Our Nation is now run by a Plutocracy – how will Kiwis take their country back?

Our Nation is now run by a right wing Plutocracy…

Last Thursday, Housing Minister Chris Bishop announced radical new plans to deregulate property development in New Zealand. He’s won praise for his efforts from across the political spectrum, including those on the political left and millennials who think Bishop is bravely fighting for the victims of the housing affordability crisis.

However, there are also signs that his deregulation will do little for housing affordability yet produce inferior housing and create all sorts of negative impacts on the urban environment. Instead of deregulating for “moral” reasons of combating housing affordability, it looks like Bishop and his government are simply implementing the demands of the powerful property development industry, especially those that have donated generously to the parties now in power.

Bishop’s “Going for Housing Growth” plan

The Minister of Housing has announced that he will enable property developers to “flood the market” with houses. And he’ll do this by reducing restrictions on where and how developers can build homes and commercial property. Council regulations and building codes created by communities and urban planners are being thrown on the bonfire. Bishop says he’s doing this because he wants cities to expand upwards and outwards.

According to Luke Malpass, the political editor of The Post, this is a radical and free-market programme being launched. Writing over the weekend, he explains that Bishop is taking power away from urban and town planners and giving it to the market. It’s all about the freedom of property builders and buyers to choose what they want.

Malpass correctly suggests that Bishop’s announcement is radically rightwing: “parts of his speech could have been from Milton Friedman’s famous 1980s book, Free to Choose. Choice is key, and casting away the impediments and bottlenecks to development is the name of the game. Consumers will ultimately decide the rest and developers will reflect those choices.”

Whether this results in urban sprawl and the conversion of farmland into suburbia should be left to “the market.” According to Malpass, Bishopbelieves that “if people want to live on city fringes in a cheaper, bigger house, with a bigger commute, that’s up to them.”

Similarly, the Herald’s Thomas Coughlan says the deregulation in housing and land use is comparable to the neoliberal reforms of the Fourth Labour Government: “In quite typical New Zealand fashion, and again reminiscent of the 1980s in the space of four years, we have gone from having some of the world’s most restrictive urban land markets to having some of the least. The Economist, an enthusiastic cheerleader of our 1980s reforms, has written warmly of New Zealand’s efforts to improve housing affordability through deregulation.”

Reflecting on Bishop’s speech and the generally positive response, Coughlan says there is now a bi-partisanship consensus in favour of property development deregulation: “Everyone has compromised. The left has had to embrace free-market thinking as a pathway to reducing the social ills of the housing crisis, the right has had to give up on its ability to control picturesque urban environments and to use the family home as a neverending stream of unearned wealth.”

…I think Kiwis are so shellshocked by the economy and the hard right romper stomper agenda that no one has understood the true scale of what Bishop has done here…

What Bishop’s deregulation means in practice

The idea of building much more housing, much more quickly, is incredibly attractive given the ill effects of the current housing affordability crisis. Yet the details of Bishop’s programme suggest that this will also have a number of highly detrimental impacts.

Urban sprawl is the most obvious. Bishop is taking away the ability of councils to impose urban-rural boundaries, which will open massive amounts of greenfields on the city fringes to be built upon, probably in a sprawling fashion. As Auckland Mayor Wayne Brown said this week, this will result in the loss of highly productive land for agriculture and at the “detriment of our unique landscapes, waterways, and harbours.” The impact on freshwater and ecosystems could also be severe.

Densification of urban areas will also now occur with fewer regulations for property developers and landlords. He’s allowing developers to build much tinier apartments without balconies. Bishop is selling this with reference to the stylish types of apartments in cities like Paris and Rome. And anyone who opposes this, Bishop suggests, is essentially favouring that people live in cars and emergency motels instead.

Although the property industry has responded extremely positively to all this axing of red tape, a few have been breaking ranks. For example, Christchurch property developer Vincent Holloway went on RNZ’s Morning Report on Friday to say that “the government’s changes were turning the situation into more of a free market for developers” in which developers could “build anything and let the market decide what it wants”.

Holloway expected the results would be very negative—ghettos, “shoe-box” apartments, and ugly buildings in the city centre. According to RNZ, he said typical apartments would “have tiny awning windows in apartment blocks stuck in the shade.” He also predicted that cities would have trouble accommodating the levels of stormwater created by this approach, leading to more flooding.

