Nothing highlights the abomination of inequality in NZ better than the image of Key eating a huge Turkey Christmas dinner in his multi-million dollar Hawaiian mansion while thousands line up outside the City Mission from 3am for a food handout.
And why are those thousands lining up to get a handout? Why it’s because the poor love drugs explains John Key.
That NZ, a country once so proud of its egalitarian culture, has warped into a money worshipping individual above all else country speaks volumes about the values we now celebrate.
The contempt for the poor that Key articulates works because the working poor in NZ are paid such a pittance that they eye welfare cheques with envy. Key plays to the worst angels of our nature and most NZers are happy to play along.
http://www.nbr.co.nz/article/rich-list-2014-john-keys-wealth-jumps-5-million-rh-160150
Quote from the NBR article from 01 August 2014:
“Prime Minister John Key can be expected to laugh off his Rich List ranking this year, as he usually does.
Previous years have ranked Mr Key as being worth around $50 million, with a portfolio, which includes properties in the Parnell suburb of Auckland (where he lives), along with Hawaii, London and Aspen, Colorado.
All those areas have had double-digit growth in property values in recent years. Aspen was recently rated as having the most expensive real estate city in the United States.”
So here we have it, John Key is the prime example of a property speculator, he leads by example, indeed, it is blatantly obvious.
No wonder he is the leading “real estate salesman” in New Zealand, that is in effect, not in professional activity as such, as he and his government have facilitated and boosted the property speculation and valuation explosion in particularly in Auckland, which has during 2015 now spread out to other cities and regions in New Zealand, as increasing numbers of “investors” and buyers are now moving further afield, to get more “bang” for their “bucks”.
Add also the many MPs (particularly National Party ones) that we have, the ones we “trust” in running our Parliament, government and country, and we see more astonishing revelations, about property ownership and with that also “investment” and speculation:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11155241
Besides of some large farm, commercial real estate and other land holding MPs like Ian McKelvie and Nicky Wagner, the following deserve mention:
“Chris Tremain, the retiring MP for Napier, owns 20 properties including his family home and bach, large sections of land, residential and apartment rentals, as well as commercial investment properties.
The total rateable value of $14.6 million for his holdings puts him just ahead of Prime Minister John Key, whose Parnell mansion, Omaha beach house and electorate office in Huapai are worth $13.3 million.”
“Speaker of the House David Carter owns $11.2 million of property including farms in Banks Peninsula and elsewhere in Canterbury, a commercial building in Christchurch, a home in the Marlborough Sounds and an apartment in Wellington. Shane Ardern ($10.8 million), David Bennett ($9.1 million), Amy Adams ($9 million) and Eric Roy ($4.4 million) all have large farms among their property portfolios, while Dr Paul Hutchison is a director and shareholder in companies which own a home, apartment, commercial properties and a part share of a farm worth $4.3 million. All of the top 10 land-owners are National Party MPs.”
But as our middle class, many being “professionals”, or well qualified office workers, and also a fair number of “self employed” small and medium size business owners, have realised, that after the GFC there is a lot of risk in investing in shares or simply leaving money in the banks, they have returned to real estate.
I dare argue, they are more “drug addicts” than any beneficiary I know of, they are addicted to the drug called “property speculation”, a form of high level gambling, that has taken a massively strong hold among a fair section of NZ society.
Forget the beneficiary, as a supposed “drug taker”, but they still like to try that lie, as Dr David Bratt, the man MSD hired in 2007, to do the ground work for the welfare reforms that this government brought us, culminating in the most draconian attack on social security in mid 2013:
Dr Bratt is known for his likening of benefit dependence to “drug dependence” (see “Ready, Steady, Crook” pages 13, 20, 21 and 35):
http://www.gpcme.co.nz/pdf/GP%20CME/Friday/C1%201515%20Bratt-Hawker.pdf
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2015/08/09/msd-and-dr-david-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-claiming-worklessness-causes-poor-health/
PDF version (some links may not work):
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/msd-dr-bratt-present-misleading-evidence-on-worklessness-and-health-post-09-08-15.pdf
It is like with so called “welfare fraud”, it is small scale, very limited, done by few, but gets massive publicity, bold headlined press releases by MSD and government Ministers highlighting it. On the other hand, the IRD is more lax with enforcing tax law to crack down on tax avoidance or outright fraud.
