TPPA, mini-prison no one wants and now allowing foreign speculators to buy the apartments Gen Xers and Millennials are told they need to buy (Dear Phil, smash the golf courses)

By
Martyn Bradbury
-
33
5

Here we go, another feckless u-turn up there with the TPPA, the mini-prison no one wants and reforms for beneficiaries that never come, the Government have decided that apartments can still be bought by overseas investors.

Apparently the fear is that if foreign speculators can’t make enormous profits from buying off the plan, then no one will build the bloody houses Labour promised us.

So what the Government is really saying is, ‘Dear Gen Xers and Millennials, you will still have to compete with overseas boomer investors who want to make a quick buck out of apartment developments so go fuck yourself”.

How charming of the new Government.

The dawning realisation for Phil is that the Kiwibuild affordable housing will only occur with some breaking of eggs and the realisation that a Ministry of Works that actually builds rather than manages is required.

What Phil needs to do is something dramatic and revolutionary if this isn’t to become a miscarriage of social justice.

Dear Phil – take back the Golf Courses!

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

We have far too many Golf Courses in Auckland, they are a white middle class privilege fetish! Half the number of Golf courses and build affordable housing on them NOW!

The city has 39 golf courses, 14 of which are Auckland Council-owned.

Figures from 2012 show Auckland had more golf courses per capita than Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Zurich, Melbourne and Vancouver.

But only 4 per cent of Auckland’s population are registered golfers.

And any Golf Course that is near a Hospital, like the overstretched Middlemoore, should have those Parks halved and handed over to the hospital to build upon.

If the new Government doesn’t make a big announcement on housing that actually provides affordable houses, then these policy u-turns will start becoming too many dead rats for vegan voters to stomach.

Jacinda’s baby better be a cross between Elvis, Jesus Christ and Beyonce to gloss over this.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. Right on Martyn. We voted in this new government because we wanted actual change. But as I have mentioned numerous times here, democracy is not about change, it’s about an illusion of choice. Nothing short of a revolution is going to make anything concrete happen. Naturally, that “nuclear option” is likely to do more harm than good, but it is imo inevitable since democracy continually fails to bring the sort of genuine change that people voted for and thought they would get.

    • Anyone who thought changing the government would change anything for the better obviously wasn’t paying attention.

      Governments exist to facilitate the agendas of banks and corporations, whilst ensuring sufficient crumbs fall off the ‘elites’ table to prevent complete social collapse or revolt.

      It naturally follows that everything that matters will be made worse because that it what banks and corporations require, i.e. looting and polluting of the commons, overconsumption and overpopulation.

      Democracy? What a joke! Yes, voters are allowed to choose between one business-as-usual party that lies about the effects of its policies and another business–as-usual party that lies about the effects of its policies. But anyone who stands for office that points out the real effect of those policies is given no funding or public acknowledgement and is ‘assassinated’.

      Elections in NZ (and most other so-called democracies) are travesties of democracy, in which corporate media (or other instruments of top-down corporate power) choose the topics to be ‘debated’ and censor everything else. The corporate media ensure that business-friendly candidates approved of by the controllers are installed into office.

      Hence the continuous failure of ‘democracy’ and the progressive worsening of living conditions for the majority.

      • Indeed, I have well observed the change of people’s attitudes, behaviours and other actions. Over time, people have become more nasty, mistrusting, competitive minded, outright aggressive, selfish and hate filled.

        That is in NZ Inc same as in other places. During National’s nine years in government I observed the property owning and professional middle class boost their asset portfolios including homes by doing many improvements, buying additional ‘investments’, getting newer, nicer SUVs and traveling with or without the kids on nice holidays overseas.

        Those at the bottom have barely stayed where they were before, many have become poorer and more desperate.

        Envy and suspicion and hatred and aggression is everywhere, it does not always show when the sun may shine, but underneath, it is cold, harsh and in some hearts boiling close to explosion.

        Society is very divided, and the ones better off vote and support the ones that keep this status quo, or that even increases the division.

        And this is still the same today, as I witnessed, nothing much has changed since the Labour led government took over, those who have money, assets and business interests are holding back, doing all to sabotage this government, so that the Nats can usher in more changes that benefit them.

        Most have sold their hearts to Mammon, even the many poor, brainwashed to the extreme, all wanting to ‘belong’ to the more BS type people that are better off, so they work 50, 60 or more hours a week, sleep, spend in the malls, and show off the bit they have, trying to blend into a total BS society of greed, pretense, lies and nastiness.

        It is a stone cold spirit and sense of needing to survive at all costs, and to keep up with the Jones’ and nobody dares challenge the system for fear of losing even the tiny bit the poor may ‘possess’ and have for generating income, e.g. jobs.

        FEAR and GREED, the greatest ‘motivators’ in NZ Inc..

    • But as I have mentioned numerous times here, democracy is not about change, it’s about an illusion of choice.

      Representative democracy was designed to prevent democracy and leave the rich in power.

      Now, go back to when it was designed and it was a useful tool to get some democracy happening as it was simply too much at the time to have full participatory democracy working. But now there’s no more room for excuses. We have the technology and the knowledge that would allow participatory democracy to work.

      Time to start implementing it.

  2. It’s not uncommon in Australia (Melbourne and Sydney) for overseas (Chinese) companies to built multi-story buildings and sell all apartments to overseas buyers prior to construction. Essentially the same thing is happening in NZ, with perhaps a few apartments being made available to local buyers… It’s a myth that overseas money is needed for private investment. Housing is a perfect argument for public investment in proving homes for Kiwis in the same way the first Labour government did in the ’30s. Despite all this though, the horse has most definitely bolted and Auckland especially is no different to Vancouver and Montreal where home ownership is virtually impossible for the same reasons (overseas investment/ ownership/ land banking).

