Posts by Mikaere Curtis
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Russell Brown,
It appears we’re not the only place having this discussion at the moment.
I know I'm late to this discussion, but how come it's OK for Hong Kong and Singapore to target mainland Chinese, but we can't even acknowledge that it's a potential/likely issue here ?
And are you seriously trying to argue that there’s the same level of political and media hysterics when land and houses are sold to Australians, Poms or Americans? Really?
There is from the Greens, although it isn't hysterical, more measured and consistent. The Greens have been saying for years that foreigners should come and live here as permanent residents or go and buy land in their own country.
Whilst the non-resident/citizen Chinese have salient attributes that make them more noticeable (names, language, physical characteristics), and hence the obvious group to use as the exemplar for the issue of foreign property ownership, I think it is fair to say that everyone is doing it, at least to some degree.
This laissez faire wet dream of everyone in the entire world being able to buy our land out from underneath us is a total crock, and both Labour and National are to blame for the situation, and for the paucity of hard data resulting in the Chinese being unfairly targeted, for the reasons I gave above. If we had proper data, we would be able to create a solid breakdown, and we'd know exactly who is buying what.
But neither National nor Labour would listen, and this is what you get.
I'll give Labour points actually trying to deal with the issue, even if they can't frame their way out of a paper bag. One day they might hire some actual talent that can compete with the consultants National use.
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Polity: House-buying patterns in Auckland, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Anything really. The National Party’s mouthpieces would find a way for it to look bad, as they have this time.
It’s a lot harder to make the argument that Labour is engaged in wedge politics if their essential message is “Love these guys, but we’re going to close the back door and they can come in through the front door if they want to invest in our real estate”.
This attitude of National R Teh L337 is self-defeating. Labour have to do better, and may as well try rather than shrug their shoulders and say “We can’t win”.
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Once again, we have Labour with something useful to say (we have a problem with foreign investment in our housing market), but terrible framing.
Imagine if they’d said:
**Foreign Investors Skew Auckland Housing Market**
Anyone who lives in Auckland will have heard of anecdotal stories of non-resident Chinese investors snapping up Auckland properties and driving up the price of housing for hard-working Kiwis. Who blames them ? On current policy settings there are no restrictions on foreigners purchasing homes here, and with the lack of the capital gains tax, they stand to make a handsome, tax-free profit when they sell.
In typically lazy fashion, the John Key government has once more failed to even acknowledge a problem, let alone deal with it. They’ve sat on their hands while house prices get even more out of reach for ordinary New Zealanders. That National government won’t even collect data on this issue – because they know it’s real, and because it is not in the interest of the donors to make housing affordable for hard-working Kiwi families.
Instead, we have obtained some data leaked from a real estate firm. We analyzed the data to see if we could determine how many properties were being purchased by mainland Chinese. Our calculations show that the sheer number of properties being purchased means it is likely that significant proportion are being purchased by non-residents from China.
China is one of the world’s powerhouse economies, and home to some of the most successful entrepreneurs on the planet. These people are successful, wealthy, and discerning – in short, the very kind of people we love to welcome here as immigrants. We do not blame them for making a rational economic decision to make invest here, it shows real nous, which is why we think they would make excellent candidates to come and live here.
The reality is that if wealthy, discerning Chinese investors see fit to invest here, then the wealthy of other nations from Europe and North America will seek to do likewise. There is no way hard-working Kiwis can compete with the wealthiest investors from the rest of the world.
There is no housing crisis for anyone who lives in a Parnell mansion. But for the rest of us, we need a real solution to this very real problem.
Labour will stop foreign investors from all countries from investing here. You will need to a permanent resident or citizen to own residential property, and we will bring a capital gains tax on houses other than the family home.
If they’d framed the argument like the above, would we still be here talking about racist dog whistles, or would we be talking about the housing crisis, its causes and which solutions would work best ?
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Speaker: Honest Bastards & Dishonest Cowards, in reply to Steve Barnes,
Simple, but people believe Key when he says Labour are useless and with them and the Greens in power NZ would be a basket case.
Well, with Key's legacy that may well turn out to be true.Yeah, a Labour/Greens government may well end up having to fix a lot of broken stuff thanks to Key and his mates.
However, the reason people believe Key is because he uses very simple frames to depict Labour or Labour/Greens. Labour either over-explain or talk about stuff most people don't care about. They need to focus on identifying ways to depict the Key government as dirty, crony-capitalists. It really isn't that hard since that's what they are.
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Labour need to do what National did so well - identify weaknesses in the government, research which frames resonate with voters and then have a coordinated campaign of describing the government using these resonant frames.
National are a horrible government, with many, many issues that can be used to provide effective frames.
None of this is rocket science, it's about connecting the voters to the issues, but it is *not* about explaining in detail.
Simple concepts like national want to remove worker's job security, they love to bribe Big Business, or they are all about transferring wealth to the wealthy.
While they can (and should) frame perceptions of the government even while they are a divided party, they still need to get their act together because voters really are suckers for competence and unity.
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Speaker: Living under bridges, in reply to Russell Brown,
I feel slightly bad that I’ve gone from “we should consider the concerns of residents in good faith” to “these people are really weird” in the course of a couple of hours.
What is it about bridges and trolls ?
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The fear is not entirely unfounded. Rumour has it that prior to the Tunnel opening, a thousand troglodytes descended into the darkness and held a blasphemous feast. When will we learn ?
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Speaker: Living under bridges, in reply to Russell Brown,
He's right, you know. During rush hour in central Auckland, Fanshawe St, Hobson St and Nelson St are utterly gridlocked in all directions by desperate and frantic drivers who will do anything to avoid the chthonic doom of the Victoria Park Tunnel.
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Speaker: Living under bridges, in reply to Russell Brown,
This is a very strange video.
+1.
I love her self-confidence in the veracity of her arguments, especially the bit where she uses the Phnom Penh stampede as evidence that the Skypath is a nascent death trap. Because people taking to the Skypath for a view of the harbour and a 3 day water festival involving 4 million people are exactly the same.
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Up Front: Not Uniform, in reply to Emma Hart,
My kids went to non-uniform high schools, and that was way more convenient..
My son goes to a non-uniform school, my daughter to a uniform school, and we think that it is marginally more expensive for my son's school clothing needs.
When I went to high school in the 80s *everything* was expensive, like *really* expensive compared to today's prices in real terms.
e.g. I bought some no-brand dress shoes back in 1985 when I was in 6th form *on special* for what would be $210 today. Who would even consider spending that kind of money today on a non-brand item ?
So, now that we have the privilege of cheap production labour coupled with really top notch production techniques, then, yeah, non-uniform is more of an option. Back in the day, not so much, unless you had the both the time and skill to make home-made clothes.