A waste of time. A waste of money.
The government takes no notice.
What's the point of non-binding referenda?
How come we have them anyway?
In April 1993, National Minister of Customs Murray McCully introduced the Citizens Initiated Referenda (CIR) Bill to Parliament.
This had been promised in National's 1990 election manifesto, and he said that CIR would ''profoundly change the way in which we conduct our democracy in this country''.
The voice of the people would be heard directly on a whole range of issues and the government would take notice.
But why was CIR introduced then and not at some time during the previous two and a-half years?
In September 1992, an indicative referendum had been held on the voting system: 85% had voted for change and 65% had voted for MMP as an alternative.
A runoff between MMP and first past the post in a binding referendum would now be held at the same time as the 1993 election.
Politicians had been disturbed at the level of dissatisfaction with the government expressed in the September referendum, and the anti-MMP Campaign for Better Government had been formed, sponsored by National Party luminaries.
Offering CIR as a supposedly direct form of democracy could be a useful distraction and campaign tool.
In 1986, the Royal Commission on the Electoral System had recommended MMP as the best voting system for New Zealand.
But it had not recommended referenda.
Quite the reverse.
They reported that ''initiatives and referenda are blunt and crude devices which need to be used with care and circumspection ... under our present political and constitutional system, the regular use of initiatives and referenda would detract from rather than enhance the ways our democracy generally works ... The Commission accordingly does not recommend that general provision be made for an initiative to compel a referendum on any issue chosen by the petitioners''.
From the outset, National's promotion of CIR was a snare and a delusion.
When Minister of Justice Doug Graham began the third reading of the CIR Bill in September 1993, he announced, ''As a nation we have reached a sufficient level of sophistication to warrant the introduction of direct democracy''.
But CIR would be non-binding ''to ensure that Parliament has the flexibility to safeguard our rights and freedoms against referenda that produced pernicious results''.
Nevertheless, he believed ''that we will rarely witness the rejection of a referendum result''.
Labour's David Caygill was not so sure, but thought CIR could test opinion on major issues and he hoped people would be ''sensible'' in bringing forward CIR petitions.
The current CIR on asset sales is the fifth since 1993.
Many more failed at the first hurdle of persuading 10% of enrolled voters to sign a petition.
The first CIR at the end of 1995 asked if the number of firefighters should be reduced below the number employed on January 1, 1995: 87.8% of voters said ''No''.
The second in November 1999 asked if the number of MPs should be reduced from 120 to 99: 81.5% said ''Yes''.
The third, held at the same time, asked if the justice system should place greater emphasis on the needs of victims and impose hard labour for all serious violent offences: 91.8% said ''Yes''.
The fourth in August 2009 asked, ''Should a smack as part of good parental correction be a criminal offence in New Zealand'' and 87.4% said ''No''.
Which of these referenda had ''sensible'' questions is a matter of opinion, but the results were all the same: there was an overwhelming endorsement of the referendum question's intent, and Parliament ignored them all.
In Doug Graham's words, they must have produced ''pernicious results''.
The Minister for State Owned Enterprises, Tony Ryall, must also consider the CIR on asset sales as pernicious, when he described it as a ''politically initiated'' referendum (by the Greens and Labour).
Yet, the introduction by National of CIR itself in 1993 was little more than ''politically initiated''.
Doug Graham promised there would be a review of CIR after five years. This did not happen.
After 20 years, it is now time that it did. Given the evidence so far, the CIR legislation should be repealed.
CIRs have indeed been a waste of time and considerable money, as much as $35 million.
Making CIR binding would not solve the problem, because we do not have the kind of constitutional framework, like Switzerland, for them to work in a fashion that would not continue to produce ''pernicious results''.
• Philip Temple is a Dunedin author and electoral commentator.