  3. Time for REAL change, NATIONALISE private land holdings used by land-bankers, NATIONALISE Housing NZ Corporation and its stock into a fully government owned and operated government department responsible to provide for social housing.

    IMPOSE strict rules for developers, for investors and private entrepreneurs, like having to act and operate socially responsibly, always considering the social responsibilities and the well being of all NZers, especially the poor ones.

    SEIZE land off private land owners, who do not use the land and properties in socially responsible manners. Invest in massive social housing projects, not just multilevel apartment ghettos, but good varieties of housing, with access to gardens and park and playground use, to house the ones that cannot get the foot into any own owned properties now.

    SACK the highly paid CEOs and Board Members of various government owned organisations that are supposed to look after the housing and general social well being of people, and replace them with common, responsible and ethically acting leaders to oversee the same in a better way.

    We need to reorganise the whole of government, and get rid of the corporate style of managing our country.

    We need to occupy and throw out the self serving jerks that have corrupted the system, and who look primarily after themselves and their buddies.

    Time to revolt, to occupy and to demand immediate action.

    This government is becoming a laughing stock, so perhaps start protests outside their members’ electorate offices, not forgetting the same needs to be done for National and ACT members of Parliament.

    • Every country that has installed a genuine socialist government since 1944 has been subjected to regime change policies by US and/or UK.

      Regime change started with Italy and Greece after liberation (when the people set up entirely the wrong kind of governments, i.e. socialist). Then, when the Japanese moved out, Korea.

      From that time on, numerous Caribbean islands, most of South America, most of the Middle East, most of the Far East, most of Africa, and much of Europe have been subjected to regime change imposed by the US military in combination with Wall Street.

      With very few exceptions, only states capable of resisting very forcefully have survived regime change attacks, i.e.. Russia and China, and states protected by them.

      It’s all hypothetical anyway, because the majority of people in NZ still think the US is a force for good and is protecting the world from terrorism, despite it being the biggest agent of terror in all of history.

      This will all end very badly.

      • No Andy. Unlike you he is a very astute person and is right on the button with his comments. Keep it up Afewknowthetruth.

      • A “communist”??

        Lol! How quaintly 20th century. What next, medieval ages references? Forsooth, ye varlet, unhand that comely maiden!!

        Lol. To funny. Made my day, Andy.

    • Shit i wish we had the guts to demand it and a government courageous enough to implement it.

      Wishing won’t make it happen but it would be New Zealand’s real nuclear free moment for the 21st century.

      Maybe that is what Jacinda secretly wishes for.

      No …. look at what we are promising but not what we are delivering.

  4. the only solution imo is to tax the shit out of overseas (Chinese)owners of crucial scarce NZ houses and property

    btw many elderly New Zealanders went through the Depression and the Second World War and are frugal and socialist to the core ….so I dont accept the image portrayed …it is ageist and dishonest and racist

    • I agree. I think the Meme should read ‘Millennials? They’re f***ed”, and not because of the baby boomers per- se but because of neo-liberal governments (1984 onwards…)

    • exactly Buzzard , he does seem to do this quite often . more power to

      most of his writing .

    • The problem isn’t the older NZ’ers who went through the Depression and the war it is the Boomers who didn’t go through any of that . .

  5. Please refrain from stoking up an inter-generational war as last night I dreamt that; on the shortest day (the winter solstice) the saviour of our world would be born right here in little ole NZ. If my seeing proves to be correct, then sometime in the future our PM may come to be known as Saint Jacicnda. No bullshit, this dream actually happened.

  6. This woman, Joanna Pidgeon, is the president of the Auckland Law Society. She’s been lobbying the government in that role (ostensibly “on behalf of Aucklanders and all New Zealanders”) about changing the foreign buyers legislation (i.e. creating loopholes you could drive a truck through):

    https://www.pidgeonlaw.co.nz/people.php

    Here’s the services her own law firm touts:

    “We represent overseas investors in New Zealand.”

    • Overseas Investment
    • Buying and selling property from residential to large commercial properties
    • Property development
    • Property Subdivision
    • Leasing – landlord and tenant
    • Finance
    • Contract negotiation and drafting
    • Real estate sale and purchase
    • Construction Law
    • Structuring
    • Property due diligence
    • Unit Title rules and management and administration
    • Property management
    • Expert evidence

    https://www.pidgeonlaw.co.nz/services.php

    Hardly an impartial source is she, since her whole business revolves around selling New Zealand property to “offshore investors”.

    • Ban the capitalist system we have, bring back power to the people on the ground, the common ones, you may get there.

  10. How about electric buses and trucks being mandatory to reduce pollution, get the rail going to and out of the centre of Auckland, remove ports of Auckland somewhere else so freight is not going there and reducing congestion and putting the Vancouver tax on foreign sales ASAP!

    Oh and actually have a 15 year period before giving out NZ permanent residency and citizenship like lollies while saying we can’t afford to pay super or care properly for our our residents hospital and educations and throwing up our arms and thinking a tax will stop the pollution of the oceans when they are pumping in more sewage and wastewater and forgetting about climate change and increased flooding in their haste to create more ‘tenants in our own country’ under a Labour government and NZ First government and Green government that campaigned on stopping foreign speculation!

    Vancouver slaps 15% tax on foreign house buyers in effort to cool market
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/aug/02/vancouver-real-estate-foreign-house-buyers-tax

  11. Love how the ‘poor’ lawyers can’t possibly be held accountable for residency criteria. Happy to take the money but not liable for any frauds I see.

    It’s like John Key’s back in town under a Labour led and supposedly anti fraud NZ First government, and what are the Greens gonna do, take the advice against their own principals so they feel they get a tick from developers who don’t vote for them?

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