The Irish have voted for gay marriage in a referendum, good news. But in a week which featured a lot of nonsense about gender assignment surgery again wedging a bunch of hapless white male MP Labour twits what are the lessons for the left in NZ from the Irish referendum?
Anyone who favours my posts by generously reading them will know I’ve lately been much taken by the ideas of Pablo Iglesias and Spain’s Podemos. One of the things that Podemos advocate is the left forming broad alliances for specific issues, looking not to the parliament for top down leadership, but rather by-passing the political & media elites to force change. This piece in the Irish Times –
notes that “…It looks like a victory for articulacy. This was indeed a superb civic campaign…” A civic campaign that gave the political elites in Ireland absolutely no choice. Compare and contrast a confused, ideologically exhausted Labour party bickering over gender re-assignment surgery with the sort of populism of Podemos, and the sort of mechanisms (referendums, civic campaigns) in Ireland and the sort of “new left” we need for the 21st century here in NZ is becoming clearer.
Podemos are interesting in that they’ve used Loomio in such a massively constructive way. They’re a true grass roots political movement.
It’s what we need here in NZ. Where the representatives are representing the choices of the people and not their own desires and beliefs as we have now.
maybe the standardistas should set up a loomio and run through various scenarios/decisions based on current posts. See what happens when we have to actually work together 😈
“but rather by-passing the political & media elites to force change”
Completely with you on that one.
Can you recommend some reading on Podemos for someone who’s unfamiliar with it? Something easily accessible and not too dense to start with would be good.
“…Third, in my opinion the nature of the breakthroughs being achieved is largely a populist one. That is to say, it is when new formations manage to puncture the bubble of bipartisan niceties, with slogans that are both resonant and pit ‘the people’ against a ‘power bloc’ that is insulated from popular opinion, that they succeed…”
Also read up on the “Pink Tide” in South America, where non-traditional alliances between the left and local capitalists have rolled back globalised capitalism. In New Zealand, such an alliance might be the left championing local import substitution whilst attacking foreign owned banks. That would offer opportunities to split right wing business orgainsations like Business New Zealand. for example.
If you (or anyone) look into Ireland’s distant past, and where its culture has come from and the general default “mindset” of the Gaelic people, the way Gay marriage has been dealt with comes as no surprise.
Without wanting to present the idea that the Irish are all a bunch of happy dancing leprechauns, unlike NZ, Ireland’s cultural heritage is one of the most advanced and… hmmm… “liberal” or “progressive” in the Western world.
Where NZders traditionally seek advantage between peers, and maintain inequality between gender and sex, foreigners and locals, and enforcement of law comes from the State – as per their English/Monarchist roots – Ireland traditionally seeks equality and community, and enforcement of law is the decision of the family/clan – as per their Clan roots.
In very loose terms, of course, but that’s the point: despite having a modern tendency to shoot each other over which street one lives in, and despite early culture still being Patriarchial, they are more prone to integration of all-comers lifestyle requirements (women, gays, and foreigners) , rather than exclusion. The source of the cultural echo being Brehon Law.
Secret meeting in London to discuss making cash illegal, meaning total government control over taxation, spending….or more specifically what is able to be brought and sold.
Probably inevitable b waghorn but this was suggested not as evolution but a sudden lurch. Imagine a cashless society where a Government agency could if they wanted, track a dissident and know exactly their activites. And no more coins for the buskers or charity collectors. Why even the very rich could be tracked and taxed so what a calamity that would be!
Yes this is all part of implementing authoritarian big brother control and surveillance over every aspect of our lives. True democratic dissent will be ending shortly thereafter.
A cashless society will be a great step on the way to the total removal of money. Interestingly enough, it’s happening anyway:
Approximately two-thirds of total spending in New Zealand is done electronically on eftpos and credit cards,” says Paul Whiston, spokesman for electronics payment provider Paymark.
The question isn’t that we’re going cashless but if we’re going to continue to let the private banks control our money and our spending. I’m of the opinion that we need to stop that ASAP. When we go cashless it needs to be a government service, well backed up and with very strict rules about access.
Going cashless brings about a number of advantages:
1. It would be near impossible to lose money. Sure, you could drop your swipe card but that can easily be replaced and any money spent via it returned and the thief caught.
2. It would be impossible for someone to break in to the server and steal your money that way either. They can’t transfer it out to another country because any NZ$ outside of the server doesn’t exist and any internal transfer will be readily apparent even if the hackers managed to hide their own tracks.
3. Taxes. It would be incredibly easy for IRD to track where money is going and thus be able to determine who owes what taxes. In fact, they could do it in real time making a Financial Transaction Tax viable (At the moment implementation of an FTT would have many people moving to cash to prevent having to pay the tax).
4. Crime. Money laundering would be a thing of the past. It’s difficult to launder ill-gotten cash when it doesn’t exist. Other crime networks would also be easily detected. Essentially, crime that involves money would be gone along with the money laundering.
5. Inflation could be more accurately measured. Instead of having people go around shops recording the prices for a basket of goods all sales would be reported back with the system then automatically measuring inflation in near real time.
6. The recording of every sale would be great for informing people where they would get the best deal via a government funded website similar to PriceSpy.
As I say, it’s not a question of if we’re going cashless (We are already) but when, how and who controls it. IMO, we need to do so ASAP and we need to control it and not the private banks (although I’m sure that the private banks would love to rip us off some more for allowing us to use our own currency).
You’re kidding yourself, backing the movement towards a cashless society when that movement is completely engineered, supported, and structured from the ground up by the large capitalist institutions.
Yep, the only way NZ will get to be cashless is if it is forced to do so (and people will just invent new forms of non-traceable tokens for recording exchange anyway). That we have increasing tech for managing transactions is a different thing than removing cash as well.
I’m expecting increasing adverse events (weather, economy) that make a cashless society the far less resilient option.
Absolutely. Trying getting food from a supermarket when the EFTPOS network goes down. Usually a “cash only” check out opens up, but fuck all people have enough cash on hand to use it, so you get hundreds of hungry people milling around surrounded by groceries unable to transact any business.
As I said, we need to stop the large capitalist institutions from doing it and do it ourselves via our government. Private industry should not have control of our money and they will have if we don’t do something to stop them.
Yours are all fantasy conditions. I’m talking about what the actual conditions are, now, today. The fact is that moving to a cashless society, which is simply a part of moving to a fully online security and surveillance state, needs to be opposed on all fronts.
Nope. We need to keep track of our resources so that we can use them sustainably and for the benefit of NZ. Cash doesn’t allow us to do that in a meaningful way as it’s so easily untraceable.
We need to keep track of our resources so that we can use them sustainably and for the benefit of NZ.
That has got nothing to do with having a cashless society. Societies have managed to keep a close eye on their resource use for millenia without electronic money. Often on stone tablets and papyrus.
You are linking ideas as pre-requisites when they are not.
Societies have managed to keep a close eye on their resource use for millenia without electronic money.
Not really. They’ve been able to keep track of transactions but not resource use in relation to what resources are actually available. This is a rather important development that we need to implement to help us becoming a sustainable society.
How much oil is left in NZs wells?
How much food is produced daily on NZs farms?
How much water is there available to those farms to produce that food?
How much iron ore in our black sands?
How much titanium?
Now, how much is available sustainably (ie, in perpetuity) and how much is actually being used?
There’s a reason why I kept saying in relation to. One of the main reasons that Rome collapsed was over use of resources. They ran out of the resources needed to maintain the empire.
A cashless society would allow better booking keeping of the use of those resources. Of course, we still need to measure what resources we have available.
you see and all your points are why i like cash – the government issues legal tender, and it is untracable unless othewise marked.
as for the cashless world fantasy, and then you have a day or three without electricity and non of your eftpos machines works.
As for your bullet points: essentially all of you points listed we already have with our eftpos accounts.
* Any purchase you make is already tracked, just have a look at your bank statements. (anyone can have access to that, as identity thiefs and hackes have proven on more than one account)
* you are already getting ads in regards to your spending….Just look at the farmer emails that come courtesy of your farmer card, google, hack even the aa knows what you buy on your smart cad, every single one of your online purchases is recognised adn will reflect the next ads you see courtesy of google
* the government could/should prevent tax evasion, but considering that the polititians are at the front of tax evasion, maybe we should simply stop dreaming that they will do something to prevent it. 🙂
* loose your bank card and you risk loosing more then just a 20 $ bill.
* anyone who knows how to hack can steal more then just your money from your bank account….i think they made a few movies about that already.
* criminals don’t care what government do. They will find a replacement for cash, like cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, sexual favors, etc etc
* non criminals with no access to a bank card will also find a replacement of official cash such as cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, work for food/housing, sexual favours for food/housing or jobs, … etc etc (this was how life was handled in the direct year/s after the war ended in germany. my grandmother and my mother had a few stories of cleaning cigarette butts, rolling new zigs out of them and selling them for a few pennies or some potatoes)
No for the poor, cash is king, because it is untracable. Having a Food card that prohibits certain stores, or certain foods, or certain hygiene articles etc etc is not going to make your life easier.
those that are rich or very rich already have their cash less society, and their bank accounts in switzerland, singapore, hong kong and london and they still don’t pay any tax.
also note that the legalised gangsters and banksters in our society seem to transact their business electronically and cashlessly just fine. It’s their system after all.
I don’t think a purely government operated banking system is a good idea. The current system has the advantage of creating a separation of roles between government regulators and the banks themselves.
The standard of regulation is not strong and should be increased but that is another issue.
Ireland seems to show what happens when politicians get too cozy with bankers. An entire political party lost its hegemony due to massive corruption which was fueling a property bubble there.
you see and all your points are why i like cash – the government issues legal tender, and it is untracable unless othewise marked.
That one sentence shows that you failed to understand what I said. The most important being that we actually need to track resources used. That’s not an option, not if we want to become a sustainable society.
as for the cashless world fantasy, and then you have a day or three without electricity and non of your eftpos machines works.
Shit happens and it really doesn’t happen that often. We mitigate against it but it’s still going to happen. As an example I’m pretty sure that a hell of a lot of Wellington couldn’t go shopping during the recent storm nor for some time after.
As for your bullet points: essentially all of you points listed we already have with our eftpos accounts.
I’m pointing out that the private sector shouldn’t actually have that information because of the many point you make about advertising and tracking.
loose your bank card and you risk loosing more then just a 20 $ bill.
As I pointed out, there’s actually less risk because of the nature of electronic transactions. A simple call to the help desk to report it lost and it gets frozen.
anyone who knows how to hack can steal more then just your money from your bank account…
There’s a risk of that but a) not as high as people believe and b) we need to risk a bit to become a better society.
criminals don’t care what government do. They will find a replacement for cash, like cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, sexual favors, etc etc
And that would be why we still have police.
Having a Food card that prohibits certain stores, or certain foods, or certain hygiene articles etc etc is not going to make your life easier.
Doing that would have to be illegal and any government that tries should immediately go to jail for a minimum of 5 years. I did say strict rules about it.
those that are rich or very rich already have their cash less society, and their bank accounts in switzerland, singapore, hong kong and london and they still don’t pay any tax.
That requires other tax and law changes but one point I should point out is that, with a cashless society, NZ$ would only exist in NZ on the government servers.
That requires other tax and law changes but one point I should point out is that, with a cashless society, NZ$ would only exist in NZ on the government servers.
oh you mean like the difference between the “finance rate” and the “interest rate” in a consumer debt agreement?
The bank takes money from you for holding your deposit. Thats effectively a negative interest rate, albeit you are correct technically that it is not the same thing.
[The bank takes money from you for holding your deposit. Thats effectively a negative interest rate, albeit you are correct technically that it is not the same thing.]
Interest charged, whether positive or negative, is proportional to the amount deposited and varies with the duration. A bank charge is a fixed charge intended to cover the bank’s processing costs.
We could of course avoid both negative interest and and bank charges by only using cash. Which would be one reason the banking fraternity would be very much in favour of bringing about a cashless society.
to cover the bank’s processing costs? I know what you are saying but that is not true. Its straight out gouging of our economy to the tune of billions a year.
You can regard those charges and interest as separate or categorise them differently as much as you like but the bottom line is that they are taking money off you for holding your deposit and you can calculate that as an effective negative interest rate based on the principal that you have with them.
[You can regard those charges and interest as separate or categorise them differently as much as you like but the bottom line is that they are taking money off you for holding your deposit and you can calculate that as an effective negative interest rate based on the principal that you have with them.]
If we were to abolish (positive) interest I don’t see how the the banks could remain in business were it not for bank charges. Even state owned banks wouldn’t want to have to rely on subsidies from the taxpayer to meet their running costs.
not sure what world you are living in man, if you’ve been following the news, the banks with direct access to the Fed funds window get their money for free, then lend it to us charging us shitloads.
Lack of bank profitability is not an issue we are facing right now but i am sure that the banksters find your concern touching.
[not sure what world you are living in man, if you’ve been following the news, the banks with direct access to the Fed funds window get their money for free, then lend it to us charging us shitloads.]
Whatever. Bank charges and interest (positive or negative) are still two different things. So if the banks charged negative interest on deposits it would place an additional burden on depositors – additional, that is, to bank charges, which are generally accepted by customers as a reasonable charge for the services provided in operating cheque accounts, clearing of cheques, provision of plastic cards, etc. If the banks started charging negative interest I would want to be able to take my money out of the bank and operate mostly in cash. This however would not be possible in a cashless society.
1. the private sector allready has all the information, especially the banks.