Similarly, developer David Whitburn, from Auckland’s Whitburn Group, told The Post that Bishop’s deregulation would lead to a disastrous housing situation in which vulnerable people would live in ghettos. He said Bishop’s policy would be a disaster: “there are many developers who are only interested in money. So they won’t apply good design principles to create good living spaces… It will be all about how many apartments can be squeezed in, and that will create some nasty, but more affordable accommodation.”

Urban housing commentator and activist Jane O’Loughlin also told The Post that Wellington was also likely to suffer from Bishop’s enabling of property developers to do what they wanted: “The idea that developers are there to create good quality, affordable housing for the population is a bit of a fantasy. Really, they’re there to make money… It’s not going to achieve a good city.”

The policy is also likely to stretch infrastructure in cities and towns everywhere. The lack of investment in roads, freshwater supply, schools, and sewage will create further problems.

Bishop has said that he will deal with infrastructure issues later this year. At this stage, the government will also be implementing some similarly radical and free-market reforms, which will alleviate costs from property developers and put them back onto future citizens.

…let’s not forget that the Real Estate Pimps are all behind this…

Bishop’s relationship with property developers

It’s no coincidence that the Minister of Housing made his housing deregulation announcements to the Real Estate Institute of New Zealand last week. The property industry’s owners stand to benefit the most from these reforms.

Some have, therefore, suggested that property developers have been lobbying for these reforms. Writing on X, sociologist Peter Davis posted his analysis of Bishop’s programme: “Auckland urban sprawl here we come. With weakening of urban limits, reducing council powers, & removing medium-density, this is just what the developers who donated were looking for. Big capital gains to be made, long commutes, farm land appropriated.”

Before Bishop‘s announcement, National Party insider Matthew Hooton also wrote in the Herald that the Minister is “obsessed” with enabling property development. He points out that Bishop’s official reason for enabling property developers is a “moral” one – to solve the housing crisis. But he points to two more robust explanations for Bishop’s obsession.

First, it’s to keep house prices from getting further out of control as record-high immigration shifts into the country. Hooton says that the “Government’s commitment to keep immigration high” for economic growth means that new houses are required. He says, “The only reason we need new houses – and the only reason we’ve ever needed them this century – is to accommodate new immigrants.”

Second, it’s because “Bishop’s new houses are great news for property developers, construction companies and tradies”. Hooton points out that “Bishop has long advocated for Winton Land’s Sunfield development to house 15,000 people in cheap homes on the edge of South Auckland.” Therefore, Bishop is entirely friendly with the industry and keen to carry out the policies that will help them do more business.

Similarly, during last year’s election campaign, Hooton argued in the Herald that National’s housing policies had been created “with the help of lobbyists” for “the property-development industries”.

Incidentally, corporate lobbyist Georgina Stylianou has been one of the most ecstatic cheerleaders for Bishop’s deregulation this week. The former National Beehive staffer, turned lobbyist, now writes a politics column for The Post, and this week, she used it to praise the reforms in an opinion piece titled “How Chris Bishop has got it right with his housing plans”. She argued that the Minister is being driven by “his progressive values”, and she paints the reforms as a socialist triumph that the poor and homeless should be celebrating.

Taking on the idea that Bishop’s policies could be mistakenly seen as “the scrum being screwed towards property developers”, Stylianou suggests that instead, the reforms are simply about getting things done. She calls for Labour to adopt National’s property developer policies rather than oppose them, suggesting that Labour should tack on progressive elements rather than try to overturn them.

Donations to the Government parties from the property industry

The idea that property developers are driving the National-led Government’s housing programme is backed up by looking at who’s been donated to the parties in power. Those in the housing industry feature prominently in the three parties’ donor lists.

At the top of the list is a $500,000 donation from Warren Lewis to National last year. Lewis owns FMI Building Innovations, a “building systems and materials supplier.” National says it is the largest donation the party has ever received.

Property developer Trevor Farmer has given National $200,000 over the last few years. In the same period, he’s donated $215,000 to Act and $50,000 to NZ First. His business partner, Mark Wyborn, has given National $100,000 over the last couple of years, $200,000 to NZ First in 2023, and $50,000 to Act in 2021. And NZ First received $145,000 last year from Wellington property developer Vlad Barbalich.

One of the largest private developers in New Zealand, Manson TCLM, is partly owned by Culum Manson, who gave $70,000 to National in 2023. And Christchurch property investor Philip Carter donated $59,500 to National.

John and Michael Chow (“The Chow Brothers”) have also become big property players, partly due to their partnership with John and Max Key in recent years. In 2022, their family company, Stonewood Group, donated $44,000 to National.