The elite’s “addictions” are socially acceptable, even encouraged, in the form of massive speculation and greed to make ever more profit and earn higher incomes, while every beneficiary caught out with a bottle of beer or a joint is instantly labeled the archetype of the “beneficiary bludger”, irresponsible and “neglecting” his and her kids, even if that is only done by very few.
Perception is the new “reality”, nothing but “perception” by those that make the media headline reporting, doing the further down the line propaganda job for a nasty, dishonest, selfish and socially criminal government!
And in order to keep the “growth” figures ticking over, Key and his lot in government continue to allow rather unrestrained immigration and put in place so far rather weak, limited rules for off-shore home and other property buyers (incl. speculators).
If we did not have all this, and did not have a growth in tourism (not that “clean” with all that high level CO2 generating long distance air travel involved), we would not have any significant growth at all, rather a recession of sorts, I bet.
But don’t tell anyone else, you may be eavesdropped on by SIS and GCSB, close at heart to our PM and his loyal Minister Finlayson.
I do wonder if Key is now alluding that the Poverty Poster Girl he parades around in the lead up to the 2008 election was a ‘drug addict’. Her(Aroha’s) obvious usefulness in Key’s electioneering campaign ended once the votes were counted.She was then dumped like so many others afterwards once their usefulness in politics had gone past their ‘Used By” date.
Key is painting every single person in poverty with the ‘drug brush’. He is, as per usual, arrogantly assuming that those in poverty must be on drugs. Now that shows total hyprocrisy on his part. There is absolutely no proof that 100% of those living in poverty are on drugs. It’s just Key blaming NZers for the events e.g a GST hike(one of Key’s many broken promises)that have happened under the Key-stone style of government.
Key will never take full responsibility for his actions and the actions of HIS government. He will always blame someone else e.g a previous Labour government.
He now resides in luxury in Hawaii whilst probably sending selfies of himself and his family as “Breaking News items’ to the various tv channels to rub into already open and sore wounds of who he is and where he is to ALL NZers.
I doubt we have at all seen Key even sleeping on the street in a fund-raising effort like a number of Labour and Green MPs have done during the year for the homeless.
If Key lived realistically, but we all know he can never do so, he may learn humility. But the creature that is Key has no conscience or caring for those who do not have millions of dollars in their pockets or money to donate to the NZ National Party.
He prefers to shake hands with those with money rather than(and quoting one National Party supporter) ‘shake hands with the great unwashed'(which are the greater proportion of NZers).
He may try to give the image he is best mates with all NZers but that is show-pony work. He cares more for ego and vanity than anything or anyone else.
Ha!
The only reason why so many kiwi’s became property speculators and landlords in the first place was because of the neo liberal ‘reforms’ from 1984 onward’s – otherwise they would have been more inclined to draw their wealth the time honoured way – from their wages and salaries.
But because of the deliberate break up of govt state owned assets, destruction of union award rates ( Employment Contracts Act ) and thus the destruction of collective bargaining power and the planned lowering of wages – they had no option but to look for other ways of making up for the discrepancy’s in their incomes.
And so now all the wannbe’s are in dread flight from anything that threatens that last remaining nest egg.
31 years after the fact of the introduction of the treasonous neo liberal ideology into NZ has produced this current environment of greed and desperation mentality.
And in order to do that , and justify it – you need a leader, a leader that manipulates current conditions , and a leader that also maintains those current conditions. It is not hard to look into the psychology of what drives so many of the populace – FEAR.
And all demagogues , dictators and hard right / left leaders know this fact well.
FEAR.
The bogeyman of ‘world conditions outside of our control’ has always been used to justify any criticism leveled at a govt. To a point this is correct… especially as we are a small trading nation… but to justify and use that as an excuse…culminating in the reasoning of the poor making ‘bad choices’ , – to demonize the unemployed or the working poor as ‘drug taking deadbeats’ – straight away should ring alarm bells into the psychology involved and employed by those political leaders who expound that theorem.
There is NO commonality among those who have been goaded to respond exactly how the neo liberals wanted them to do and the life led by John Key.
NONE WHATSOEVER.
These people are but products of an immoral and destructive ideology that had at its outset its goal of the destruction of our egalitarian , lawful and prosperous society – and the relocation of that wealth ( and thus political power ) to those who were the benefactors of that ideology.
In purely short term there will be a reward for becoming compliant with this ‘cabal’… however , long term,…as in Victorian England … the cracks start to appear in society as all manner of symptoms of destitution become manifest.
