Let me run the maths past the member. There were a touch over a million New Zealanders who voted for the National Party at the most recent general election, where front and centre stage was this policy, and last weekend 79 protestors turned up to oppose it. And 1 million is greater than 79. If the member cared enough about it, he would have gone out in the rain and protested, but he was tucked up in his warm, insulated—thanks to the National Government— house, reading some leftie magazine he enjoys, instead of being out there protesting with the other 79. Prime Minister John Key
No-one pretends that all the people who voted for National supported everything on which the party campaigned.
But Labour made sure that the sale of a minority of shares in a few state owned companies was a big election issue and many people still voted National in spite of it if not because of it.