2. loose your card in the morning, or have your bag stolen, and not know it for a few hours….your idendity is stolen, and your money is gone, and someone signed you up for a loan. Happens all the time, and been happening for years. Even when peeps call in to cancel a card, with wave and pay the chances are you are gonna loose more than a bit.
3. Identity theft, and subsequent financial abuse is a big issue. It does not just happens every now and then. This is what the FBI says about financial crime together with Identity theft.
4. In cash less world the cops will be payed off with Cigarettes, booze, sex, chocolate etc etc etc. They will be as corrupt as they are today.
5. Food cards have been already introduced by WINZ http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/payment-card/ and now, the approved businesses that one can use are not forcibly the cheapest businesses to use for someone on welfare. (but heck we must take away choice in the name of welfare fraud, lest they buy something that offends our, mine, yours and humpty dumpty sensibilitys. Cause we all know lazy, bludgers and the likes. – Still waiting for the government to resign.
6. And the government servers are immune to hacking, will never crash, always work and …..Novo pay?
1. Yes and they shouldn’t
2. and 3
3. Last time I lost a CC I called them up and they asked me what was my last transaction stopping it from that point. There hadn’t been any other transactions but I’m sure that they would have taken the correct action in correcting them if there had been including the return of any monies spent. Can’t do that with cash
4. Which means we need procedures that find and correct that corruption
5. yep and they need to be removed
6. Nope but then, neither is cash – stolen wallets have been around forever. And Novopoay wasn’t a government problem per se but a private sector problem brought about by the dismantling of government over the last 30 years
Odd that there are a number who post here that seemingly can’t or won’t connect the dots between the total financial disaster foisted upon the planet and its inhabitants and the to move towards a ‘cashless’ society
Note: Cashless can’t and won’t work unless all nations implement it at the same time and if that ‘big bang’ was to come into effect the consequences would be nothing short of catastrophic
It is impossible to rid the world of cash money and impossible to police the creation of ‘unofficial’ forms of cash money which is why the exercise is propaganda which has been openly talked about by the establishments for an age now
In my opinion the forces behind this blindly believe such a system of control will lead to the utopian digitized slave state but are forcing the swing back towards localized production and community based society as human beings realize what is necessary for the their own survival
1. It would be near impossible to lose money. Sure, you could drop your swipe card but that can easily be replaced and any money spent via it returned and the thief caught.
What you meant to say is it will be impossible to stop the bank or other institutions taking your ‘money’
2. It would be impossible for someone to break in to the server and steal your money that way either. They can’t transfer it out to another country because any NZ$ outside of the server doesn’t exist and any internal transfer will be readily apparent even if the hackers managed to hide their own tracks.
Your faith in technology is bizarre and your understandings primitive while simultaneously endorsing Capital controls which will be immediately implemented and you can wave good-bye to freedom of movement….for everyone else
3. Taxes. It would be incredibly easy for IRD to track where money is going and thus be able to determine who owes what taxes. In fact, they could do it in real time making a Financial Transaction Tax viable (At the moment implementation of an FTT would have many people moving to cash to prevent having to pay the tax).
Corporations already do business electronically so you have not thought this through at all
4. Crime. Money laundering would be a thing of the past. It’s difficult to launder ill-gotten cash when it doesn’t exist. Other crime networks would also be easily detected. Essentially, crime that involves money would be gone along with the money laundering.
Q. You understand the crime networks own and control the financial systems eh ?
The banks will continue laundering they will not even break stride while stopping your access anytime they like
5. Inflation could be more accurately measured. Instead of having people go around shops recording the prices for a basket of goods all sales would be reported back with the system then automatically measuring inflation in near real time.
You don’t understand what you’re talking about or what inflation is or the causes
6. The recording of every sale would be great for informing people where they would get the best deal via a government funded website similar to PriceSpy.
Yes we are aware of your big brother authoritarian preferences which you openly parade once again
You don’t understand what you’re talking about or what inflation is or the causes
It’s bizarre actually as current day point of sale systems already allow real time monitoring of economic activity and prices throughout the retail and service sectors.
The problem being that it’s the corporates with the information and not the people. And that information is then used against the people rather than supporting them.
The information is already there, its already being collected in real time, the infrastructure already exists to do all of that, further the government already has the capability to take all that information, sort it search it and store it into perpetuity
Seems to me the answer is already right there in front of our faces if you want to go down that road (to a turnkey authoritarian central state).
What you meant to say is it will be impossible to stop the bank or other institutions taking your ‘money’
No, if I’d meant that then I would have said that.
… endorsing Capital controls which will be immediately implemented and you can wave good-bye to freedom of movement….for everyone else
That’s below your usual standard of meaningless drivel but still meaningless.
Corporations already do business electronically so you have not thought this through at all
Actually, I have. The problem is that you didn’t get the full article which states that the servers would be government owned and no NZ$ would exist outside of those servers. This means that it would be very easy to trace where money has gone and thus what taxes the corporations owe on it.
You understand the crime networks own and control the financial systems eh ?
Which, again, is why I keep saying that our monetary system needs to be removed from the control of the corporates.
You don’t understand what you’re talking about or what inflation is or the causes
Yes I do.
Yes we are aware of your big brother authoritarian preferences which you openly parade once again
Allowing people to see where they can get the best deal is Big Brother? Man, are you fucken delusional.
Allowing people to see where they can get the best deal is Big Brother? Man, are you fucken delusional
No it’s the faith in such systems who would own the systems and how the information will be used is delusional
Before we even begin to discuss the delusion that the ‘government’ will be in control of any such systems
Q. How do you propose the government will ‘assume control’ over the private banking system which currently operates throughout most of the worlds nations ?
Q. Do you believe governments event want to take control ?
How do you propose the government will ‘assume control’ over the private banking system which currently operates throughout most of the worlds nations ?
I don’t expect them to. I expect them to assume control of the NZ system and integrate it into the global systems. I expect other governments to follow suit.
Do you believe governments event want to take control ?
This is an important point about democracy – it’s not parliament that are the government but the people.
I don’t expect them to. I expect them to assume control of the NZ system and integrate it into the global systems. I expect other governments to follow suit.
Q. How would you remove the barrier of ‘state capture’ ?
Do you believe governments event want to take control ?
This is an important point about democracy – it’s not parliament that are the government but the people.
Yeah great but that’s currently not the situation going around the Western World
Dude the way you insist that centralised infrastructure locking people in to establishment systems is the only way ahead, is pretty bloody scary.
Its like you have never paid attention to how payment systems are used by the elite as weapons of war against Russia, Wikileaks, Kim Dotcom etc. Anybody and any organisation the establishment of the day thinks is a dissenter and a threat to them. And now you want to tie everyone in NZ to similar?
The modern Left appears riven with incoherancy and incongruent principles. Patients rights but force vaccinations. Abortions more available but treasure babies. Cut down emissions but increase consumption of the masses.
a fair question. The pot needs to be stirred if there is any hope of this stew getting better. The pro-establishment greasers and the political careerists won’t.
btw the “modern right” are just as locked into ultimately self defeating behaviours. They just spend more of the time in power during.
Chur. The older I get the less of an establishment loyalist I feel like being. Especially when “the establishment” is that which has lead us to this shite place in history.
“Abortions more available but treasure babies”
These aren’t contradictory. Indeed a society that protects the rights and wellbeing of women is going to be a better society for babies.
Its like you have never paid attention to how payment systems are used by the elite as weapons of war against Russia, Wikileaks, Kim Dotcom etc.
I’m quite aware of that which is why I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, that these systems need to be removed from the elites control.
Anybody and any organisation the establishment of the day thinks is a dissenter and a threat to them. And now you want to tie everyone in NZ to similar?
They’re already in that position – I want to remove them from it.
The point that you seem to fail to understand is that we do need a system. It’s not optional.
Dunno who the uncorruptible angels you are going to get to run your all seeing all reaching system.
I don’t expect incorruptible angels – I expect everyone to have a say/voice/power rather than just a few. Overall, everyone isn’t corruptible but a few are.
I don’t expect incorruptible angels – I expect everyone to have a say/voice/power rather than just a few. Overall, everyone isn’t corruptible but a few are
Q. Will you be proposing a solution about how you foresee this coming about ?
“It amazes me that all these warriors of the air don’t regularly crash into each other…”
Into this mess walks New Zealand troops ….at the command of jonkey Nactional and chicken hawks
…the New Zealand Labour Party along with the Green Party and NZF and Mana/Int co-Left ( who opposed sending them there in the first place)…..should demand NZ troops are pulled out now!
Chooky. The article on the sidebar “After Vietnam: changes in imperialist strategy” gives a different take on the Middle East activity. Essentially that the West now has learned to get the unfortunates to carry out the bloodshed by proxy. Suits us to see the barbaric bad guys as an excuse to carry out remote “defence” activity. No more disasters labelling USA as bad guys as in Vietnam eg MiLai Massacre. https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/after-vietnam-changes-in-imperialist-strategy/
Camp Taji, were NZ’s troops are stationed is surrounded by ISIS on three sides with one side open towards Baghdad. Baghdad is facing an ISIS assault. That is according to the New York Times propaganda rag du jour in the US (Responsible for the yellow cake story that got the US invading Iraq in 2003 in the first place) that is.
The distance between ISIS troops and Camp Taji is only ± 15 km.
Vice President Joe Biden declared in early April that “ISIL’s momentum in Iraq has halted, and in many places, has been flat-out reversed.”
A couple of weeks later, the President proved equally upbeat following a meeting with Iraqi leader Haider al-Abadi: “We are making serious progress in pushing back ISIL out of Iraqi territory. About a quarter of the territory fallen under Daesh control has been recovered. Thousands of strikes have not only taken ISIL fighters off the war theater, but their infrastructure has been deteriorated and decayed. And under Prime Minister Abadi’s leadership, the Iraqi security forces have been rebuilt and are getting re-equipped, retrained, and strategically deployed across the country.”
But that was so last month. Post-Ramadi, conservatives like Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, have lost no time in labeling such views out of touch and “delusional.” And, indeed, Obama sounded strangely detached on Tuesday when he told The Atlantic that ISIS’s advance was not a defeat.
“No, I don’t think we’re losing,” he said, adding: “There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time, primarily because these are not Iraqi security forces that we have trained or reinforced.” It was rather like the captain of the Titanic telling passengers that the gash below the waterline was a minor opening that would soon be repaired.
Because the mainstream media only report what the Defence Force wants them to. Journalists get to be embedded within military forces on the ground, only if they tow the line and report what the hierarchy wants.
John Pilger talks a little about general western media bias here, from 12:40 in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41YTAZHIWN8
The first really big polar blast of the season arriving today, straight off the edge of Antarctica. Bundle up folks, esp in the South which is expecting heavy dumps of snow.
US government documents show rise of ISIS was predicted, supported and considered an “asset” in getting rid of Assad
Supporting militant Sunni extremism in Syria and Iraq would also act to curb Iranian influence, it was noted. Fueling militant Islamic extremism in Syria/Iraq has also given the same security and surveillance state the excuse to demand more power and more budgets to use on its own western citizens.
However, the newly declassified Pentagon report proves unambiguously that years before ISIS launched its concerted offensive against Iraq, the US intelligence community was fully aware that Islamist militants constituted the core of Syria’s sectarian insurgency.
Despite that, the Pentagon continued to support the Islamist insurgency, even while anticipating the probability that doing so would establish an extremist Salafi stronghold in Syria and Iraq.
As Shoebridge told me, “The documents show that not only did the US government at the latest by August 2012 know the true extremist nature and likely outcome of Syria’s rebellion”?—?namely, the emergence of ISIS?—?“but that this was considered an advantage for US foreign policy. This also suggests a decision to spend years in an effort to deliberately mislead the West’s public, via a compliant media, into believing that Syria’s rebellion was overwhelmingly ‘moderate.’”
Pepe Escobar refers to this as the empire of chaos.
the US has history of shipping in Islamic militants, training and arming them, in order to undermine entire states. And interesting isnt it how despite all these anti ISIS US airstrikes, ISIS is able to close in on Damascus and Assad quite rapidly.
Something Draco has often bought up here is the need for us to get out of the mindset of needless duplication, i.e. everyone having everything in every home.
This looks like an example of a step in an interesting direction: Four tiny homes on a shared piece of land. Each tiny home has its own bathroom, but the kitchen and living area is in a shared building.
Yep. And these solutions are not new. Communitarian or social accommodation. Barracks, student hostels and monastaries all have set ups with similar principles. Simply update with modern ideas and for the modern sensibility – and voila – save a tonne of money on corporatised retirement accomodation.
Nice overview article. Biggest thing stopping this from happening in NZ is the lack of legal models for shared ownership.
Chch was an ideal opportunity to work with these alternative housing options. I think a few people have done tiny homes there but not the shared resources bit.
Biggest thing stopping this from happening in NZ is the lack of legal models for shared ownership.
???
What do you mean??? Shared ownership of financial assets is an utterly standard situation. Whether it is company shareholders, spouses or people who have an account at a bank or managed by a hedgefund.
Outside of marriage it’s rare for people in NZ to share ownership of homes/land. It does happen but we don’t have good cultural practice yet on how to do it, and people get stuck on assets issues, what happens when someone wants out, how to make decisions collectively etc.
There are many people wanting to do this but few really good examples that can be easily replicated. I know about it from people trying to go this with larger pieces of land, and it’s possible it might be easier on smaller suburban blocks. But again, Chch was the obvious opportunity and it hasn’t really happened. I think that’s because the right models don’t exist yet.
Thanks. Let me clarify, by ‘model’ I mean the whole thing not just the legal structure. See my comment to CV above. Probably should have left the word legal out of my first comment.
