KiwiBank another privatisation by stealth – Robbing Fred to bribe Dagg to pay John

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Here we go again.

Another privatisation of a State Asset to prop up charter schools, irrigation for failed dairy intensification and the barest infrastructure investment possible.

This time it’s KiwiBank, last time it was Meridian, Genesis and Mighty River Power. ACC and NZ Super fund buying this chunk of KiwiBank does little to reinvest in KiwiBank’s strengths and sets it up for tender.

We have KiwiBank not JUST because it provides competition for the bastard privacy-abusing-nark-for-the-cops Australian Banks, we have KiwiBank because it is impossible to operate in civil society without a bank account. Why the Sweet Zombie Jesus would we want to monopolise that necessity to Australia?

Billions being sucked out of the NZ economy every year would be the outcome of privatising KiwiBank to foreign interests.

Once again Key is casually hocking off our public assets to raise funds because he has lowered the tax rates and is borrowing billions for tax cuts to the richest. In light of NZ now being a tax haven caused by Key doing nothing on foreign trusts despite warnings, flogging another bit of the country’s asset base off should have the nation in an uproar.

Key says this isn’t privatisation by stealth,  but then again he also claims NZ is NOT a tax haven for the rich despite NZ being mentioned 60,000 times in the Mossack Fonseca Panama Papers.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

The Emperor isn’t just naked, he’s barefaced.

33 COMMENTS

  1. Bill English said in the Parliament today, he did not entertain any thoughts about “testing the market value” of Kiwi Bank, nor did he want to sell the bank.

    But on the other hand he was heard saying, that was yesterday or today, it is up to ACC and the Retirement Fund to make decisions about their investments.

    So yes, it may be happening, sooner or later, that Kiwi Bank may be on the block and for sale, but this time the government will in a cunning way say yet again, we did not do it, we cannot influence what independent departments or corporations do.

    Laissez faire, and the people out there, most of them, they seem not bothered, same as with the Panama Papers, it does not even get registered, as most do not even follow the main news on TV and radio anymore, they just tweet each other what is just the most hot topic on Twit’s Err and Fakebook.

    So much for informed democrats and democracy, we may as well bury it and get drunk or stoned, there is no point in trying anymore, as most do not give an arse’s shit anymore, that is what I notice every day.

  2. Yes the Emperor has been stark naked for many of us for a very long time. Wake up middle NZ, you are fools. Happy, ignorant, slaves. Getting your news from the TV with muppets for presenters. ( Sorry Muppets).

    Please don’t let the Panama papers be just another ponytail. Pin something to this crook.
    Keep it alive in the media. Splash it around whenever and where ever you can, challenge your comfortable friends over the Pinot. End apathy.

    Mr Key what do you think, a Knighthood for Mr Hager?

    • Yes, as I noted over on the Standard, The Panama papers are Key’s Achilles heel. We must do all we can to keep the issue on the front burner.

      I also posted the beginnings of a “conspiracy theory there:

      “First right of refusal . . . ” What exactly does that mean?

      As i understand it, if the Government of the day refuses to buy back the shares then they end up on the open market.

      1. The Key/English government will not be the government of the day five years from now.

      2. Five years from now, NZ and the world will probably be still in the midst of GFC2 , and therefore too cash-strapped to buy back the shares.

      I see the whole thing as Key hedging on GF2 being just around the corner and thus gambling on a flog-off of Kiwibank to private shareholders being highly likely if not inevitable. (And as a recently-retired PM he will be in a position to buy it up some of them if he so desires. . .)”

      While i concede that they are a bit of a waste of time, there is nevertheless a valid place for conspiracy theories. Where governments and other power-brokers work under a cloak of secrecy, they deserve everything that can be thrown at them by the public in my opinion.

      They can laugh all they like at the conspiracy theories, but mud tends to stick. So as long as they keep misleading the public and ‘negotiating on our behalf” from under a “cone of secrecy” then I say “Keep the conspiracy theories rolling.”

      If they don’t like it they can try governing from a position of openness and accountability for a change.

  3. I cannot understand why government departments and ministries don’t support Kiwibank. Why is that? Where is the loyalty?

  4. 100% right! They don’t care a fig for ordinary kiwis’ concerns. When did they ever on their ideological crusade?

