Posts by Paul Campbell
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Sacha: I don't know, it was in a public place - she was probably 11 at the time - it's not our image, someone else probably holds the copyright.
However to me it kind of says that by them using that image it says that our family endorses their cause which we emphatically do not - I've had people notice the image and ask me why I'm supporting the stadium - that's how I found out it exists.
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Scott - I guess the problem is that trusts are used for lots of things - maybe they're a bit broad - the Nats for years funneled their money through some big trusts effectively hiding their donors - to me that's wrong - I want to know if my representatives are bought and by who.
We have the situation in Dunedin where the controversial stadium is actually being built by a trust and most of the public money's been funneled through it - it's been used for things like advertising to try and persuade us to support the thing - no public politician could spend money like this on something that was an issue in an election campaign - they've been given tens of millions of dollars without any public accounting - there are various rumours around town about [stuff I can't probably shouldn't mention without Russell being open to a libel charge] - (and the bastards are using my daughter's image without my permission - they just don't actually have an address so I can't sue them - or get really irate and camp on their doorstep)
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heh! - what I was suggesting that perhaps the deal with trusts could/should be something of a quid pro quo between public and private interests along the line of "we let you partition your money in this particular way for whatever reason you see fit - but in exchange you open the kimono" - after all people don't have to put money into trusts, nor does the government/public have to allow them to exist in any form
It's all a bit like the public bargain around copyrights and patents: we give you protection for your created works and in exchange you agree that you'll put them into the public domain after a fixed time has passed (Disney excluded of course)
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yeah maybe that was the wrong term to use - I was away when all that changed - but I do see all these people moving their money into trusts largely to pass stuff on to their kids - but I think that that's rather different that putting stuff into trusts because they act a bit like a swiss bank account and leave no money trail
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Kyle - in essence what your family is doing is trying to avoid death duties - which is OK so long as it's legal - I'm not suggesting here that you should not be able to - but I do think there should be a quid-pro-quo in the public interest - if you want to move your wealth into a trust the details of what's going on should be made public with an annual return - that way we (and the IRD) can all see if it's above board
Your case of course isn't nearly as interesting as a number of trusts that are operating in the public realm - Bill English's family trust is interesting - the series of trusts that the Nats funneled all their money through for years are more interesting - and of course personally I'd love to see the books of the Carisbrook Stadium Trust to see where all that money has gone - it's hard to keep an eye on one's government and politicians if they're allowed to hide money (some of it ours!) from us
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It seems to me that the intersection of politics and trusts is continually an issue in NZ - largely because of the secrecy they allow.
Why else do you have a family trust unless you're trying to avoid some tax somewhere?
Perhaps we need a bit of trust busting - start by requiring them all to file yearly public financial returns on the trusts website
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probably for the same reason people congregate to McDonalds - because it's (almost) the same everywhere - cultural comfort food - mind you the one time on a 3 month trip we broke down and took the kids to McDonalds it was the worst meal on the trip, even the kids agreed.
Stuck between planes and wandering Hong Kong airport in the wee hours a couple of days ago I did briefly wonder if it would be a good place for cricket, or maybe bowling down the moving walkways (can you get a ball right to the far end walkway to walkway to walkway to .... and then through the window of the Gucci at the end)
Somewhere there's probably an airport sports league who travel the world's great airports holding tournaments ..... who have to use fake identities because they're all on terrorist watch lists
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(I mean collect that from bears and tigers - do you want to get between mum and the cubs)
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And how would you collect that .....
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This is still vaguely the Friday anything goes thread and I have a WTF I I'm sitting in the AKL international departure lounge and across from me is a pharmacy out the front is big sign with one word in english "Colostrum" and a bunch of other stuff in Chinese .... ummm WTF? I don't dare ask ..... umm is it human?