Everything from traditional Kiwi flatmates (shared cooking and shared bills) to communal student hostel living and everything in-between. There are many models and ideas familar to NZ culture to pick from. And if they don’t work, try out a Pasifika or Maori model extended family mode of living.
weka, I already answered above that there are many options for shared or joint legal ownership of assets including property.
Now it is hardly my fault if you cannot accurately formulate what you are asking for. Ownership of assets falls under the area of commercial and property law. It’s very clear.
I’m not asking for anything. I’m sharing some experience. I’m talking about what ordinary people are trying to do in sharing ownership of homes and why that is difficult in NZ. I’m guessing you are commenting again from a place of poor knowledge. If you can’t tell the difference between ownership and flatting, you could try listening instead of pontificating.
If a group of people buy land together with the intention of forming community, some of the issues that arise are around how to make decisions, and how to remove assets if someone wants to leave. Yes, the technicals on that exist, but how it plays out in real life isn’t always so straight forward (eg what happens if you want to sell but the other owners get to have a say in who buys in and you can’t find someone suitable?). There’s also a whole class thing that happens as well, around people with assets and how they protect them vs how they share them.
And how to just get on with each other in a living situation that many aren’t used to (I agree with you that Māori and Pasifika are better at this than Pākehā). The ‘model’ I am referring to is how to navigate this without having to reinvent the wheel all the time. Lots of people in NZ have done various models, and many have failed (esp intentional communities). There are some good successes too, but my original comment was pointing to these things not being cultural norms yet, so both regulations and patterns of relating haven’t evolved to support them.
In the linked article, the couples have known each other for 20 years. That makes a big difference.
Co-housing seems one of the more successful models in NZ, but most cohousing is for people with large buy in (eg they sell an existing house/have a big mortgage). I was interested in the article that was looking at medium level buy in (although I don’t think they talk about the land price), plus what felix was pointing to about shared ammenities.
I know of a few groups of people who’ve done rural subdivisions privately where the land is owned collectively but each family builds their own home. You need a certain group of people who know and trust each other for that to work. It does work, but it’s not common and I think the reason for that is that both around regulations on rural land, and that we’re not that good at sharing when it comes to larges amounts of assets, or how to make decisions in small groups once we get past whānau size. These are not unresolvable problems, we’re just not there yet.
Beyond that, and esp in response to what Maui said, I’m thinking of even lower buy ins. The moveable tiny home allows people more flexibility re commitment, and is way cheaper if land is rented instead of bought. There are still issues on how to live together.
Community Land Trusts are one of the models now being used in NZ. I’m not sure how successful that is yet and the one I am familiar with still has a substantial buy in.
There are a lot of nuances that you raise, and important ones weka.
In olden days, blood ties, tribal ties, religious ties, formed the basis of the trust, mutual understanding and common culture required for these things to work and work well.
I agree with you that its more difficult now and that it depends on each specific situation and each specific group of people and their dynamics.
If people want to be really arms length and independent away from each other then residential units or town house units might be used. But that’s not really communitarian living either.
what I find is that if you ask people you know who are talking about housing or home ownership whether they would share land with others, most people will just say no flat out, others will say yeah maybe, but it’s generally unclear what it means and how to do it and when they realise it’s a lot of work that becomes a barrier. A few will respond positively. What we need are models that make it much easier for the middle group to be more interested, as simple as say buying a house, or renting long term.
“In olden days, blood ties, tribal ties, religious ties, formed the basis of the trust, mutual understanding and common culture required for these things to work and work well.”
Yep that’s the one.
“If people want to be really arms length and independent away from each other then residential units or town house units might be used. But that’s not really communitarian living either.”
True, but it’s probably a step in the right direction. The set up in that article looks much more workable for most people I know than say an intentional community where families are more in each others space. It’s a mix of own space and shared space, and it sounds like they figured out how to make it work for them specifically. That’s closer to what most of us have been raised with so it makes sense.
Appreciate you taking the time to share the thoughts you have on this topic. I think this kind of project is going to be an important way forward for many.
Yep sign me up! I’ve thought about looking for a small piece of land to put a tiny house on. Unfortunately land parcels don’t come in sizes of 50sqm.. Minimum Lot sizes where I live would be around 300sqm according to Council zoning, so no chance of subdividing existing land. The most feasible way would be finding a friendly farmer who doesn’t mind you renting a portion of paddock.
The great thing about moveable tiny homes is they circumvent so many regulations. Renting land is going to be a good option for many going forward. It also means no mortgage and thus not supporting the pro-CC global economy.
Yeah, I would. The trouble is I don’t really know anyone else who wants to do this – maybe it’s time to join the Transition Towns group. And then finding a vacant piece of land close to the city is important for me too.
There will be a lawyer or planner here who can give you suggestions. From an amateur standpoint it sounds to me like you need a bit of land which can be zoned for high density housing. Buy the land as a group. Buildings can then come and go on to the land leasehold. Just an example. Need to talk to the local council and its planners early on as if the concept does not fit into the district plan in some way, it won’t be able to proceed.
Alternatively, find a group of people and buy a 5 bedroom house together. Knock off the mortgage collectively in a few years. It’s then collective and supportive living in your own home – for the younger set it’d be called flatting.
Another solution is the movable cabin (less than 10 sq m so no need for building consent). A shared utility provides the kitchen, bathroom (building consent required here – but once that hurdle over your on your way). Decks between cabins and utility allow flow. A separate cabin as communal living space.
I’ve seen a number of these springing up at my local beach. 4 or 5 small cabins linked by decks sharing a communal utility and living space.
No need for a 10m2 cabin to be movable. Schedule 1 of the building act applies. The important part is that to be legal as sleeping acom, it must be used in connection with a dwelling on the same property, which is where the fully consented kitchen/bathroom/living room comes in.
As long as you have this legal “dwelling” on the property, and your 10m2 buildings contain no cooking or sanitary facilities, you can have as many of them as you like. There may be restrictions on how many people can live on your property at any one time, but that’s a question for your local council.
You also have to make sure they’re no closer to each other or to any building or boundary than their own height.
It lists all the building work that you can do without a permit. Clause 3 is the relevant one in this matter.
The work still needs to comply with the building code standards (NZS:3604) so you can’t build them out out cellophane and coat hangers.
And as noted above, you still need to comply with the district plan for your area as well.
BUT as long as you haven’t made enemies with your council officers or your neighbours you’re probably not going to be inspected, and you can avoid all the extra cost and hassle of the consent process.
Jointly buy a decent sized section with a small house on it. Due diligence on the LIM to ensure that all consents are present and correct. Then build a number of those 10m2 sleeping huts around the site, within what is considered a permitted activity.
Ideally there would be money (and consents) to refit the main house as a common space; additional bathroom, open plan living area/dining, high capacity kitchen etc.
Whole thing could be owned as a company with the residents as shareholders; people could then buy in/sell their shares and come and go as their life circumstances required.
LOL. Well, social isolation is a killer; if there was a common area with a bar, a pool table, some arcades and board games, hobby space, piano etc. that would be a lot of fun. A different kind of living than sitting in front of a screen surfing the interwebs 😯 lolz
Felix, what’s the limit on how many dwellings with kitchen/bathrooms you can have on a residential site?
The advantages of having it be moveable are that you don’t need building consent above the 10m2 (which makes it much cheaper), and you don’t have to own land. It’s a very affordable way to get housing for people that either build, or pay someone to build.
Or in Macro’s scenario, you don’t need the cost of a consented shared amenities block.
(I have a feeling some councils have reduced the minimum dwelling size to prevent people from doing this).
“what’s the limit on how many dwellings with kitchen/bathrooms you can have on a residential site?”
That’s down to the zone rules of your local District Plan. Where I am it’s one, or one + an ancillary dwelling (sometimes called dependent person’s dwelling or granny flat, which contains all facilities but is limited to a certain maximum size). I don’t know how much this varies from place to place.
Macro’s scenario still includes a shared utilities building of some sort. This has to be consented.
Ah yes that’s right. Sewerage and greywater, and stormwater, and probably a potable water supply.
And if your section is big enough and in the applicable zone you’re allowed to dispose of all of that on site (with an engineer’s design specific to your site for the council to approve), so that could work with a mobile building of some sort.
Yes I have a mobile building at my beach section – its actually bigger than 10 sq m and comes in 2 parts that are wheeled onto the site and then placed together. The advantage is that it can be quickly built off site and located and ready to use within the day, and moved t a new site if necessary. I bought mine new about 7 years ago and it has been moved from just north of Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula in that time.
We have this technology in NZ and i never ceases to depress and astound me that such buildings were never employed to house those who lost there homes in Christchurch. It takes 6 weeks to construct these small dwellings and they are of a very high standard complete with bathroom 2 bedrooms and well equipped kitchen. carpeted, outside deck areas, the lot. I understand Alan Gibbs has one on his property north of Helensville as well – so it gives you some idea of the standard of finish.
+ zillion re Chch. They could have set up apprentice and owner/builder schemes too, so they would have upskilled a whole bunch of locals. Instead the dumb fucks in charge spend all that money at the start on motorhomes that no-one wanted to live in.
What’s involved in the move Macro? Is the building towable? By what?
the web site is here: http://www.go-homes.co.nz/
They are transported to the site then moved into position using a standard 4×4 ute. Hooked up to facilities – caravan plug (builders pole), water, waste can be normal sewage collection – but we used a separate septic system on the farm (separate grey water and black water) http://www.naturalflow.co.nz/
Have you seen the recent posts here on TS re. XX not even trying anymore with the nice middle digit gesture? Key has never tried because he never has, he doesn’t, and never will give a shit; it has nothing to do with ineptness although there’s a lot of that too.
The paradox is that the Labour leadership (not just in Britain but elsewhere in the English speaking democracies as well) are so paralysed by fear and lack of confidence that they have failed to notice that the world has moved on. All the major central banks have abandoned the cautious conservatism of conventional monetary policy. The IMF has turned its back on austerity as a proper response to recession. The OECD says that inequality is not the price that has to be paid for economic efficiency but is a major obstacle to that efficiency.
Other countries have shown how living standards higher than our own can be raised still further through an appropriate policy mix. The way is open to learn from them and to offer the British people a new approach to running the economy – one that does not require us to choose between social justice and economic efficiency (or, for that matter, between Labour’s core values and Tory “aspiration”) but that recognises that we will all be better off if we give proper value to all our citizens and to the contribution they can all make to the general welfare. There is no mystery as to how this can be done if we only open our eyes; the necessary policy levers are just waiting to be pulled.
Ok, so basically he’s saying Labour needs a new Vision because they can’t move left or right.
“As to precisely what alternatives should be adopted, why not at least begin to think about them? They are not in short supply.”
For the uninitiated, what policy ideas do you think Gould is thinking of for Labour?
I think he’s saying that Labour need to stand on principles again and to believe in those principles. The RWNJs are wrong but they believe in what they’re saying and people can tell. Labour, on the other hand, don’t really believe in what they’re saying largely because they’re saying the same things as the RWNJs and people can tell that too.
It’s pretty much a giveaway when both major parties are selling the same vision.
The remits up for discussion today at the Labour Region 5 conference were clearly concerned about that. Linking minimum wage to the average wage so they move upward of their own accord rather than at a politician’s whim, taxing wealth as well as income, UBI (some of the remits had clearly come from someone who had read the Big Kahuna), abolishing youth, training and starting out minimum wage rates, repealing a number of ERA amendments, promoting collective bargaining and awards etc.
The Future of Work was also a big part of the day’s activities, as Grant Robertson gave a speech and then we did some workshopping on it. This commission’s work will inform Labour policy in this area, and is huge. UBI was also brought up here, and I suspect will become Labour policy at some point in the nearish future.
Housing was brought up, and it is acknowledged as a big part of any future Labour government.
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This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Tom Toro Tom Toro is a cartoonist and author. He has published over 200 cartoons in The New Yorker since 2010. His cartoons appear in Playboy, the Paris Review, the New York Times, American Bystander, and elsewhere. Related: What 10 EV lovers ...
The business section of the NZ Herald is full of opinion. Among the more opinionated of all is the ex-Minister of Transport, ex-Minister of Railways, ex MP for Auckland Central (1975-93, Labour), Wellington Central (1996-99, ACT, then list-2005), ex-leader of the ACT Party, uncle to actor Antonia, the veritable granddaddy ...
Hi,Just quickly — I’m blown away by the stories you’ve shared with me over the last week since I put out the ‘Gary’ podcast, where I told you about the time my friend’s flatmate killed the neighbour.And you keep telling me stories — in the comments section, and in my ...
The first season of Rings of Power was not awful. It was thoroughly underwhelming, yes, and left a lingering sense of disappointment, but it was more expensive mediocrity than catastrophe. I wrote at length about the series as it came out (see the Review section of the blog, and go ...
Buzz from the Beehive Workplace Relations and Safety Minister Brooke van Velden told Auckland Business Chamber members they were the first audience to hear her priorities as a minister in a government committed to cutting red tape and regulations. She brandished her liberalising credentials, saying Flexible labour markets are the ...
Chris Trotter writes – TO UNDERSTAND WHY NEWSHUB FAILED, it is necessary to understand how TVNZ changed. Up until 1989, the state broadcaster had been funded by a broadcasting licence fee, collected from every citizen in possession of a television set, supplemented by a relatively modest (compared ...
Bob Edlin writes – The Māori Party has been busy issuing a mix of warnings and threats as its expresses its opposition to interest deductibility for landlords and the plans of seabed miners. It remains to be seen whether they follow the example of indigenous litigants in Australia, ...