And so, in conclusion … what we are witnessing now is nothing more than the predictable final end product of such an ideology… complete with a venerated leader enjoying unthinkable luxury ( not even in this country as we speak ) while juxtaposed with this… 3000 of the urban poor in one of our large city’s queuing up in the early hours to be fed by our church social services.
This is nothing more than exactly the same conditions as witnessed by 19th century England under the reign of Queen Victoria.
In fact , if one were to exchange John Key for Queen Victoria , give or take some technological advances – there would be absolutely no difference at all.
This is the theft of the commons former wealth.
This is the systematic destruction of our former social democracy.
This is the theft by stealth by a certain wealthy elite such as the New Zealand Initiative ( former Business Roundtable ) , driven internationally by think tank groups such as the Mont Pelerin Society and its lackeys like Milton Freidman to redistribute wealth upwards , to subvert laws enabling the power brokers to destroy societal attitudes of egalitarianism , to pervert the essentials of higher ideals of the value of humanity , to disassemble the notions of community ,
… in short… not only to plunder a nations wealth but to destroy any resistance to that process…
And by and large…. those of the middle class who managed to have enough wealth from previous years before this process started in 1984 are the generations who have played into this remarkable process admirably.
It is therefore no small wonder why they support this ‘ leader’ even as far to go against their former egalitarian value system…
And the root cause and the tool that was used against them was FEAR.
We see it in 1930’s Germany with the silence of the middle classes on the persecution of the Jews. We see it with the survivors of the Titanic on the lifeboats who refused to pick up survivors due to fear of being swamped.We see it in a compliant media who refuse to challenge the societal abusiveness of this ideology.
FEAR.
It took a horrific global effort to eradicate this sort of fascist heirachy from the 1920’s to the 1940’s…yet in NZ , we have a system that uses parliamentary processes and ‘ legal’ aspects to enforce its agenda… and because we are recognized as one of a group of key western nations, a voice now on the U.N , traditional allies as it were, and because we belong to the 5 eyes network… we have to be seen as ‘benevolent’…indeed as supporters of western style ‘ democracy ‘…
So the only weapon that can be used against us is the passive aggressive one of ‘monetary threat’… yet even this has been used in greater scale against non compliant country’s aka sanctions…how much more so can it be used against a populace on a personal scale…
And this is what has been done… and the root weapon that has been used is FEAR. Fear of poverty in retirement, fear of job loss and thus savings for that retired future, herding , goading the people into accepting the so- called ‘inevitable’ according to these neo liberal subversives…
The antidote to fear is the way of intelligent and informed forward direction decision making … the way of fear is the way of capitulation. As its ensuing destruction…such was the way of Neville Chamberlain.
The way we sift those politicians to determine who is and who isnt a neo liberal is the most important deductive process we can now employ…
and the way back therefore is to determine during the next election who is and what party supports the closest representation of our former social democracy possible…
There is NO NEED to have people on the streets- we didn’t have this number before…
There is NO NEED to have people dying in cold state houses…this didn’t exist formerly…
There is NO NEED to have a ‘working poor’ populace … all workers held an idyllic standard of living relative to world standards in former times…
There is NO NEED to have foreign private corporations dictating their price gouging wares to us as a people… when formerly we OWNED ALL our essential commodity’s such as power , communications etc…
And the list could go on and on and on….
All these great and good things the neo liberal has stolen from us…
It is time now to vote accordingly in 2017 to rid us of these vampiric individuals – such as John Key and his ilk – who would seek to relegate this country into the dustbins of history of a ‘ once were’ country….
For as we all recognize….FEAR …is a poor motivator to solely base life’s decisions on by and in itself alone …
Thank you for this piece. Fear is a control device. It is “the mind killer..” It screws with reason. The emperor is naked… and greedy.
What a legend. I mean seriously, the dude has swag.
I didnt vote for him, but damn if he aint cool.
PS. fuck the haters.
Is it the swags of cash he has from doing zilch or the PR machine that makes you reckon hes just like you….?
Or does ponytail pulling or prison rape jokes turn you on instead ?
Must be something… how about the lies he tells about the 5 eyes and surveillance of the populace ? Have you always had a ‘ thing’ for fancy dressed spivs who will sell you a cheap watch at ridiculous prices in a seedy back alley ?
Are you a pervert?
Another selfie????????. One of the ” first family ” of New Zealand.
What a joke!!!!!
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