Posts by Keith Ng
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From Cactus Kate:
"Why Belize?
"Same reason why everyone shopped at The Warehouse for your CD instead of the old Sounds....cost and simplicity.
The government fee per annum is only $US100 and unlike NZ companies there's minimal administration required so no additional cost.
So yes, like everything in life, it all comes back to money."
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Both very good points, CK.
Which begs the question, why register as an IBC in Belize? As you may recall, this was the original question I put to you on Tuesday.
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Another response from Cactus Kate:
"Tax and secrecy?
A) I have found in my life that you have to actually make money and usually a profit to be taxed. The IRD are good like that.
B) secrecy? For christ's sake Keith, everyone knows who Whaleoil is. There's nothing secret about him. The only reason you would want secrecy is if you had a pseudonym where noone actually knew who you were. That would be highly effective towards your defamation, tax and secrecy conspiracies.
When you reveal who leaked the emails to Nicky Hager, I shall show you the papers to Gotcha! Deal?"
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Nice to have the defamation theory dispelled.
Which, um, leaves tax and secrecy.
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From Cactus Kate, who had trouble logging on to PAS:
"Keith
Even if you blog/publish etc entirely from overseas it is no protection to actions against you in defamation in another country. The plaintiff need only have damage to their reputation in for example New Zealand for this to occur should they have the time, money and inclination to go after you.
Whaleoil is a NZ resident. Liability for defamation sits with the author and the publisher.
Therefore it is erroneous to suggest any conspiracy here that he is hiding behind defamation laws or that he has produced Gotcha! because he has any action pending which is also the latest current silly rumour circulating by bush lawyers masquerading as repeaters/reporters presently.
New Zealand is technically an "offshore" jurisdiction (you can google that for research as well) and has an offshore industry right in your own back-yard. It too has companies and trusts that are used for offshore structuring by NZ non-residents. There's nothing spookier than a non-NZ resident using a Belize coy than a NZ one.
Shouldn't the debate today on PA be why the hell Dan Carter's moving to 2nd five-eight?
As for why I am not on Gotcha! anymore, I wrote more than 500 words on the topic. If you still are not "entirely sure" after that then there's no hope for you and it's little wonder you are 6 writers down on the list behind Russell Brown
And Steve Barnes, its Association of CONSUMERS and Taxpayers". Plenty of beneficiaries don't wish to be taxpayers either do they and you don't crank on about them?"
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Scotty: Yeah, I figure it was the defamation thing too. But the reason I looked into it in the first place was because of rumours I heard from another journo about the ownership of the site. Because of the whole Belize secrecy thing, I can't confirm these rumours. But yeah, defamation is the most straightforward explanation.
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Private arrangements aren't government funded.
I have no problem with private universities saying that their students association is compulsory - in fact the bill accounts for this.
Equally, I'd have no problem with an employer saying they'd only employ staff who are members of a union (however unusual that may be). CSM however, is like a government department saying they will only employ staff who are members of a union - outrageous.
Is compulsory membership a form of political discrimination? If so, why is it okay for one and not the other?
(To save time: I'm setting you up for a slippery slope argument. Naturally, the second you say that political discrimination is okay, but only for the private sector, I'll pounce on you with race and gender, which I trust you'll wear like a *real* libertarian. But then, just to be a dick, I'll demand to know why can't *the state* discriminate on race, gender, as well as politics.)
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Keith - the first question revolves more around whether an institution that exercises public power should have that right (see section 3 of the Bill of Rights. And whether Parliament should be granting such bodies that power.
Would this argument still apply if SAs were apolitical?
And why should public institutions have more or less obligation with regards to the Bill of Rights?
I don't see why not. And this is exactly why I support elected student reps on boards throughout the university.
A fundamental difference is the lack of a real state mandate.
I'm still trying to locate the point of contention here. So, is your beef not with the tyranny of the majority within the student body, or the fact that an institution makes membership of an organisation a prerequisite, but that the institution has a state mandate to do so?
The problem you get to with this line of argument is that it can lead to one injustice replacing another. An organisation of students (or anyone) should be able to get as political as it wants; and there is no way I want to stand in the way. I want students to be able to collectively unite to push for university action or state action - and I see no reason why a large organisation called the Victoria University of Wellington Students' Association shouldn't be at the forefront.
I do. (Swear to god, not just being argumentative for the hell of it.) If they are created through legislation for a specific purpose, and funding is levied for a specific purpose, then it can't fuck around and do something else.
If the option is between removing the right of students' associations to be political or removing their right to force others to join them...
It's not. I think the point needs to be remade: The HRA section 3 objections only apply if SAs are political. If SAs are bound by their constitutions to be apolitical, nobody is losing their political rights. No more than members of charities have their right to make a profit removed.
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Apologies for jumping very late into the thread.
Are bodycorps also a fundamental breach of human rights as well?
During my time in university I worked for one. Membership was automatic for all tenants, a flat fee was levied, and a few cranky old people and a nutter or two were elected to run the thing. The politics were deeply personal and mostly cringeworthy. So, like student politics, but older. (And for extra irony points, Nick Kelly later took over the job.)
It's a compulsory obligation that's appended to a private arrangement. How is this different from compulsory student unionism?
Given that students can hold a referendum on VSM, I think your concerns break down into two key questions:
1) Should an institution - especially one that receives significant public funding - be allowed to make membership of a SA a condition of enrolment? What if it was a private institution?
2) Should a student body have the power to make that decision?
The first question boils down into what conditions can and cannot be part of private arrangements. I sympathise with you that "You must be a member of the Workers Party" should not be a compulsory condition for enrolment in a publicly funded university. I think it's bloody shameful for political parties (Young Labour in particular) to hijack the resources of student associations for their own agendas.
But the argument there is not about compulsion, but about the politicisation of a compulsory body. Sure, compulsion makes it easier to politicise something, but the two attributes are still distinct and separable. It's unfair of you to say that because compulsory membership of a political organisation is wrong, therefore compulsory membership of anything is wrong.
But I think the second question is something more philosophical that you need to consider: What is a university? Is it simply an education provision business? The tradition of a university is that faculty and students are considered a part of the institution itself, rather than production input and customer.
If that was the case, shouldn't students - as an integral part of a university - be able to make decisions about the conditions for enrolment at that university, within the frameworks of a liberal democratic society?
(What's allowable within the frameworks of a liberal democratic society? I go back to the bodycorp example...)
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Excellent post, Adam. It's good to get the context that we're not paying for some guy's house - we're paying for the services of a professional politician, and that if we didn't, the alternative cost us a lot more.