Every year, in the Budget, Parliament forks out money to government agencies to do certain things. And every year, as part of the annual review cycle, those agencies are meant to report on whether they have done the things Parliament gave them that money for. Agencies which consistently fail to ...
Mike Grimshaw writes – Recent events in American universities point to an underlying crisis of coherent thinking, an issue that increasingly affects the progressive left across the Western world. This of course is nothing new as anyone who can either remember or has read of the late ...
The Government has accepted Labour’s change to the Road User Charge (RUC) discount for hybrid vehicles, meaning there will still be some incentive for people to buy greener vehicles. ...
Kicking the most vulnerable people out of state housing and pushing them towards homelessness will result in a proliferation of poverty and trauma across our most vulnerable communities. ...
Te Pāti Māori co-leader and MP for Waiariki, Rawiri Waititi has penned a letter asking MPs to support his members bill to remove GST from all food. The bill is expected to go through its first reading in parliament this Wednesday. “I’m calling on all political parties to support my ...
This year is about getting real with Kiwis and discussing the tough issues, as the National Government exacerbates inequality and divides New Zealand, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said ...
The Government adding Significant Natural Areas (SNAs) to its already roaring environmental policy bonfire is an assault on the future of wildlife that makes Aotearoa unique. ...
After 12 years of fighting to protect our moana we are finding ourselves back at square one and back at court. Today, the Environmental Protection Agency is sitting in Hawera to reconsider an application from Trans-Tasman Resources to dig up 50 million tonnes of the seabed in South Taranaki. This ...
Minister Shane Jones’ decision to step away from a seabed mining project is evidence of the murky waters surrounding the Government’s fast-track legislation. ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The growth of Treaty of Waitangi clauses in legislation caused so much worry that a special oversight group was set up by the last government in a bid to get greater coherence in the publicservice on Treaty matters. When ministers first considered the need for tighter oversight in 2021, there ...
The Coalition Government’s miscalculation saga continues as it has forgotten an eyewatering $90 million gap in its interest deductibility cost figures, say Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds and Revenue Spokesperson Deborah Russell. ...
He Pou a Rangi Climate Change Commission has today released advice that says if the Government doesn’t act now New Zealand is at risk of not meeting its climate goals. ...
The Coalition Government has today confirmed it is abandoning first home buyers who are struggling to get ahead, says Labour Finance spokesperson Barbara Edmonds. ...
The New Zealand public voted for a change in direction at the 2023 general election and that is exactly what this coalition government has been delivering in its first 100 days. There was an immediate focus on the economy, easing the cost of living, cracking down on law and order ...
The Government has left the health system as an afterthought, announcing half-baked targets at the last minute of their 100-day plan, says Labour Health spokesperson Ayesha Verrall. ...
Kiwis are still waiting for their promised cost of living support after 100 days of a National Government that is taking us backwards, Labour Leader Chris Hipkins said today. ...
The National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
100 days of National taking NZ backwardsThe National Government has spent its first 100 days stopping, cutting and reversing. They have scrapped stuff for stuff for the sake of it, without putting up any solutions of their own – and it’s hardworking New Zealanders who will pay for it. ...
The Government must commit to funding free and healthy school lunches, as thousands of people sign the petition to keep them, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti says. ...
If the Government was serious about moving families into public housing, they would build more houses so there is actually somewhere for people to go. ...
The free and healthy school lunches programme feeds our kids, helps them to learn, and saves families money – but it is at risk under this Government, education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
The Government’s proposed changes to Firearms Prohibition Orders (FPO) add almost nothing new and are merely an attempt to distract from its plans to loosen gun laws, police spokesperson Ginny Andersen and justice spokesperson Dr Duncan Webb said. ...
The great Victorian era English politician Lord Macauley stood in the British House of Parliament and said, "The gallery in which the reporters sit has become a fourth estate of the realm".He understood and outlined even way back then, the significant role and influence media have in a democracy. ...
The government’s attack on Māori health this week is committing tangata-whenua to a premature death, says Te Pāti Māori. “The government have begun their onslaught on Māori health with the abolishment of the Māori Health Authority and smokefree laws in the same day” said health spokesperson and co-leader, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. ...
New Zealand’s social workers are qualified, experienced, and more representative of the communities they serve, Social Development and Employment Minister Louise Upston says. “I want to acknowledge and applaud New Zealand’s social workers for the hard work they do, providing invaluable support for our most vulnerable. “To coincide with World ...
Cabinet has agreed to a reduced road user charge (RUC) rate for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs), Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. Owners of PHEVs will be eligible for a reduced rate of $38 per 1,000km once all light electric vehicles (EVs) move into the RUC system from 1 April. ...
Minister of Agriculture and Trade, Todd McClay, says that today’s opening of Riverland Foods manufacturing plant in Christchurch is a great example of how trade access to overseas markets creates jobs in New Zealand. Speaking at the official opening of this state-of-the-art pet food factory the Minister noted that exports ...
Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters met with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi in Wellington today. “It was a pleasure to host Foreign Minister Wang Yi during his first official visit to New Zealand since 2017. Our discussions were wide-ranging and enabled engagement on many facets of New Zealand’s relationship with China, including trade, ...
Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. “Earlier today Finance Minister Nicola Willis and I sent an interim Letter of Expectations to the Board of Kāinga Ora. ...
Tēna koutou katoa. Greetings everyone. Thank you to the Auckland Chamber of Commerce and the Honourable Simon Bridges for hosting this address today. I acknowledge the business leaders in this room, the leaders and governors, the employers, the entrepreneurs, the investors, and the wealth creators. The coalition Government shares your ...
Minister Winston Peters completed the final leg of his visit to South and South East Asia in Singapore today, where he focused on enhancing one of New Zealand’s indispensable strategic partnerships. “Singapore is our most important defence partner in South East Asia, our fourth-largest trading partner and a ...
Minister of Internal Affairs and Workplace Relations and Safety, Hon. Brooke van Velden, will travel to the Republic of Korea to represent New Zealand at the Third Summit for Democracy on 18 March. The summit, hosted by the Republic of Korea, was first convened by the United States in 2021, ...
ICNZ Speech 7 March 2024, Auckland Acknowledgements and opening Mōrena, ngā mihi nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Good morning, it’s a privilege to be here to open the ICNZ annual conference, thank you to Mark for the Mihi Whakatau My thanks to Tim Grafton for inviting me ...
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Lead Coordination Minister Judith Collins have expressed their deepest sympathy on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch terror attacks. “March 15, 2019, was a day when families, communities and the country came together both in sorrow and solidarity,” Mr Luxon says. “Today we pay our respects to the 51 shuhada ...
Speech for Financial Advice NZ Conference 5 March 2024 Acknowledgements and opening Morena, Nga Mihi Nui. Ko Andrew Bayly aho, Nor Whanganui aho. Thanks Nate for your Mihi Whakatau Good morning. It’s a pleasure to formally open your conference this morning. What a lovely day in Wellington, What a great ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters held discussions in Jakarta today about the future of relations between New Zealand and South East Asia’s most populous country. “We are in Jakarta so early in our new government’s term to reflect the huge importance we place on our relationship with Indonesia and South ...
Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Winston Peters has announced that the Foreign Minister of China, Wang Yi, will visit New Zealand next week. “We look forward to re-engaging with Foreign Minister Wang Yi and discussing the full breadth of the bilateral relationship, which is one of New Zealand’s ...
Transport Minister Simeon Brown has today opened the new Auckland Rail Operations Centre, which will bring together KiwiRail, Auckland Transport, and Auckland One Rail to improve service reliability for Aucklanders. “The recent train disruptions in Auckland have highlighted how important it is KiwiRail and Auckland’s rail agencies work together to ...
The Government is proud to support the 10th edition of Crankworx Rotorua as the Crankworx World Tour returns to Rotorua from 16-24 March 2024, says Minister for Economic Development Melissa Lee. “Over the past 10 years as Crankworx Rotorua has grown, so too have the economic and social benefits that ...
Legislation implementing coalition Government tax commitments and addressing long-standing tax anomalies will be progressed in Parliament next week, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The legislation is contained in an Amendment Paper to the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill issued today. “The Amendment Paper represents ...
Associate Environment Minister Andrew Hoggard has today announced that the Government has agreed to suspend the requirement for councils to comply with the Significant Natural Areas (SNA) provisions of the National Policy Statement for Indigenous Biodiversity for three years, while it replaces the Resource Management Act (RMA).“As it stands, SNAs ...
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay has classified the drought conditions in the Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts as a medium-scale adverse event, acknowledging the challenging conditions facing farmers and growers in the district. “Parts of Marlborough, Tasman, and Nelson districts are in the grip of an intense dry spell. I know ...
The Government is helping farmers eradicate the significant impact of facial eczema (FE) in pastoral animals, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “A $20 million partnership jointly funded by Beef + Lamb NZ, the Government, and the primary sector will save farmers an estimated NZD$332 million per year, and aims to ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters has completed a successful visit to India, saying it was an important step in taking the relationship between the two countries to the next level. “We have laid a strong foundation for the Coalition Government’s priority of enhancing New Zealand-India relations to generate significant future benefit for both countries,” says Mr Peters, ...
Cabinet has agreed to provide $7 million to ensure the 2024 ski season can go ahead on the Whakapapa ski field in the central North Island but has told the operator Ruapehu Alpine Lifts it is the last financial support it will receive from taxpayers. Cabinet also agreed to provide ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Health Minister Dr Shane Reti says the launch of a new mobile breast screening unit in Counties Manukau reinforces the coalition Government’s commitment to drive better cancer services for all New Zealanders. Speaking at the launch of the new mobile clinic, Dr Reti says it’s a great example of taking ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Unlocking economic growth and land for housing are critical elements of the Government’s plan for our transport network, and planned upgrades to State Highway 29 (SH29) near Tauriko will deliver strongly on those priorities, Transport Minister Simeon Brown says. “The SH29 upgrades near Tauriko will improve safety at the intersections ...
Lower fruit and vegetable prices are welcome news for New Zealanders who have been doing it tough at the supermarket, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. Stats NZ reported today the price of fruit and vegetables has dropped 9.3 percent in the 12 months to February 2024. “Lower fruit and vege ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the sixty-eighth session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
Tēnā koutou katoa and greetings to you all. Chair, I am honoured to address the 68th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I acknowledge the many crises impacting the rights of women and girls. Heightened global tensions, war, climate related and humanitarian disasters, and price inflation all ...
The coalition Government is supporting farmers to enhance land management practices by investing $3.3 million in locally led catchment groups, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay announced. “Farmers and growers deliver significant prosperity for New Zealand and it’s vital their ongoing efforts to improve land management practices and water quality are supported,” ...
Good evening everyone and thank you for that lovely introduction. Thank you also to the Honourable Simon Bridges for the invitation to address your members. Since being sworn in, this coalition Government has hit the ground running with our 100-day plan, delivering the changes that New Zealanders expect of us. ...
Recommendations from the Climate Change Commission for New Zealand on the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) auction and unit limit settings for the next five years have been tabled in Parliament, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “The Commission provides advice on the ETS annually. This is the third time the ...
The coalition Government is beginning its fight to lower building costs and reduce red tape by exempting minor building work from paying the building levy, says Building and Construction Minister Chris Penk. “Currently, any building project worth $20,444 including GST or more is subject to the building levy which is ...
Proposed changes to tax legislation to prevent the over-taxation of low-earning trusts are welcome, Finance Minister Nicola Willis says. The changes have been recommended by Parliament’s Finance and Expenditure Committee following consideration of submissions on the Taxation (Annual Rates for 2023–24, Multinational Tax, and Remedial Matters) Bill. “One of the ...
Assalaamu alaikum. السَّلَام عليكم In light of the holy month of Ramadan, I want to extend my warmest wishes to our Muslim community in New Zealand. Ramadan is a time for spiritual reflection, renewed devotion, perseverance, generosity, and forgiveness. It’s a time to strengthen our bonds and appreciate the diversity ...
Former Transport Minister and CEO of the Auckland Business Chamber Hon Simon Bridges has been appointed as the new Board Chair of the New Zealand Transport Agency (NZTA) for a three-year term, Transport Minister Simeon Brown announced today. “Simon brings extensive experience and knowledge in transport policy and governance to the role. He will ...
Good morning all, it is a pleasure to be here as Minister of Science, Innovation and Technology. It is fantastic to see how connected and collaborative the life science and biotechnology industry is here in New Zealand. I would like to thank BioTechNZ and NZTech for the invitation to address ...
Regional Development Minister Shane Jones says he is looking forward to the day when three key water projects in Northland are up and running, unlocking the full potential of land in the region. Mr Jones attended a community event at the site of the Otawere reservoir near Kerikeri on Friday. ...
Associate Finance Minister David Seymour has today announced that the Government has agreed to restore deductibility for mortgage interest on residential investment properties. “Help is on the way for landlords and renters alike. The Government’s restoration of interest deductibility will ease pressure on rents and simplify the tax code,” says ...
Sport and Recreation Minister Chris Bishop will travel to Switzerland today to attend an Executive Committee meeting and Symposium of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA). Mr Bishop will then travel on to London where he will attend a series of meetings in his capacity as Infrastructure Minister. “New Zealanders believe ...
This year’s Pacific Language Weeks celebrate regional unity and the contribution of Pacific communities to New Zealand culture, says Minister for Pacific Peoples Dr Shane Reti. Dr Reti announced dates for the 2024 Pacific Language Weeks during a visit to the Pasifika festival in Auckland today and says there’s so ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Tim Curran, Associate Professor of Ecology, Lincoln University, New Zealand Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to ...
