Posts by Andre
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The fact is that the Chinese government's appalling human rights record can only engender distrust among citizens of a free country. I don't blame those who want to leave but there is no way that anyone that backs regimes like this should be allowed to buy land here. If they buy enough of our land they will assert themselves politically, as the Chinese business leaders put pressure on Bill English on his visit this week. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/21/human-rights-lawyers-china-missing-clampdown
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And I should have pre-faced all of the above with, in my experience as a tenant. I have forged friendships with people from almost every country on the planet, but it doesn't mean I would trust their governments. At all.
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The facts driving this conversation include our distrust of the human-rights-abusing Chinese government and the inability to buy Chinese property. China is ruled by a capitalist autocratic dictatorship, as is the USA ruled by a similarly corporation-ruled political duopoly. Our problem stems from the fact many of us distrust these countries’ political leanings. 20,000 locals murdered by the state last year in China’s case and more people imprisoned on the planet per capita in America’s, for example. Why would someone who believes in Chinese cultural supremacy treat us any different than Tibet? Who would trust someone who sincerely believes in the authoritarian actions of the Chinese government to be an empathetic absent-landlord neighbour? You watch Fox News and live in Texas but somehow I can trust you to step up when needed?
And let’s not go there about the Aussies, a few of whom are related to me. Did you see the anti and pro-racism debates that played out as riots today? Your new landlord could be either flavour, but it is quite likely that your Aussie landlord is a racist. That is the disconnect. Foreign landlords who don’t live here judge tenants within foreign parameters. There is a problem. My next landlord could be Donald Trump. I imagine he wouldn’t care about our property or understand our situation as well as even a John Key-fan would. They’d have a lot in common, but at least there’s a chance the kiwi landlord would be embarrassed if you pointed this out. Btw I haven’t mentioned the poms, because the Queen officially owns the country anyway, because no NZ government has had the balls to secede. UK landlords are born-to-rule.
There is an issue. -
This story replicates my experience dealing with foreign owners who are non-resident as a tenant. No interest. No recourse. http://i.stuff.co.nz/national/70288726/Flood-victim-picks-up-pieces-after-hard-night
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It is the only data anyone has. How else could they have used it? The fact is that they have highlighted a huge problem. It is impossible to argue against their findings when no other data is available.
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Multiple government organisations already hold all of the information needed to deduce foreign ownership,
Does it matter who owns our land? Of course it does. It seems like colonisation by purchase. -
There is an issue.
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I don’t want our country to be owned by non-resident foreign landlords, having experienced the reality of this situation as a tenant on a few occasions. I want a better deal than that for my kids.
As sprogs we were brought up thinking that house ownership was as necessary as learning to walk, and that those who didn’t own their own houses were inferior in some way to those that did. Many New Zealanders still believe all of this crap, unfortunately. The fact is that home ownership is treated as a rite of passage in New Zealand.
As a home owner I found that I spent a huge amount of time and money improving the property. That hasn’t been my experience when renting a house instead – landlords spend nothing on anything unless they legally have to, in my experience.
According to Overseas Investment Office info, our main investors are from the USA, then Australia - so the extent will be much larger than just Chinese investors. I think there are valid reasons to be worried about the results of the investigation into this data, the largest ever batch ever to be released. There have been many official references to the fact the Chinese intend to spend another $10 billion soon.
The government could get all of the investor info together in no time, if they wanted to. They obviously don’t, which leads me to believe that the majority of the non-owner-occupied properties in NZ are already foreign-owned. And I don’t care too much where that foreigner resides – I just know that kiwis deserve to own their own homes. -
When I first saw the word sheeple I thought it was a bit of an exaggeration. If the fact that John Key knowingly lied to parliament goes unpunished, we may as well all adopt the moniker.
I think that all of National's reactions to our now obvious crises are designed more to look like they are doing something than they are to avert disaster. Like the 2-year CGT 'bright-line' policy - what difference will that really make? When the starting point is a 5-year-long denial that the housing problem exists, you can't have much faith that any government policy isn't just a half-hearted ploy to assuage public opinion enough for re-election. When our housing stock is mainly foreign-owned are National going to advise that we should only sell houses with less than 6 bedrooms to foreign nationals for example? -
The worm has certainly turned but this budget did as little as possible to address the inter-generational theft that governments over the past 30 years have engineered - wittingly or not, the jury is still out. Inter-generational theft. I've been attacked by a few tories and elderly PAers over the years for mentioning the term. Now TVNZ is even running stories about inter-generational theft and how it is occurring. Here. in New Zealand. I'm going to wake up next week and John Key will be admitting he made a mistake bailing out finance company investors for billions of dollars and that the National Party have decided to implement a wealth tax - it is that mad this week. http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/young-people-victims-theft-over-home-ownership-6319099