  5. I cannot understand why government departments and ministries don’t support Kiwibank by having their accounts with it. Where is the loyalty?

  6. Yawn. This is merely an exercise in accounting. I would love it if this was actually privatising Kiwibank. It isn’t unfortunately.

    • Ah, at last. A statement from you, Gosman, instead of those inane, endless “Are-we-there-yet” questions. Well done.

      To address the valid point you made:

      It is hardly “an exercise in accounting” when;

      1. Kiwibank gets nothing out of the deal. All income from a sale is either given to the National government as a dividend (to help English balance the books for his upcoming Budget) or used by NZ Post to pay off debt.

      2. A credit down-grade from a partial sale would affect customers. Credit down-grades mean the cost of borrowing increases as the ‘risk’ factor of the Borrower is higher.

      3. There is absolutely no guarantee that National will keep to it’s committment of taking a “first refusal option” to buy back Kiwibank. They have lied; twisted the truth; and broken promises so often that any committment from them is utterly meaningless.

      I will be ‘fleshing’ this out in a story I’m working on, and which will show how National’s deceit has been eight years in the planning.

      • Thanks Frank and Martyn, always great to get a sense of sanity over what this Government lies about. Its been going on for all of the time they have been in power, when are the electorate going to wake up to this. I despair that people who vote them in seriously have lost the plot. When people say to me “well, who ever are we going to vote in, what’s the alternative” – I just say anybody is better than them, they are bullies, liars and frankly wrecking the country, but they still keep voting them in. There has to be an alternative but I hazard a guess things will have to get pretty bad before they are booted out on their ear.

      • Dr Cullen (remember him. He was the Finance minister that you keep banging on about as doing such a great job under Labour) is behind this. Why do you think that is Frank if this is part of some sort of hidden agenda by National?

      • What’s happened to Clayton Gosgroves “Keep Kiwibank” bill. I thought it passed the first reading last year, but what now?

      • Quite right, Frank. The devil is always in the detail in these things.

        I was in favour of ACC and the Cullen Fund investing funds in Kiwibank to add to their capacity to compete with the Aussie banks. But this is not what we have here. After a smoke and mirrors transaction, existing, productive investments are cashed out to pay down NZ Post debt at a time when debt is extraordinarily cheap, thus reducing revenue. At the same time, the Government grabs 100 million dollars for no reason but that they can, and Kiwibank, if anything, is in an even worse position because they are now constrained by the 45%, dividend-demanding investors, and as a result are also less able to borrow to expand their capacity.

        On the other hand, if the share sale was used to expand the business it would have been a win for the bank as well as for the three State shareholders. Increasing the capacity of Kiwibank would also be good for the country. First, it would retain profits in New Zealand, profits which, as we know, currently largely vault the Tasman. Secondly it would add real muscle to interest rate competition among the trading banks. and that wouldn’t hurt either.

        Unfortunately, all we have here is a cynical and opportunistic money-grab which, once again, follows the long-game plan of the Neos, as it seeks to make sure that the State owned bank is less able to compete with the transnational corporates. It also is the necessary first step in unpicking the complex relationship with NZ Post to simplify the sale of the bank after the next election.

      • [Abusive comment deleted. One more like that, Hayden will earn you a permanent ban. – ScarletMod]

      • @ Frank. ” Never argue with a fool. They’ll only drag you down to their level then beat you with experience.” Mark Twain.

    • “I would love it if this was actually privatising Kiwibank. It isn’t unfortunately.” – Gosman

      So Gosman, where do you stand on selling Kiwibank?

      As a member of the Act Party, I’m guessing you endorse it. Since this government cannot privatize Kiwibank directly, as it did with the powercos, they’re using a back door method.

      Dishonest. But then, not surprising.

    • @ Gasman.

      But Kiwi Bank is ‘privatised’. It belongs to us via our government and our government is a democratically elected government elected by free people to own and use as we see fit. We Kiwis own Kiwi Bank privately and freely. The thing you might find unpalatable is that Kiwi Bank has yet to be swindled off by rich con-artists to bend to their will by using the same idiotic logical fallacies you use. By chanting ‘ Privatise’ you assume we all go “ Oooh, privately owned. Must be good then? “
      The perfect alibi is created for the perfect crime. roger short arsed, fuck-face douglas understands that one.