Uber has argued it does not have as much control over drivers as the unions suggest, and wants a judgment ruling that drivers are employees and not contractors set aside and sent back to the Employment Court. The 2022 ruling followed a three-week hearing in which four drivers sought to ...
What can and can’t be purchased by disabled people or their carers has been slashed in an effort by the Ministry of Disabled People Whaikaha to save money. The purchasing guidelines, a set of rules that sets out what can be purchased using the various streams of Government disability funding, ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Tod Wright and Hien Nguyen, Fiscal incidence in New Zealand: The effects of taxes and benefits on household incomes in tax year 2018/19 . Analyses of the distributional impact of taxation and government ...
The Treasury has published today a new Analytical Note by Cory Davis, Boston Hart and Benjamin Stubbing, Household cost-of-living impacts from the Emissions Trading Scheme and using transfers to mitigate regressive outcomes . This Analytical Note ...
A coalition of public transport and climate organisations, united as ‘Transport for All’, is actively opposing the government’s transport proposals. The draft Government Policy Statement (GPS) includes plans for higher fares for public transport, ...
Greater Wellington is inviting feedback on proposed changes to its Revenue and Financing Policy. The Revenue and Financing Policy covers the Council’s various sources of funding, and how the cost of services is shared across the region. This includes ...
Labour has conceded it could have done more to deal with disruptive state housing tenants while in government but says the current coalition is going too far. ...
The band has asked their record label to issue a cease and desist to stop the NZ First leader using their 1997 hit to support his ‘misguided political views’. “I get knocked down, but I get up again,” blared through the speakers on Sunday as Winston Peters took the stage ...
By Lydia Lewis, RNZ Pacific journalist Food rationing is underway in remote areas in Papua New Guinea’s Highlands following torrential rain and flash flooding. More than 20 people have been reported dead in Chimbu Province. In nearby Enga Province, the centre of last month’s massacre, a 15-year-old boy has been ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andrew Hughes, Lecturer, Research School of Management, Australian National University After months of debate and intrigue, the AFL’s 19th and newest team, the Tasmania Devils, finally launched its jumper, logo and colours in Devonport this week. The Devils will wear green, ...
Brannavan Gnanalingam reviews the debut novel by Saraid de Silva.One of the most baffling things for children who move to a new country is what their parents’ (or grandparents’) lives were like prior to moving – for kids in particular, they’re too busy trying to fit in in their ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Gaunson, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, RMIT University Narelle Portanier/Binge “If you don’t know who your mob are, you don’t know who you are,” Detective Andrea “Andie” Whitford (played by Leah Purcell) is told early into the new crime ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Elise Klein, Associate professor, Australian National University It’s commonly accepted that women do the vast majority of caregiving in Australian society. But less appreciated is that Indigenous women do larger amounts of unpaid care than any other group. Working with the Aboriginal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Adrian Beaumont, Election Analyst (Psephologist) at The Conversation; and Honorary Associate, School of Mathematics and Statistics, The University of Melbourne Joe Biden and Donald Trump have both secured their parties’ nominations for the November 5 United States general election by winning a ...
Comment: There has been a striking contrast in trans-Tasman interest about Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi’s visit to New Zealand and Australia. While the Australian press has been full of articles about the visit – including his curious decision to meet with former prime minister and China booster Paul Keating ...
After years of pressuring banks and other institutions to stop investing in fossil fuels, climate campaigners are making some progress. So how does divestment work?For years, climate activists have been pushing banks and other big institutions to divest from fossil fuels. New research from climate advocacy group 350 Aotearoa ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. The three young Polynesians are part of a K-pop fan community in Tāmaki Makaurau. It’s one of many that have sprung up worldwide as K-pop has gone ...
For Boba, Ethan and Ashley, K-pop is a place to belong, a way to express themselves, and a bridge to connect with others. This one-off documentary presents three intimate portraits of young Polynesians who are pulled into a Korean cultural phenomenon. K-POLYS is directed by Litia Tuiburelevu, Produced by Hex ...
There’s ample evidence demonstrating free school lunch programmes provide wide benefits across schools, households and communities according to public health researchers. ACT Minister David Seymour wants to reduce the spending on Aotearoa New Zealand’s ...
By Wata Shaw in Suva Fiji is facing an exodus of Fijians as many are leaving for overseas seeking employment and education and others are migrating, says Opposition MP Viliame Naupoto. Speaking in Parliament, he said: “His Excellency’s speech (Ratu Wiliame Katonivere) comes after a little over one year of ...
The Taxpayers’ Union is welcoming comments from Christopher Luxon this morning recommitting to ‘no new taxes’ as part of Budget 2024. “Mr Luxon’s refusal at the Post-Cabinet press conference yesterday to repeat the ‘no new taxes’ promise ...
SAFE is urgently calling on the Environment Committee to reject the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals Bill, and is urging New Zealanders to rally behind the call. The proposed Bill, currently under consideration with the Environment select committee, ...
Teammates who spend all their time picking fights with spectators are only helpful for the other team, writes Madeleine Chapman. Anyone who has ever played a team sport competitively, particularly as a child and particularly, for some reason, basketball, will know that there’s a lot of politics involved. While there ...
The long-running Wellington music festival is too focused on the Jim Beam-ness and not enough on the Homegrown-ness.There is something about Homegrown that’s difficult to place. A barely perceptible-ness. Like feeling a ghost is watching you from the corner of the room but when you look, there’s nothing there. ...
The latest Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor reveals that fewer New Zealanders believe crime / law and order is one of the top issues facing our country. In 2018, Ipsos New Zealand started tracking the key issues facing New Zealand. In this wave ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kate Griffiths, Deputy Program Director, Budgets and Government, Grattan Institute Australia’s political donations rules are woefully inadequate, but donations reform is finally on the agenda. The federal government has signalled its interest in reform and will soon begin briefing MPs on its ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Mark Patrick Taylor, Chief Environmental Scientist, EPA Victoria; Honorary Professor, School of Natural Sciences, Macquarie University Naiyana Somchitkaeo/Shutterstock A recent study published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine has linked microplastics with risk to human health. The study ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Albert Van Dijk, Professor, Water and Landscape Dynamics, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University Global climate records were shattered in 2023, from air and sea temperatures to sea-level rise and sea-ice extent. Scores of countries recorded their hottest year ...
As part of our series exploring how New Zealanders live and our relationship with money, a teacher explains why he and his partner are in frugal mode – and how they’re making it work. Gender: Male Age: 35Ethnicity: Pākehā Role: I am an intermediate school teacher and my partner is ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Sarah Bendall, Senior Lecturer, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, Australian Catholic University Binge Mary & George, the new British television drama series, depicts the real-life story of Mary Villiers and her son George, and their social climbing at the ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Jason Nassios, Associate Professor, Centre of Policy Studies, Victoria University This article is part of The Conversation’s series examining the housing crisis. Read the other articles in the series here. Australian state and federal governments spend money in many ways to ...
The finance minister is denying that there’s a $5.6b shortfall in paying for the government’s campaign promises, including tax cuts. At his post-cabinet press conference yesterday, the PM refused to rule out new taxes to pay for the cuts, writes Anna Rawhiti-Connell in this excerpt from The Bulletin, The Spinoff’s ...
Kāinga Ora tenants abused by their neighbours are doubting the government's crackdown on disruptive tenants will make a difference on their behaviour. ...
Kāinga Ora is New Zealand’s biggest residential landlord, housing more than 180,000 vulnerable people in more than 67,000 properties. Yesterday the government announced a crackdown on its tenants who fall behind on rent. One longtime Kāinga Ora tenant shares her experience.For 18 years I lived in a 1960s standalone ...
Why does this myth persist, and what’s the real reason our skin is suffering?It’s one of the biggest international grievances New Zealanders hold, up there with the sinking of the Rainbow Warrior and 1981’s underarm incident. We’re quick to tell international travellers that the world’s pollution led to the ...
Bob’s relationship with certain members of Lincoln’s academic staff continued to deteriorate in the 1990s. Others supported him publicly, though articles such as Roland Clark’s 1993 piece in Growing Today cannot have pleased the university management. Clark wrote that Bob was selling onions from the Biological Husbandry Unit to a ...
SailGP’s races feature in-your-face action, with agile, hydro-foiling catamarans tacking and jibing for the title over several days. However, public comments ahead of the global series’ return to New Zealand have left this past year’s controversy in the shadows, as a key appointment attracts criticism from dolphin advocates. A year ...
Opinion: We are fast approaching a fundamental change in prisons. As the number of people on custodial remand looks set to overtake the number of sentenced prisoners, the main function of prisons in New Zealand may become incarcerating un-sentenced people who may not be guilty of offending. We have already ...
A huge seven months lies in store for the White Ferns, beginning this week with the visit of England and culminating with the T20 World Cup in Bangladesh in September and October. Starting on Tuesday in Dunedin, the world ranked No. 2 visitors will play five T20s and three ODIs, ...
Opinion: In a move that has shocked road safety advocates across the country, the new Minister of Transport, Simeon Brown, is poised to abandon the previous government’s speed limit reduction policy, particularly around schools. Even more alarmingly, he wants school speed limits to be variable rather than full-time, arguing ...
Auckland Council is opposing a fast-track development backed by Sir John Kirwan and Spark NZ, because it doesn’t meet stringent new climate adaptation requirements The post Surf-data centre faces new 3.8C climate warming rules appeared first on Newsroom. ...
When the Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act was introduced in 2009 it was firmly targeted at gangs and drugs. The legislation means police no longer need a conviction to seize assets that criminals can’t prove were paid for legitimately, as long as their alleged offences are punishable by more than a ...
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The letters, which were published last week, were addressed to Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) Chairperson Megawati Sukarnoputri, National Democrat Party (NasDem) Chairperson Surya Paloh, National Awakening Party (PKB) Chairperson Muhaimin Iskandar, Justice and Prosperity Party (PKS) President Ahmad Syaikhu and United Development Party (PPP) Chairperson Muhammad Mardiono. In ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Evicting more people from state housing is ignorant to the consequences of poverty, the Greens say, but the Housing Minister says it's a privilege that can be taken away if abused. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Emerald L King, Lecturer in Humanities, University of Tasmania IMDB Between Netflix’s 2023 live-action version of One Piece, and its latest take on Avatar: The Last Airbender, fans are once again asking: why are live-action anime adaptations so tricky to ...
The government says it still intends to deliver tax cuts by July, but will not lock them in until they have got them past their coalition partners. ...
Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII has hosted members of the Green Party Caucus at Tuurangawaewae Marae in Ngaaruawahia. The audience follows the King’s Hui-aa-Motu on 20 January, where more than 10,000 people gathered to discuss national ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Dr Rachael Potter, Research Associate and Lecturer in Work and Organisational Psychology, University of South Australia Ground Picture/Shutterstock Pregnant women and workers with children are often unfairly treated by their bosses and colleagues, despite laws to protect against workplace discrimination ...
Reacting to Prime Minister Christopher Luxon’s refusal to rule out introducing new taxes at the budget, Taxpayers’ Union Campaigns Manager, Connor Molloy, said: “Today’s refusal to rule out new taxes suggests the Government is nothing more ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Stephen Duckett, Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne Aila Images/Shutterstock Aged-care workers will receive a significant pay increase after the Fair Work Commission ruled they ...
He’s bringing ‘Sophie’ back, yeah. Goodshirt’s ‘Sophie’ music video is one of the most instantly recognisable New Zealand music videos of all time. Featuring a woman listening to the song on headphones while her entire house is burgled behind her, the video won the New Zealand music award for Best ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Blaxland, Professor, Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, Australian National University A year ago, the AUKUS agreement was formally announced between Australian and UK Prime Ministers Anthony Albanese and Rishi Sunak and US President Joe Biden. The agreement mapped out the “optimal ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Andreas Helwig, Associate Professor, Electro-Mechanical Engineering, University of Southern Queensland SmartS/Shutterstock Steam locomotives clattering along railway tracks. Paddle steamers churning down the Murray. Dreadnought battleships powered by steam engines. Many of us think the age of steam has ended. ...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Carrie Leonetti, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau Victims who experience family violence in Aotearoa New Zealand are treated differently, depending on which part of the justice system they turn to for help. But a new member’s bill ...
The Irish have voted for gay marriage in a referendum, good news. But in a week which featured a lot of nonsense about gender assignment surgery again wedging a bunch of hapless white male MP Labour twits what are the lessons for the left in NZ from the Irish referendum?
Anyone who favours my posts by generously reading them will know I’ve lately been much taken by the ideas of Pablo Iglesias and Spain’s Podemos. One of the things that Podemos advocate is the left forming broad alliances for specific issues, looking not to the parliament for top down leadership, but rather by-passing the political & media elites to force change. This piece in the Irish Times –
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/fintan-o-toole-ireland-has-left-tolerance-far-behind-1.2223838 –
notes that “…It looks like a victory for articulacy. This was indeed a superb civic campaign…” A civic campaign that gave the political elites in Ireland absolutely no choice. Compare and contrast a confused, ideologically exhausted Labour party bickering over gender re-assignment surgery with the sort of populism of Podemos, and the sort of mechanisms (referendums, civic campaigns) in Ireland and the sort of “new left” we need for the 21st century here in NZ is becoming clearer.
Podemos are interesting in that they’ve used Loomio in such a massively constructive way. They’re a true grass roots political movement.
It’s what we need here in NZ. Where the representatives are representing the choices of the people and not their own desires and beliefs as we have now.
maybe the standardistas should set up a loomio and run through various scenarios/decisions based on current posts. See what happens when we have to actually work together 😈
heh thats a good idea…
“but rather by-passing the political & media elites to force change”
Completely with you on that one.