Progressive Auckland housing developer Ockham Residential is involved in donations to parties. Last year, just before National came to power, the company’s Chief Executive, William Deihl, gave $20,500 to National (which followed on from owner Mark Todd donating $50,000 to Labour and $20,000 to the Greens).

The most interesting housing donations to National have been related to the Winton Land property group, of which lobbyist and former National Finance Minister Steven Joyce is a director.

In May 2022, the party received $52,000 from Speargrass, a holding company owned by Winton’s CEO, Chris Meehan. Then, in 2023, Meehan donated $103,260 to National and $50,000 to Act.

After the National received its first donation, Bishop, the party’s Housing spokesperson, put out a press release backing the Winton company in their fight with state housing agency Kāinga Ora. The company was taking legal action against Kāinga Ora, claiming more than $138 million because the government agency had rejected a request by Winton to help fast-track their “Sunfield” development plans in South Auckland projects using special powers under the Urban Development Act.

Of course, now Bishop is in charge of Kāinga Ora, and has ordered the agency to stop constructing more state houses. Meanwhile the Minister appears to be doing everything he can to supercharge the private sector to build houses for profit.

There’s more than symbolism here. Property developers like Winton are clearly the winners in a new deregulated housing market in which corporate lobbying and political donations appear to strongly influence public policy.

…As Bernard Hickey notes…

“Real estate agents make commissions annually of about $1.6 billion. We really do have an economy that is a housing market with bits tacked on.

…the scale of hard right privatisation and the real east pimps paying for policy should stun and enrage Kiwis, but so many are still conflicted about eating Jacinda for having the temerity of saving 20 000 lives and being disgusted by what they elected.

So how will Kiwis take their country back?

Neoliberalism – leave it in the 80s. from Wellbeing Economy Alliance NZ on Vimeo.

This new attempt to wake Kiwis up to how manufactured their poverty really is thanks to the 40 year neoliberal experiment follows on from work from Bruce Jesson and Professor Jane Kelsey…

Professor Kelsey warns New Zealanders about the dangers of a “cocooned”, neo-liberal mind set in the free public lecture entitled “Transcending Neoliberalism: Moving From A State Of Denial To Progressive Transformation.”

Neo-liberalism is associated with free-market capitalism and the widening gap between rich and poor.

“The world is changing rapidly in very uncertain ways,” Professor Kelsey says. “A neoliberal mind-set of living for ourselves today and hoping tomorrow will look after itself permeates government, business, and many Kiwis’ psyches.”

Professor Kelsey suggests that New Zealand risks an economic, social and political catastrophe unless we are prepared to confront unhealthy symptoms that include a shallow productive base, dangerous levels of household and rural debt, chronic failure to invest in infrastructure, environmental unsustainability, and over-dependence on China.

She also addresses changes New Zealand needs to make to move beyond neoliberal, free market capitalism by applying values of truth, integrity and social justice to the potentially harsh realities of the 21st century.

…the enormity of the political gravity climate change adaptation and infrastructure resilience has created alongside the solidarity of a shared universal experience is materialising politically in a State that has to do things itself.

Your Poverty has been manufactured.

The 40 year neoliberal experiment in NZ cut the State back to the bone and the political project of the Right ever since is to tax-cut starve off revenue for the State so it can’t redistribute it in the first place.

The best way to start those values is via the Public Service Culture and processes.

For essential state service workers like teachers, like police, like Drs, like nurses, like ambulance and Firefighter services, we can match the rising inflation in wages, but the focus needs to be on expanding capacity, expanding State responsibility and expanding quality of work experience.

It is insane that our Ambulance Service is privatised, and the State should nationalise it immediately. As first responders, their obligations and responsibilities will only climb as society continues to rock from the shockwaves of Covid.

Professional Firefighters must be expanded to acknowledge the danger we are under from climate change and fire seasons.

Rather than compete with inflationary wage rises, focus on better conditions. 11 weeks paid holiday each year, 4 day weeks plus housing projects where subsidised rentals are available for houses.

We also need to start bonding Teachers, Drs and nurses with free education in exchange for  bonded work around NZ.

We shouldn’t be looking to slash public servants, we need more!

ACT want to amputate 5 Ministry’s while Luxon is promising to slash 14 000 jobs!

That is ideological vandalism, that’s not an actual plan!

Covid showed us the need for a strong State with capacity to step in and with the climate crisis here, we will continue to need a strong State with capacity!

The Right’s never ending march to amputate and slice down the State is so that the people don’t get used to a well functioning public service and so will politically agree to starve it of funds via tax cuts.