  7. Sold the National Bank of NZ, BNZ and the Rural Bank for chickenfeed whose interests are these politican’s really working for ?

  8. I don’t understand the mentality of this National Government, banking is a profitable business, we destroyed/sold the National Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of New Zealand and the Rural Bank these were national assets and productive assets for shareholders and residents of New Zealand?

    • yes Jack but his cronies wanted the profits and key didnt like to say no,after all they come first with the ponytail puller.

  9. I don’t understand the mentality of this National Government, banking is a profitable business, we destroyed/sold the National Bank of New Zealand, the Bank of New Zealand and the Rural Bank these were national assets and productive assets for shareholders and residents of New Zealand?

    • The mentality is to sell off anything and everything to those who can afford it, so they can squirrel it away in a Panamanian “blind trust” with 60,000 transactions in NZ.

      Money from earnings of state-owned assets have been used in the past within the country to fund social services, and to create a fair society. The 1-10% who own 99-90% of the wealth of the population.

      At the end of the day there will be private health, private chartered education, private jails, crowd-funded DOC and a low-waged, working poor economy.

      “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

      The neoliberal revolution was complete.

  10. Key is just addicted to selling everything we owned as a carpetbagger.

    So we will become “Tenants in our own land” remember that promise he said he never wanted us to be?

    He is nothing but a liar, a traitor, and dictator that will lead us to ruin and destitution and will be remembered in history as the “assassin of NZ’s future”.

  11. Since when did The Super Fund become the financing wing for the National Party? Reminds me a bit of Mudloon dipping into the Original Super Fund to fund Think Big Projects. Now there’s not even a pretense at political interference in superannuation funds. But it will be a chance for National to fund promised tax cuts shortly after the 2017 election – if they get back in.

    Another backroom deal – nudge – nudge – wink – wink – say – no – more- excuse – the – wart by National and anyone whose pre-name begins with “Sir”.

    I think I’ll withdraw my super funds and put them in a nice blind trust somewhere. Anyone know the email of the Panama outfit?

  12. It is always the Labour governments that create and construct the NZ economy, just for the National Governments to come along and destruct.

    They, (National) do not have a bright idea in their collective brain, apart from selling whatever they think will raise enough revenue to give tax breaks to their mates.

    No hopers, the lot of them.

  13. I said before the next election that if National wins Kiwibank would be up for sale, despite National’s claim to the contrary.
    The fact that the two organisations involved are NZ-operated (at the moment) makes no difference.
    NZ Post will be next.

  14. I fully expect Key to stick to the guarantee that those assets will not be privatised for 5 years.

    If National is still in power at that time though, you know they’re going to be looking at privatization ASAP.

  15. Charter Schools – mostly about profit and good sound investments for huge corporations with horrific testing and encouraging fear and unhealthy competition and eliminating some very good teachers and other good things in the public school system.
    Charter Schools are not what many think and are not the totally good thing for all. In deed they are a good investment and mostly about profiteering from the education system but they are not serving the teachers and the students as well as they could. Same goes for the privatized prisons and health care systems. Mostly for profit and not in everyone’s best interest or well-being.

    Fear mongering tests, pressuring teachers, councils taking over and making decisions and the kids are the ones who loose out but the wealthy get richer.

    And now Key is privatizing The Kiwi Bank as he sells us further down the river while making huge profits for his wealthy corporate buddies. Wake up voters.

    Should we not be thoroughly investigating this Panama Paper issue with full force and is this not grounds to get rid of a few criminal politicians who keep secrets and lie and do not serve their constituents. The people and the environment’s well being are paramount and not these corporate lobbyists etc. and their profits, who are making our laws and stealing our country with our PM ‘s blessing and permission.

    Again wake up all you Natz loving supporters and smell the reality cuz it stinks bad about now. How can you all continue to back and support a PM like we are so unfortunate to have now ? Are you asleep or just not informed or both ?

    http://russonreading.blogspot.co.nz/2014/05/five-ways-charter-schools-are-bad-for.html

    https://yinzercation.wordpress.com/2014/05/02/12-problems-with-charter-schools/

    http://isreview.org/issue/71/case-against-charter-schools

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