Can you recommend some reading on Podemos for someone who’s unfamiliar with it? Something easily accessible and not too dense to start with would be good.
http://left-flank.org/2015/01/02/understanding-podemos-33-commonsense-policies/
http://www.leninology.co.uk/2014/06/populists-against-elites.html
“…Third, in my opinion the nature of the breakthroughs being achieved is largely a populist one. That is to say, it is when new formations manage to puncture the bubble of bipartisan niceties, with slogans that are both resonant and pit ‘the people’ against a ‘power bloc’ that is insulated from popular opinion, that they succeed…”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eK7yvmdSRg
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/31/podemos-revolution-radical-academics-changed-european-politics
then the heavy lifting…
http://www.amazon.com/Hegemony-Socialist-Strategy-Democratic-Politics/dp/1781681546/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1432428627&sr=8-1&keywords=Hegemony+and+Socialist+Strategy
And of course Gramsci.
Also read up on the “Pink Tide” in South America, where non-traditional alliances between the left and local capitalists have rolled back globalised capitalism. In New Zealand, such an alliance might be the left championing local import substitution whilst attacking foreign owned banks. That would offer opportunities to split right wing business orgainsations like Business New Zealand. for example.
cheers Sanctuary.
If you (or anyone) look into Ireland’s distant past, and where its culture has come from and the general default “mindset” of the Gaelic people, the way Gay marriage has been dealt with comes as no surprise.
Without wanting to present the idea that the Irish are all a bunch of happy dancing leprechauns, unlike NZ, Ireland’s cultural heritage is one of the most advanced and… hmmm… “liberal” or “progressive” in the Western world.
Where NZders traditionally seek advantage between peers, and maintain inequality between gender and sex, foreigners and locals, and enforcement of law comes from the State – as per their English/Monarchist roots – Ireland traditionally seeks equality and community, and enforcement of law is the decision of the family/clan – as per their Clan roots.
In very loose terms, of course, but that’s the point: despite having a modern tendency to shoot each other over which street one lives in, and despite early culture still being Patriarchial, they are more prone to integration of all-comers lifestyle requirements (women, gays, and foreigners) , rather than exclusion. The source of the cultural echo being Brehon Law.
Secret meeting in London to discuss making cash illegal, meaning total government control over taxation, spending….or more specifically what is able to be brought and sold.
http://armstrongeconomics.com/archives/30862
Cashless society is a natural evolution IMO all cash is is glorified shells and pebbles.
Probably inevitable b waghorn but this was suggested not as evolution but a sudden lurch. Imagine a cashless society where a Government agency could if they wanted, track a dissident and know exactly their activites. And no more coins for the buskers or charity collectors. Why even the very rich could be tracked and taxed so what a calamity that would be!
Yes this is all part of implementing authoritarian big brother control and surveillance over every aspect of our lives. True democratic dissent will be ending shortly thereafter.
A cashless society will be a great step on the way to the total removal of money. Interestingly enough, it’s happening anyway:
The question isn’t that we’re going cashless but if we’re going to continue to let the private banks control our money and our spending. I’m of the opinion that we need to stop that ASAP. When we go cashless it needs to be a government service, well backed up and with very strict rules about access.
Going cashless brings about a number of advantages:
1. It would be near impossible to lose money. Sure, you could drop your swipe card but that can easily be replaced and any money spent via it returned and the thief caught.
2. It would be impossible for someone to break in to the server and steal your money that way either. They can’t transfer it out to another country because any NZ$ outside of the server doesn’t exist and any internal transfer will be readily apparent even if the hackers managed to hide their own tracks.
3. Taxes. It would be incredibly easy for IRD to track where money is going and thus be able to determine who owes what taxes. In fact, they could do it in real time making a Financial Transaction Tax viable (At the moment implementation of an FTT would have many people moving to cash to prevent having to pay the tax).
4. Crime. Money laundering would be a thing of the past. It’s difficult to launder ill-gotten cash when it doesn’t exist. Other crime networks would also be easily detected. Essentially, crime that involves money would be gone along with the money laundering.
5. Inflation could be more accurately measured. Instead of having people go around shops recording the prices for a basket of goods all sales would be reported back with the system then automatically measuring inflation in near real time.
6. The recording of every sale would be great for informing people where they would get the best deal via a government funded website similar to PriceSpy.
As I say, it’s not a question of if we’re going cashless (We are already) but when, how and who controls it. IMO, we need to do so ASAP and we need to control it and not the private banks (although I’m sure that the private banks would love to rip us off some more for allowing us to use our own currency).
You’re kidding yourself, backing the movement towards a cashless society when that movement is completely engineered, supported, and structured from the ground up by the large capitalist institutions.
Yep, the only way NZ will get to be cashless is if it is forced to do so (and people will just invent new forms of non-traceable tokens for recording exchange anyway). That we have increasing tech for managing transactions is a different thing than removing cash as well.
I’m expecting increasing adverse events (weather, economy) that make a cashless society the far less resilient option.
Absolutely. Trying getting food from a supermarket when the EFTPOS network goes down. Usually a “cash only” check out opens up, but fuck all people have enough cash on hand to use it, so you get hundreds of hungry people milling around surrounded by groceries unable to transact any business.
As I said, we need to stop the large capitalist institutions from doing it and do it ourselves via our government. Private industry should not have control of our money and they will have if we don’t do something to stop them.
Yours are all fantasy conditions. I’m talking about what the actual conditions are, now, today. The fact is that moving to a cashless society, which is simply a part of moving to a fully online security and surveillance state, needs to be opposed on all fronts.
Moving to a cashless society needs to be done properly but it does need to be done.
That’s nothing more than a recital of faith from the Religion of Progress.
Nope. We need to keep track of our resources so that we can use them sustainably and for the benefit of NZ. Cash doesn’t allow us to do that in a meaningful way as it’s so easily untraceable.
Q. How do you come up with this sort of thinking Draco ?
Q. Do you actually believe in your own thoughts ?
That has got nothing to do with having a cashless society. Societies have managed to keep a close eye on their resource use for millenia without electronic money. Often on stone tablets and papyrus.
You are linking ideas as pre-requisites when they are not.
Not really. They’ve been able to keep track of transactions but not resource use in relation to what resources are actually available. This is a rather important development that we need to implement to help us becoming a sustainable society.
Whatever Draco. Ancient armies on the march could keep track of their provisions and their rate of use precisely but you imagine it your way.
/facepalm
How much oil is left in NZs wells?
How much food is produced daily on NZs farms?
How much water is there available to those farms to produce that food?
How much iron ore in our black sands?
How much titanium?
Now, how much is available sustainably (ie, in perpetuity) and how much is actually being used?
There’s a reason why I kept saying in relation to. One of the main reasons that Rome collapsed was over use of resources. They ran out of the resources needed to maintain the empire.
A cashless society would allow better booking keeping of the use of those resources. Of course, we still need to measure what resources we have available.
Yeah I’m over this Draco.
you see and all your points are why i like cash – the government issues legal tender, and it is untracable unless othewise marked.
as for the cashless world fantasy, and then you have a day or three without electricity and non of your eftpos machines works.
As for your bullet points: essentially all of you points listed we already have with our eftpos accounts.
* Any purchase you make is already tracked, just have a look at your bank statements. (anyone can have access to that, as identity thiefs and hackes have proven on more than one account)
* you are already getting ads in regards to your spending….Just look at the farmer emails that come courtesy of your farmer card, google, hack even the aa knows what you buy on your smart cad, every single one of your online purchases is recognised adn will reflect the next ads you see courtesy of google
* the government could/should prevent tax evasion, but considering that the polititians are at the front of tax evasion, maybe we should simply stop dreaming that they will do something to prevent it. 🙂
* loose your bank card and you risk loosing more then just a 20 $ bill.
* anyone who knows how to hack can steal more then just your money from your bank account….i think they made a few movies about that already.
* criminals don’t care what government do. They will find a replacement for cash, like cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, sexual favors, etc etc
* non criminals with no access to a bank card will also find a replacement of official cash such as cigarettes, coffee, chocolate, work for food/housing, sexual favours for food/housing or jobs, … etc etc (this was how life was handled in the direct year/s after the war ended in germany. my grandmother and my mother had a few stories of cleaning cigarette butts, rolling new zigs out of them and selling them for a few pennies or some potatoes)
No for the poor, cash is king, because it is untracable. Having a Food card that prohibits certain stores, or certain foods, or certain hygiene articles etc etc is not going to make your life easier.
those that are rich or very rich already have their cash less society, and their bank accounts in switzerland, singapore, hong kong and london and they still don’t pay any tax.
also note that the legalised gangsters and banksters in our society seem to transact their business electronically and cashlessly just fine. It’s their system after all.
Which is why I keep saying that we need to take it off them.
I don’t think a purely government operated banking system is a good idea. The current system has the advantage of creating a separation of roles between government regulators and the banks themselves.
The standard of regulation is not strong and should be increased but that is another issue.
Ireland seems to show what happens when politicians get too cozy with bankers. An entire political party lost its hegemony due to massive corruption which was fueling a property bubble there.
That one sentence shows that you failed to understand what I said. The most important being that we actually need to track resources used. That’s not an option, not if we want to become a sustainable society.
Shit happens and it really doesn’t happen that often. We mitigate against it but it’s still going to happen. As an example I’m pretty sure that a hell of a lot of Wellington couldn’t go shopping during the recent storm nor for some time after.
I’m pointing out that the private sector shouldn’t actually have that information because of the many point you make about advertising and tracking.
As I pointed out, there’s actually less risk because of the nature of electronic transactions. A simple call to the help desk to report it lost and it gets frozen.
There’s a risk of that but a) not as high as people believe and b) we need to risk a bit to become a better society.
And that would be why we still have police.
Doing that would have to be illegal and any government that tries should immediately go to jail for a minimum of 5 years. I did say strict rules about it.
That requires other tax and law changes but one point I should point out is that, with a cashless society, NZ$ would only exist in NZ on the government servers.
Not if you want a convertible currency
I never said that offshore people couldn’t have NZ$, only that they would exist only in the government servers.
jeeezus Draco that still means that the NZD would not be a convertible currency. It would be like the renmenbi from four or five years ago.
It will make it easy for banks to introduce negative interest rates.
Which they effectively do anyway, charging “fees” on small deposits.
That’s not the same thing as negative interest.
oh you mean like the difference between the “finance rate” and the “interest rate” in a consumer debt agreement?
The bank takes money from you for holding your deposit. Thats effectively a negative interest rate, albeit you are correct technically that it is not the same thing.
[The bank takes money from you for holding your deposit. Thats effectively a negative interest rate, albeit you are correct technically that it is not the same thing.]
Interest charged, whether positive or negative, is proportional to the amount deposited and varies with the duration. A bank charge is a fixed charge intended to cover the bank’s processing costs.
We could of course avoid both negative interest and and bank charges by only using cash. Which would be one reason the banking fraternity would be very much in favour of bringing about a cashless society.
to cover the bank’s processing costs? I know what you are saying but that is not true. Its straight out gouging of our economy to the tune of billions a year.
You can regard those charges and interest as separate or categorise them differently as much as you like but the bottom line is that they are taking money off you for holding your deposit and you can calculate that as an effective negative interest rate based on the principal that you have with them.
[You can regard those charges and interest as separate or categorise them differently as much as you like but the bottom line is that they are taking money off you for holding your deposit and you can calculate that as an effective negative interest rate based on the principal that you have with them.]
If we were to abolish (positive) interest I don’t see how the the banks could remain in business were it not for bank charges. Even state owned banks wouldn’t want to have to rely on subsidies from the taxpayer to meet their running costs.
not sure what world you are living in man, if you’ve been following the news, the banks with direct access to the Fed funds window get their money for free, then lend it to us charging us shitloads.
Lack of bank profitability is not an issue we are facing right now but i am sure that the banksters find your concern touching.
[not sure what world you are living in man, if you’ve been following the news, the banks with direct access to the Fed funds window get their money for free, then lend it to us charging us shitloads.]
Whatever. Bank charges and interest (positive or negative) are still two different things. So if the banks charged negative interest on deposits it would place an additional burden on depositors – additional, that is, to bank charges, which are generally accepted by customers as a reasonable charge for the services provided in operating cheque accounts, clearing of cheques, provision of plastic cards, etc. If the banks started charging negative interest I would want to be able to take my money out of the bank and operate mostly in cash. This however would not be possible in a cashless society.
1. the private sector allready has all the information, especially the banks.
2. loose your card in the morning, or have your bag stolen, and not know it for a few hours….your idendity is stolen, and your money is gone, and someone signed you up for a loan. Happens all the time, and been happening for years. Even when peeps call in to cancel a card, with wave and pay the chances are you are gonna loose more than a bit.
3. Identity theft, and subsequent financial abuse is a big issue. It does not just happens every now and then. This is what the FBI says about financial crime together with Identity theft.
4. In cash less world the cops will be payed off with Cigarettes, booze, sex, chocolate etc etc etc. They will be as corrupt as they are today.
5. Food cards have been already introduced by WINZ http://www.workandincome.govt.nz/individuals/payment-card/ and now, the approved businesses that one can use are not forcibly the cheapest businesses to use for someone on welfare. (but heck we must take away choice in the name of welfare fraud, lest they buy something that offends our, mine, yours and humpty dumpty sensibilitys. Cause we all know lazy, bludgers and the likes. – Still waiting for the government to resign.