Global free market capitalism is dead, hyper regionalism is here. We need a bigger State with actual capacity rather than the threadbare barely regulated joke that it currently is.

We shouldn’t agree to cutting public services, we should fund their capacity and infrastructure rebuild while making the working conditions for those there a better quality!

Where should we get that money? Windfall taxes on the corporations and banks!

We need better conditions for those workers and the values of working 4 day weeks, extra holidays and housing solutions are aimed at making better working conditions as opposed to never ending inflationary wage pressures.

We need a sustainable bureaucracy rather than 7 figure technocrats who see their own fiefdoms and glass palaces as the measure of public policy achievements.

We need to debate for a bigger capacity State using the example Covid just gave us.

We need more Scientists, Drs, nurses, teachers, Police, more State houses and more infrastructure alongside policy that directly subsidises the cost of living like removing gst off food, free dental, free public transport, free food in schools and we will fund that extra increase through targeted new taxes to rebuild the capacity of the State.

The obviousness of our need for a Ministry of Works that actually builds shit is painfully clear to everyone by now.

Take Police in NZ, we have a pathetic 203 police per 100 000 NZers!

Compare that with 212 in England, 264 in Australia, 318 in Scotland, 349 in Germany, 422 in France, hell even Fiji at 227 has more Police per 100 000 than we do!

We don’t have the capacity to create a functioning State that lives up to our expectations in a liberal progressive democracy because we won’t tax the rich to find that infrastructure!

These new taxes will be a sugar tax for free dental, a financial transaction tax to lower GST on everything, a bank windfall profit tax to build more State houses, a social media journalism tax.

Taxes aimed at speculators and the wealthy to fund services for the egalitarian country we want NZ to be.

Let’s have the courage to actually argue and win over our fellow citizens for solution based policy that actually builds the capacity to have the extra drs, nurses, firemen, police, and teachers.

Let’s champion policies that subsidise people’s cost of living by redistributing from the few to the many.

The voters of NZ are still waiting for the Transformative change we promised them in 2017.

We need a Ministry of Works that actually builds the infrastructure we desperately need.

We need the State to do this because the Free Market has failed.

There has already been amazing work on the creation of a new Ministry of Green Works…

Rising To The Challenge: A Ministry Of Green Works For Aotearoa

Two of the biggest crises of our times – housing and climate change – could be the target of a new Ministry of Green Works that would integrate important responsibilities related to safeguarding Aotearoa’s future, according to a report released today by FIRST Union.

A Ministry of Green Works for Aotearoa New Zealand: An Ambitious Approach to Housing, Infrastructure, and Climate Change is a policy report commissioned by FIRST Union from co-authors Max Harris and Jacqueline Paul that considers Aotearoa’s systemic infrastructural problems and how they could be addressed by a new governmental entity that builds on the former Ministry of Works and integrates several key departmental responsibilities to future-proof the country for significant challenges to come.

“From our experience in workplaces, we know that contracting is a broken model that has driven down wages and led to massive inefficiencies in construction and infrastructure,” said Jared Abbott, FIRST Union Secretary for Transport, Logistics and Manufacturing.

“As the report describes, the private sector doesn’t have the capacity to deliver on large-scale housing projects and inevitably there are now worker shortages due to poor conditions in the sector.”

“Finally there is insufficient coordination to tackle climate change under the current model – the public sector has limited powers to ensure green building standards in housing and infrastructure, and it’s not equipped to respond to other unexpected challenges, like quickly building managed isolation facilities, for example.”

The report argues that the right response to these problems will be consistent with seven values: honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi; manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata; Indigenous innovation; collaboration and coordination; creativity; safety and accessibility; and transformation of our economic model. The authors note that any new Ministry of Green Works must learn from its historic namesake and considers twelve risks related to its establishment.

The report contains feedback and interviews with experts including Ganesh Nana, John Tookey, Rosslyn Noonan, Len Cook, Andre Brett, Matthew Scobie, Syd Keepa, Judith Aitken, Susan Krumdieck, Alexis Harris, Murray Parrish, Jen McArthur, Troy Brockbank, Brendon Harre, Joe Gallagher, Ben Schrader, James Muir, Patrick Cummuskey, Andre de Groot, Ben Ross, Huhana Hickey and Nick Collins.

The report is being launched as the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) begins in the United Kingdom over the upcoming weekend.

