The post you are reporting:
If the people's port plan had been considered by the Government and then become part of public consultation through Government office, so that local people, local institutions (Councils etc,) and stakeholders-customers of the Port, could make comments and proposals on it to the designated Governmental office, then it would have been fair to go through a new process of consultation.
However, the Ministry for Transport would have had to first explain what became of the previous public consultation on the DHB privatisatiob plan.
Charlie's plan does not forsee any public consultation, and so the referendum is indeed a guise to make look democratic that which in reality is an attempt to exclude public participation in proposals and to present forgone conclusions, while wiping out that which was public consultation.
If this got through, it would be a precedent to an undemocratic society, where we go backwards and not forwards, and all within the phrase that "one couldn't have trusted the Government anyway".
Considering the costs involved for a referendum, and the ways in which the case for a referendum has been presented to the people on the P/p website, and subsequently by the local press which made public the case based on the p/p claims (please not the word claims!), DTC is going past a series of red lights!
I recommend that DTC read carefully what is being claimed on the P/p website, and the reasons it is giving for a referendum, as these do not correspond to reality.