6. And the government servers are immune to hacking, will never crash, always work and …..Novo pay?
1. Yes and they shouldn’t
2. and 3
3. Last time I lost a CC I called them up and they asked me what was my last transaction stopping it from that point. There hadn’t been any other transactions but I’m sure that they would have taken the correct action in correcting them if there had been including the return of any monies spent. Can’t do that with cash
4. Which means we need procedures that find and correct that corruption
5. yep and they need to be removed
6. Nope but then, neither is cash – stolen wallets have been around forever. And Novopoay wasn’t a government problem per se but a private sector problem brought about by the dismantling of government over the last 30 years
And the trouble with Winz payment cards is that people can’t use cash at the local market where the vegs are so much cheaper.
This is all designed to fuck with peoples lives and to remove control from people over even the smallest details of their day.
An authoritarian big brother security and surveillance centralised state is the absolute inversion of a democratic, liberal society.
Odd that there are a number who post here that seemingly can’t or won’t connect the dots between the total financial disaster foisted upon the planet and its inhabitants and the to move towards a ‘cashless’ society
Note: Cashless can’t and won’t work unless all nations implement it at the same time and if that ‘big bang’ was to come into effect the consequences would be nothing short of catastrophic
It is impossible to rid the world of cash money and impossible to police the creation of ‘unofficial’ forms of cash money which is why the exercise is propaganda which has been openly talked about by the establishments for an age now
In my opinion the forces behind this blindly believe such a system of control will lead to the utopian digitized slave state but are forcing the swing back towards localized production and community based society as human beings realize what is necessary for the their own survival
Yep. It’s hardly a conspiracy theory when they are basically laying it out in the open.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/101266173
Cashless society: A huge threat to our freedom
1. It would be near impossible to lose money. Sure, you could drop your swipe card but that can easily be replaced and any money spent via it returned and the thief caught.
What you meant to say is it will be impossible to stop the bank or other institutions taking your ‘money’
2. It would be impossible for someone to break in to the server and steal your money that way either. They can’t transfer it out to another country because any NZ$ outside of the server doesn’t exist and any internal transfer will be readily apparent even if the hackers managed to hide their own tracks.
Your faith in technology is bizarre and your understandings primitive while simultaneously endorsing Capital controls which will be immediately implemented and you can wave good-bye to freedom of movement….for everyone else
3. Taxes. It would be incredibly easy for IRD to track where money is going and thus be able to determine who owes what taxes. In fact, they could do it in real time making a Financial Transaction Tax viable (At the moment implementation of an FTT would have many people moving to cash to prevent having to pay the tax).
Corporations already do business electronically so you have not thought this through at all
4. Crime. Money laundering would be a thing of the past. It’s difficult to launder ill-gotten cash when it doesn’t exist. Other crime networks would also be easily detected. Essentially, crime that involves money would be gone along with the money laundering.
Q. You understand the crime networks own and control the financial systems eh ?
The banks will continue laundering they will not even break stride while stopping your access anytime they like
5. Inflation could be more accurately measured. Instead of having people go around shops recording the prices for a basket of goods all sales would be reported back with the system then automatically measuring inflation in near real time.
You don’t understand what you’re talking about or what inflation is or the causes
6. The recording of every sale would be great for informing people where they would get the best deal via a government funded website similar to PriceSpy.
Yes we are aware of your big brother authoritarian preferences which you openly parade once again
It’s bizarre actually as current day point of sale systems already allow real time monitoring of economic activity and prices throughout the retail and service sectors.
The problem being that it’s the corporates with the information and not the people. And that information is then used against the people rather than supporting them.
The information is already there, its already being collected in real time, the infrastructure already exists to do all of that, further the government already has the capability to take all that information, sort it search it and store it into perpetuity
Seems to me the answer is already right there in front of our faces if you want to go down that road (to a turnkey authoritarian central state).
No, if I’d meant that then I would have said that.
That’s below your usual standard of meaningless drivel but still meaningless.
Actually, I have. The problem is that you didn’t get the full article which states that the servers would be government owned and no NZ$ would exist outside of those servers. This means that it would be very easy to trace where money has gone and thus what taxes the corporations owe on it.
Which, again, is why I keep saying that our monetary system needs to be removed from the control of the corporates.
Yes I do.
Allowing people to see where they can get the best deal is Big Brother? Man, are you fucken delusional.
Allowing people to see where they can get the best deal is Big Brother? Man, are you fucken delusional
No it’s the faith in such systems who would own the systems and how the information will be used is delusional
Before we even begin to discuss the delusion that the ‘government’ will be in control of any such systems
Q. How do you propose the government will ‘assume control’ over the private banking system which currently operates throughout most of the worlds nations ?
Q. Do you believe governments event want to take control ?
corporations, the government and the 0.01% are all merging into the same authoritarian establishment…
I don’t expect them to. I expect them to assume control of the NZ system and integrate it into the global systems. I expect other governments to follow suit.
This is an important point about democracy – it’s not parliament that are the government but the people.
I don’t expect them to. I expect them to assume control of the NZ system and integrate it into the global systems. I expect other governments to follow suit.
Q. How would you remove the barrier of ‘state capture’ ?
Do you believe governments event want to take control ?
This is an important point about democracy – it’s not parliament that are the government but the people.
Yeah great but that’s currently not the situation going around the Western World
Yes, we need to do something about that.
Dude the way you insist that centralised infrastructure locking people in to establishment systems is the only way ahead, is pretty bloody scary.
Its like you have never paid attention to how payment systems are used by the elite as weapons of war against Russia, Wikileaks, Kim Dotcom etc. Anybody and any organisation the establishment of the day thinks is a dissenter and a threat to them. And now you want to tie everyone in NZ to similar?
Sorry mate, get fucking lost.
Forced vaccinations and cashless society…
Q. Why the heck would anyone wish to be living under such conditions ?
The modern Left appears riven with incoherancy and incongruent principles. Patients rights but force vaccinations. Abortions more available but treasure babies. Cut down emissions but increase consumption of the masses.
question.
why are you here if you despise the modern left so much.
would you not be happier hanging with the modern right?
a fair question. The pot needs to be stirred if there is any hope of this stew getting better. The pro-establishment greasers and the political careerists won’t.
btw the “modern right” are just as locked into ultimately self defeating behaviours. They just spend more of the time in power during.
The energy and resource crunch is coming, fast.
CV (or CR depending on the time of day) is simply engaging his critical faculties. Something I wish a few more of my fellow Lefties would do.
Chur. The older I get the less of an establishment loyalist I feel like being. Especially when “the establishment” is that which has lead us to this shite place in history.
“Abortions more available but treasure babies”
These aren’t contradictory. Indeed a society that protects the rights and wellbeing of women is going to be a better society for babies.
They aren’t morally and spiritually contradictory? OK if you say so.
No, they aren’t. You’ve fallen into the old foetus = baby trap.
thats a scientific judgement, not a moral or spiritual one.
I’m quite aware of that which is why I keep saying, and you keep ignoring, that these systems need to be removed from the elites control.
They’re already in that position – I want to remove them from it.
The point that you seem to fail to understand is that we do need a system. It’s not optional.
Dunno who the uncorruptible angels you are going to get to run your all seeing all reaching system. Maybe you want it run by AI?
I don’t expect incorruptible angels – I expect everyone to have a say/voice/power rather than just a few. Overall, everyone isn’t corruptible but a few are.
I don’t expect incorruptible angels – I expect everyone to have a say/voice/power rather than just a few. Overall, everyone isn’t corruptible but a few are
Q. Will you be proposing a solution about how you foresee this coming about ?
I have done, several times, now learn to use the search feature.
I suspect that we all may start using cigarettes as cash as in the POW camps. A cashless society would give the banks too much control.
‘Robert Fisk: Who is bombing whom in the Middle East?’
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/robert-fisk-who-is-bombing-whom-in-the-middle-east-10222938.html
“It amazes me that all these warriors of the air don’t regularly crash into each other…”
Into this mess walks New Zealand troops ….at the command of jonkey Nactional and chicken hawks
…the New Zealand Labour Party along with the Green Party and NZF and Mana/Int co-Left ( who opposed sending them there in the first place)…..should demand NZ troops are pulled out now!
Chooky. The article on the sidebar “After Vietnam: changes in imperialist strategy” gives a different take on the Middle East activity. Essentially that the West now has learned to get the unfortunates to carry out the bloodshed by proxy. Suits us to see the barbaric bad guys as an excuse to carry out remote “defence” activity. No more disasters labelling USA as bad guys as in Vietnam eg MiLai Massacre.
https://rdln.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/after-vietnam-changes-in-imperialist-strategy/
Uh, this has been a hallmark of western empire for 400 years
Debunking the child poverty myths by Rob Stock is an excellent read, in fact a must read.
Camp Taji, were NZ’s troops are stationed is surrounded by ISIS on three sides with one side open towards Baghdad. Baghdad is facing an ISIS assault. That is according to the New York Times propaganda rag du jour in the US (Responsible for the yellow cake story that got the US invading Iraq in 2003 in the first place) that is.
The distance between ISIS troops and Camp Taji is only ± 15 km.
Why don’t we hear about this in the MSM?
Why Islamic State Is Winning :
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article41954.htm
From the link:
Vice President Joe Biden declared in early April that “ISIL’s momentum in Iraq has halted, and in many places, has been flat-out reversed.”
A couple of weeks later, the President proved equally upbeat following a meeting with Iraqi leader Haider al-Abadi: “We are making serious progress in pushing back ISIL out of Iraqi territory. About a quarter of the territory fallen under Daesh control has been recovered. Thousands of strikes have not only taken ISIL fighters off the war theater, but their infrastructure has been deteriorated and decayed. And under Prime Minister Abadi’s leadership, the Iraqi security forces have been rebuilt and are getting re-equipped, retrained, and strategically deployed across the country.”
But that was so last month. Post-Ramadi, conservatives like Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer, former U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, have lost no time in labeling such views out of touch and “delusional.” And, indeed, Obama sounded strangely detached on Tuesday when he told The Atlantic that ISIS’s advance was not a defeat.
“No, I don’t think we’re losing,” he said, adding: “There’s no doubt there was a tactical setback, although Ramadi had been vulnerable for a very long time, primarily because these are not Iraqi security forces that we have trained or reinforced.” It was rather like the captain of the Titanic telling passengers that the gash below the waterline was a minor opening that would soon be repaired.
Juan Cole says it best: Washington didn’t lose Ramadi because Washington never had Ramadi
http://www.juancole.com/2015/05/washington-ramadi-never.html
Because the mainstream media only report what the Defence Force wants them to. Journalists get to be embedded within military forces on the ground, only if they tow the line and report what the hierarchy wants.
John Pilger talks a little about general western media bias here, from 12:40 in: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41YTAZHIWN8
The first really big polar blast of the season arriving today, straight off the edge of Antarctica. Bundle up folks, esp in the South which is expecting heavy dumps of snow.
http://earth.nullschool.net/#current/wind/surface/level/orthographic=173.90,-52.04,512
http://www.metservice.com/warnings/severe-weather-outlook
The polar night jet flowing between the pressure gradients is flowing from antarctica onto NZ.
http://pamola.um.maine.edu/fcst_frames/GFS-025deg/DailySummary/GFS-025deg_NH-SAT5_WS250.png
http://pamola.um.maine.edu/fcst_frames/GFS-025deg/DailySummary/GFS-025deg_NH-SAT5_PMSL.png
Thanks!
US government documents show rise of ISIS was predicted, supported and considered an “asset” in getting rid of Assad
Supporting militant Sunni extremism in Syria and Iraq would also act to curb Iranian influence, it was noted. Fueling militant Islamic extremism in Syria/Iraq has also given the same security and surveillance state the excuse to demand more power and more budgets to use on its own western citizens.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-05-23/secret-pentagon-report-reveals-us-created-isis-tool-overthrow-syrias-president-assad
Imperialism by proxy?
Pepe Escobar refers to this as the empire of chaos.
the US has history of shipping in Islamic militants, training and arming them, in order to undermine entire states. And interesting isnt it how despite all these anti ISIS US airstrikes, ISIS is able to close in on Damascus and Assad quite rapidly.
Something Draco has often bought up here is the need for us to get out of the mindset of needless duplication, i.e. everyone having everything in every home.
This looks like an example of a step in an interesting direction: Four tiny homes on a shared piece of land. Each tiny home has its own bathroom, but the kitchen and living area is in a shared building.
http://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/home-property/68805274/Best-mates-build-tiny-row-of-houses-in-new-take-on-small-living-trend
Yep. And these solutions are not new. Communitarian or social accommodation. Barracks, student hostels and monastaries all have set ups with similar principles. Simply update with modern ideas and for the modern sensibility – and voila – save a tonne of money on corporatised retirement accomodation.
Nice overview article. Biggest thing stopping this from happening in NZ is the lack of legal models for shared ownership.
Chch was an ideal opportunity to work with these alternative housing options. I think a few people have done tiny homes there but not the shared resources bit.
???
What do you mean??? Shared ownership of financial assets is an utterly standard situation. Whether it is company shareholders, spouses or people who have an account at a bank or managed by a hedgefund.
Outside of marriage it’s rare for people in NZ to share ownership of homes/land. It does happen but we don’t have good cultural practice yet on how to do it, and people get stuck on assets issues, what happens when someone wants out, how to make decisions collectively etc.
There are many people wanting to do this but few really good examples that can be easily replicated. I know about it from people trying to go this with larger pieces of land, and it’s possible it might be easier on smaller suburban blocks. But again, Chch was the obvious opportunity and it hasn’t really happened. I think that’s because the right models don’t exist yet.