“Even with our best intentions to fix our housing, infrastructure and climate problems individually, we will miss the boat if we don’t consider their interrelatedness and set firm goals that integrate core functions of all agencies – this is where a Ministry of Green Works comes in,” said Mr Abbott.

“When the last Ministry of Works was cut up and sold off during the extreme ‘reforms’ of the 80s, we ended up a decade later with the leaky homes scandal and a lot of pressing questions – we can’t afford to wait for the consequences of climate change to set in before we act.”

…we have better solutions and we need a bigger State.

It is time to go beyond the neoliberal 30% GDP debt straitjacket and build a new State to build the infrastructure that a allows adaptation and resilience.

Bernard Hickey argues that even if we agree to the neoliberal Wellington Consensus of 30% GDP debt, we could still borrow $60Billion and remain within that absurd ideological economic straight jacket so where should that $60billion be spent on resilience and adaptation?

We need future proofing ideas, we need a Ministry of Works to do it, we need big ideas and we need big new taxes to fund those big ideas, we need to build in self sufficiency, we need mitigation and adaptation.

Unlike Covid, whose worst was avoided, this Cyclone damage is real world and physical. The magnitude of what is required from the State politically resets National and ACT’s small Government agenda.

No one wants to hear about amputating the State when they are running to the State for protection.

This was the exact same mistake the Right made last time with Covid.

The Rights usual slash and burn of the State simply isn’t sustainable in face of how invested the State is going to have to be in the rebuild.

 

Universal Left 

Let’s ensure taxation is targeted at the corporates and the wealthy while subsidising the costs of the poorest.

I present the 10 point Left wing Economic Justice Plan for Aotearoa New Zealand.

1: Feed every kid in NZ a free nutritious and healthy breakfast and lunch at every school using local product and school gardens with parents paid to come in and help.

2: 50 000 State Homes for life built using the best environmental and social architecture standards using the public works act to seize land and immediately start building satellite towns using upgraded public transport hubs.

3: Free public transport plus vast infrastructure upgrade for climate crisis.

4: Doubling welfare payments and student allowances minus any bullshit claw backs from MSD plus Living Wage universally adopted as minimum working wage plus implementation of all WEAG recommendations.  

5: GST off food and essentials like tampons, toilet paper, condoms, oral health.

6: Free Dental services for everyone through public health.

7: Debt cancellation – student loans, welfare overpayments, beneficiary debt, easier debt cancellation.

8: Renter Rights – (rent freezes, end accomodation payments, long term tenancy arrangements) 

9: Buy out houses that can’t be saved, look at universal insurance for climate change events to cover those with no insurance, survival packs in every home, solar panels on every roof, vast increase in Civil Defence equipment, social licence of essential service resilience.

10: Properly funded public broadcasting with TVNZ advert free and merged with RNZ alongside properly funded journalism through NZ on Air with more money for the Arts and Science. If you can’t have good public journalism, the right wing media will destroy these other 9 advances. 

Don’t tell me we can’t afford any of this because we can if the wealthy are taxed!

There are 14 Billionaires in NZ, and 3118 ultra-high net worth individuals, let’s start with them, then move onto the Banks, then the Property Speculators, the Climate Change polluters and big industry.

There’s no point making workers pay more to rebuild our resilience, tax the rich!

-Sugar Tax

-Inheritance Tax

-Wealth Tax

-Financial Transactions Tax

-New top tax rate on people earning over $250 000 per year.

-Capital Gains Tax

-Windfall profit taxes

-First $10 000 tax free

The reality is that climate change will force us to adapt whether we want it our not.

The danger of woke middle class identity politics replacing class left analysis is that the politics devolve into a micro aggression deplatforming campaign that alienates rather than builds solidarity against free market capitalism.

The true demarcation of power in a. democratic capitalist state is the 1% richest + their 9% enablers Vs the 90% rest of us.

Identity Politics simply cements into place a caste system of intersectionism alongside a terminal tribal affiliation to your skin colour, gender or identity.

There needs to be far more common ground and shared values.

We need to remove the yoke of taxation from the 90% and reset it to the 10% richest.

The minefield of social justice and it’s never ending pure temple deplatforming of everything that triggers it will only drive people further from the Left in an intense economic downturn because you can’t eat virtue signalling aesthetics.

600 000 Kiwis need food banks each month while the Top 1% own 25% of wealth while the Bottom 50% owns 2% of wealth!

This debate is how the Class Left rip the talking stick away from the Wellington Twitteratti and the alienating woke activists.

Broad Church over Pure Temple every day!

We need to be kinder to individuals and crueller to Corporations.