Grey Power president Roy Reid presenting the Keep Our Assets citizens initiated referendum petition to Opposition politicians at Parliament. Photo / Mark Mitchell
A further 350,000 votes cast in the Citizen's Initiated Referendum on asset sales have been included in the official count released this afternoon, but the overall result remains virtually unchanged.
The extra votes take the turnout to 1,367,340 people, or from 43.9 per cent to 45 per cent of eligible
voters.
Of the additional votes counted, 24,866 were against the asset sales while 10,035 were in favour.
The final result is that 920,188 or 67.3 per cent of votes cast were against the programme while 442,985 or 32.4 per cent were in favour.
The result went strongly against the Government, but the relatively low turnout is seen as indicating the public largely doesn't feel strongly about the issue or saw little point in opposing a programme that is now largely complete, other than the sale of Genesis Energy earmarked for the first half of next year.