Legal models for shared ownership of assets including property are a bog standard part of property and commercial law.
Day to day living arrangements and how they would suit individuals living together are another matter.
Off the shelf.
http://www.homelegal.co.nz/tenancy-in-common/
Thanks. Let me clarify, by ‘model’ I mean the whole thing not just the legal structure. See my comment to CV above. Probably should have left the word legal out of my first comment.
Everything from traditional Kiwi flatmates (shared cooking and shared bills) to communal student hostel living and everything in-between. There are many models and ideas familar to NZ culture to pick from. And if they don’t work, try out a Pasifika or Maori model extended family mode of living.
I’m talking about ownership. Try reading my comments properly.
weka, I already answered above that there are many options for shared or joint legal ownership of assets including property.
Now it is hardly my fault if you cannot accurately formulate what you are asking for. Ownership of assets falls under the area of commercial and property law. It’s very clear.
🙄
I’m not asking for anything. I’m sharing some experience. I’m talking about what ordinary people are trying to do in sharing ownership of homes and why that is difficult in NZ. I’m guessing you are commenting again from a place of poor knowledge. If you can’t tell the difference between ownership and flatting, you could try listening instead of pontificating.
So educate me. For starters maybe you can tell me what the non-legal aspects of property ownership structures you were referring to.
If a group of people buy land together with the intention of forming community, some of the issues that arise are around how to make decisions, and how to remove assets if someone wants to leave. Yes, the technicals on that exist, but how it plays out in real life isn’t always so straight forward (eg what happens if you want to sell but the other owners get to have a say in who buys in and you can’t find someone suitable?). There’s also a whole class thing that happens as well, around people with assets and how they protect them vs how they share them.
And how to just get on with each other in a living situation that many aren’t used to (I agree with you that Māori and Pasifika are better at this than Pākehā). The ‘model’ I am referring to is how to navigate this without having to reinvent the wheel all the time. Lots of people in NZ have done various models, and many have failed (esp intentional communities). There are some good successes too, but my original comment was pointing to these things not being cultural norms yet, so both regulations and patterns of relating haven’t evolved to support them.
In the linked article, the couples have known each other for 20 years. That makes a big difference.
Co-housing seems one of the more successful models in NZ, but most cohousing is for people with large buy in (eg they sell an existing house/have a big mortgage). I was interested in the article that was looking at medium level buy in (although I don’t think they talk about the land price), plus what felix was pointing to about shared ammenities.
I know of a few groups of people who’ve done rural subdivisions privately where the land is owned collectively but each family builds their own home. You need a certain group of people who know and trust each other for that to work. It does work, but it’s not common and I think the reason for that is that both around regulations on rural land, and that we’re not that good at sharing when it comes to larges amounts of assets, or how to make decisions in small groups once we get past whānau size. These are not unresolvable problems, we’re just not there yet.
Beyond that, and esp in response to what Maui said, I’m thinking of even lower buy ins. The moveable tiny home allows people more flexibility re commitment, and is way cheaper if land is rented instead of bought. There are still issues on how to live together.
Community Land Trusts are one of the models now being used in NZ. I’m not sure how successful that is yet and the one I am familiar with still has a substantial buy in.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_land_trust
There are a lot of nuances that you raise, and important ones weka.
In olden days, blood ties, tribal ties, religious ties, formed the basis of the trust, mutual understanding and common culture required for these things to work and work well.
I agree with you that its more difficult now and that it depends on each specific situation and each specific group of people and their dynamics.
If people want to be really arms length and independent away from each other then residential units or town house units might be used. But that’s not really communitarian living either.
what I find is that if you ask people you know who are talking about housing or home ownership whether they would share land with others, most people will just say no flat out, others will say yeah maybe, but it’s generally unclear what it means and how to do it and when they realise it’s a lot of work that becomes a barrier. A few will respond positively. What we need are models that make it much easier for the middle group to be more interested, as simple as say buying a house, or renting long term.
“In olden days, blood ties, tribal ties, religious ties, formed the basis of the trust, mutual understanding and common culture required for these things to work and work well.”
Yep that’s the one.
“If people want to be really arms length and independent away from each other then residential units or town house units might be used. But that’s not really communitarian living either.”
True, but it’s probably a step in the right direction. The set up in that article looks much more workable for most people I know than say an intentional community where families are more in each others space. It’s a mix of own space and shared space, and it sounds like they figured out how to make it work for them specifically. That’s closer to what most of us have been raised with so it makes sense.
Appreciate you taking the time to share the thoughts you have on this topic. I think this kind of project is going to be an important way forward for many.
Ownership models and protocols were covered in this episode of Kevin McCloud’s Grand Designs about a self build community.
(If you can beat the geo-blocking)
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/grand-designs/on-demand/26262-003
google turns up a few examples too
http://www.cohousing.org.uk/category/4/27/case-studies
http://www.selfbuild-central.co.uk/first-ideas/examples/hedgehog-co-op/
http://www.selfbuildportal.org.uk/case-studies
Thanks joe. McCloud is always good. Not sure if I’ve seen that one, will have a look.
This answers a few questions about structure and ownership.
http://www.lilac.coop/about-lilac/faqs.html#ecovillage
Yep sign me up! I’ve thought about looking for a small piece of land to put a tiny house on. Unfortunately land parcels don’t come in sizes of 50sqm.. Minimum Lot sizes where I live would be around 300sqm according to Council zoning, so no chance of subdividing existing land. The most feasible way would be finding a friendly farmer who doesn’t mind you renting a portion of paddock.
Would you consider shared ownership?
The great thing about moveable tiny homes is they circumvent so many regulations. Renting land is going to be a good option for many going forward. It also means no mortgage and thus not supporting the pro-CC global economy.
Yeah, I would. The trouble is I don’t really know anyone else who wants to do this – maybe it’s time to join the Transition Towns group. And then finding a vacant piece of land close to the city is important for me too.
Sounds like a good plan.
There will be a lawyer or planner here who can give you suggestions. From an amateur standpoint it sounds to me like you need a bit of land which can be zoned for high density housing. Buy the land as a group. Buildings can then come and go on to the land leasehold. Just an example. Need to talk to the local council and its planners early on as if the concept does not fit into the district plan in some way, it won’t be able to proceed.
Alternatively, find a group of people and buy a 5 bedroom house together. Knock off the mortgage collectively in a few years. It’s then collective and supportive living in your own home – for the younger set it’d be called flatting.
Another solution is the movable cabin (less than 10 sq m so no need for building consent). A shared utility provides the kitchen, bathroom (building consent required here – but once that hurdle over your on your way). Decks between cabins and utility allow flow. A separate cabin as communal living space.
I’ve seen a number of these springing up at my local beach. 4 or 5 small cabins linked by decks sharing a communal utility and living space.
No need for a 10m2 cabin to be movable. Schedule 1 of the building act applies. The important part is that to be legal as sleeping acom, it must be used in connection with a dwelling on the same property, which is where the fully consented kitchen/bathroom/living room comes in.
As long as you have this legal “dwelling” on the property, and your 10m2 buildings contain no cooking or sanitary facilities, you can have as many of them as you like. There may be restrictions on how many people can live on your property at any one time, but that’s a question for your local council.
You also have to make sure they’re no closer to each other or to any building or boundary than their own height.
Ahhhh ha good tip felix
Schedule 1 is here: http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2004/0072/latest/DLM5770963.html
It lists all the building work that you can do without a permit. Clause 3 is the relevant one in this matter.
The work still needs to comply with the building code standards (NZS:3604) so you can’t build them out out cellophane and coat hangers.
And as noted above, you still need to comply with the district plan for your area as well.
BUT as long as you haven’t made enemies with your council officers or your neighbours you’re probably not going to be inspected, and you can avoid all the extra cost and hassle of the consent process.
Yes…can’t really start a community living project in a sincere fashion by pissing everyone off…
Referencing my own comment above
Jointly buy a decent sized section with a small house on it. Due diligence on the LIM to ensure that all consents are present and correct. Then build a number of those 10m2 sleeping huts around the site, within what is considered a permitted activity.
Excellent idea.
Ideally there would be money (and consents) to refit the main house as a common space; additional bathroom, open plan living area/dining, high capacity kitchen etc.
Whole thing could be owned as a company with the residents as shareholders; people could then buy in/sell their shares and come and go as their life circumstances required.
Heh now we’re talking, just don’t call it a commune 😉
LOL. Well, social isolation is a killer; if there was a common area with a bar, a pool table, some arcades and board games, hobby space, piano etc. that would be a lot of fun. A different kind of living than sitting in front of a screen surfing the interwebs 😯 lolz
Felix, what’s the limit on how many dwellings with kitchen/bathrooms you can have on a residential site?
The advantages of having it be moveable are that you don’t need building consent above the 10m2 (which makes it much cheaper), and you don’t have to own land. It’s a very affordable way to get housing for people that either build, or pay someone to build.
Or in Macro’s scenario, you don’t need the cost of a consented shared amenities block.
(I have a feeling some councils have reduced the minimum dwelling size to prevent people from doing this).
“what’s the limit on how many dwellings with kitchen/bathrooms you can have on a residential site?”
That’s down to the zone rules of your local District Plan. Where I am it’s one, or one + an ancillary dwelling (sometimes called dependent person’s dwelling or granny flat, which contains all facilities but is limited to a certain maximum size). I don’t know how much this varies from place to place.
Macro’s scenario still includes a shared utilities building of some sort. This has to be consented.
Ok thanks.
“Macro’s scenario still includes a shared utilities building of some sort. This has to be consented.”
But not if it’s moveable I think. Sewerage and greywater would have to be though.
Ah yes that’s right. Sewerage and greywater, and stormwater, and probably a potable water supply.
And if your section is big enough and in the applicable zone you’re allowed to dispose of all of that on site (with an engineer’s design specific to your site for the council to approve), so that could work with a mobile building of some sort.
Yes I have a mobile building at my beach section – its actually bigger than 10 sq m and comes in 2 parts that are wheeled onto the site and then placed together. The advantage is that it can be quickly built off site and located and ready to use within the day, and moved t a new site if necessary. I bought mine new about 7 years ago and it has been moved from just north of Auckland to the Coromandel Peninsula in that time.
We have this technology in NZ and i never ceases to depress and astound me that such buildings were never employed to house those who lost there homes in Christchurch. It takes 6 weeks to construct these small dwellings and they are of a very high standard complete with bathroom 2 bedrooms and well equipped kitchen. carpeted, outside deck areas, the lot. I understand Alan Gibbs has one on his property north of Helensville as well – so it gives you some idea of the standard of finish.
+ zillion re Chch. They could have set up apprentice and owner/builder schemes too, so they would have upskilled a whole bunch of locals. Instead the dumb fucks in charge spend all that money at the start on motorhomes that no-one wanted to live in.
What’s involved in the move Macro? Is the building towable? By what?
the web site is here:
http://www.go-homes.co.nz/
They are transported to the site then moved into position using a standard 4×4 ute. Hooked up to facilities – caravan plug (builders pole), water, waste can be normal sewage collection – but we used a separate septic system on the farm (separate grey water and black water)
http://www.naturalflow.co.nz/
@GenerationZer0: The final #climatemeeting is in Wellington tomorrow 7pm at Rydges Hotel, 75 Featherston St. #fixourfuture
Good interview for anyone wanting to understand the Greens co-leadership contenders (being chosen next weekend), or just the GP in general.
http://ruminator.co.nz/its-not-easy-being-green-while-running-for-male-co-leader/
http://i.stuff.co.nz/business/money/68788282/NZ-hands-tied-on-foreign-home-buyers-under-Korea-FTA-bungle
Keys ineptness shining through again.
Have you seen the recent posts here on TS re. XX not even trying anymore with the nice middle digit gesture? Key has never tried because he never has, he doesn’t, and never will give a shit; it has nothing to do with ineptness although there’s a lot of that too.
Nothing to Lose But Our Fears
Hammer -> nail.
Ok, so basically he’s saying Labour needs a new Vision because they can’t move left or right.
“As to precisely what alternatives should be adopted, why not at least begin to think about them? They are not in short supply.”
For the uninitiated, what policy ideas do you think Gould is thinking of for Labour?
I think he’s saying that Labour need to stand on principles again and to believe in those principles. The RWNJs are wrong but they believe in what they’re saying and people can tell. Labour, on the other hand, don’t really believe in what they’re saying largely because they’re saying the same things as the RWNJs and people can tell that too.
It’s pretty much a giveaway when both major parties are selling the same vision.
The remits up for discussion today at the Labour Region 5 conference were clearly concerned about that. Linking minimum wage to the average wage so they move upward of their own accord rather than at a politician’s whim, taxing wealth as well as income, UBI (some of the remits had clearly come from someone who had read the Big Kahuna), abolishing youth, training and starting out minimum wage rates, repealing a number of ERA amendments, promoting collective bargaining and awards etc.
The Future of Work was also a big part of the day’s activities, as Grant Robertson gave a speech and then we did some workshopping on it. This commission’s work will inform Labour policy in this area, and is huge. UBI was also brought up here, and I suspect will become Labour policy at some point in the nearish future.
Housing was brought up, and it is acknowledged as a big part of any future Labour government.
Any talk of working with the GP?
That’s good news about the UBI.
heh
Manchester MP Gerald Kaufman described the new SNP intake as ‘goons’ and their behaviour as ‘infantile’
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3093537/Invasion-McManiacs-Boorish-Boozy-Picking-fights-Nicola-Sturgeon-s-alarmed-Commons-antics-SNP-s-yob-MPs.html