Tauranga Bar Scene

All the bars in Tauranga have congregated in one stretch of road called The Strand in the middle of Town.
Every Friday and Saturday night between midnight and 3am there is mayhem. Fights Brawls, assault, drunkenness, and all kinds of anti-social behaviour.
Go to this links at Sun Live to read the latest:
http://www.sunlive.co.nz/10322a1.page

The bars have done nothing about the situation they are the cause of, so the council have stepped in and put in some kind of walkway from one end of the strand to the other, cutting down on the room on the footpaths allocated to each bar (this has only become necessary since the government interferred in the hospitality business by banning smoking in bars, but that is another story).

The bars are now squealing like stuck pigs because they say this walkway will see the end of their businesses due to cutting down on their footpath space (something they never had in the past)

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As a musician, and a punter, I have spent far more than my fair share of time in and around pubs and bars, and I have also been part owner of a very successful bar in town (Bar In The Park), and the problems we have along the Strand at present are a relatively new phenomenon.

There have always been lots of pubs in town, and there has always been a transient crowd going from one place to the other, so maybe it is because they are all concentrated into one small strip that is the problem, as in the past the pubs were spread out all over town - ie Beach Street, Bar In The Park, Oak and Ale, Abbey Road, St Amand, and Harringtons.

I personally believe the problems in town are caused by the transient people - those moving from bar to bar, looking for the most happening place to go, want to be seen on the scene, or just out looking for trouble.

They are not caused by people inside the bars, or those outside wanting to smoke or drink.

The anti-social problems of fighting and bad behaviour we are facing are not a Council problem, it is a hospitality industry problem, so why is the council doing something about it when it is none of their bloody business!

Most of the venues, pubs and proprietors in town know this is a problem, so before council or government come down on them with a big stick, using force and threats of prosecution or various other measures to fix the problem - concocted by boring, grey zip up shoe wearing, cardigan wearers with clip boards (oopps - too late) they should do something about it themselves - a solution that would be beneficial to their businesses instead of detrimental to it, which as we know, any solution offered by the council is bound to be

Perhaps if the venues in town were to take the initiative and get together and address the problems they are the catalyst of I might be a bit more sympathetic to their current plight, but as it stands, I have no sympathy for them.

For example, perhaps if they held a meeting of all hospitality /bars etc and came up with a plan, or some solutions like this for example:
"we are all closing our doors at 11 or 12pm (or whatever), if you are not inside here before then, you cannot come in."

You can stay in here till 3am (or whatever it is, but once you are out, you cant come back in.) The fenced off areas outside the bars would be included in this area to allow smokers and those in need of fresh air to move in and out.

This would be beneficial to their businesses on many levels for example.
If the bar is empty at 11pm, you can close the doors and go home - save on wages and power

Bars would make a point of getting in the best or most popular entertainment to ensure their bar is full by 11pm

They would make more and better attempts at publicising their up and coming events, bands, acts and specials etc.

Bands DJs and bar staff would all be playing to a full house instead of half empty bars due to transients, which would ensure a much better time was had by all

The only people on the streets would be those who are under age, those on their way home, or those kicked out of bars for bad or drunken behaviour. These would be much easier to spot and mop up by the police

I am sure the pub venues and owners would have the co-operation of the council and the police to make their town and their jobs easier (you would think) and they would have their respect for using their initiative in attempting to fix a problem they all know they have and have created.

This would not be compulsory participation, but perhaps all the venues participating could come up with some kind of incentive for everybody to participate - ie membership cards - drink specials for regulars, topless barmaids - free drink for those in line to get in before 11pm - I don't know - be creative people - it's your business not mine

My advice to the bars in town is to "do it yourself, and call the shots" before "they" do it to "You." because if they do it to you, you aint gonna like it

PS: I wrote this months back before council imposed their walkway idea upon the venues in town, and before all the bleating and moaning from the publicans.

What is wrong with you people?

You know your business - why did you sit back until the problem got so bad that council were forced to do something about it?

You have gotten what you deserve, and now you are moaning about it!

A problem has arisen through your own actions, but you expect Council and Ratepayers to fix it.

All of you venues along the strand could be creaming it if only you got your heads together, but you are a working[sic] example of the rot that has set into our society - you sit back and say "what is council/government going to do about it?"

Margaret Thatcher said."The problem with people to day is that they have got all their rights in mind but none of their responsibilities.' (or words to that effect)

. . . and she is so right

More irrational national party flag waving

Rabid National party flag waver and BOP Times newspaper letter writer Mary Brook had a letter in the newspaper tonight licking the National party's boots and saying how wonderful it is that they are doing something to rid us of the evil drug "P".

I do not disagree with her that the drug "P" is evil. What I resent are cheerleaders to a bunch of thieves who take my money by force with threats of jail and fines if I resist, who SAY they want to rid us of the evil drug, but continue to do things that they KNOW DAMN WELL DO NOT WORK, because they are too GUTLESS to do the only thing that WILL - that being to legalise all drugs.

I do not suggest that tomorrow drugs should be made legal - we have been taught to be too irresponsible for that to happen. Socialised health care and interfering nanny state governments have stripped generations of Kiwis of common sense and responsibility of which a great deal would have to be restored before we could be entrusted with legal drugs.

Here is my response to Mary Brook, Tauranga National Party cheerleader

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Mary Brook once again engages in the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. No guessing who didn’t get an A pass for school C history eh!

If she thinks the actions of her beloved National party-who she champions right or wrong-will make the slightest bit of difference in the availability of the drug “P” then she must have spent the last 100 years on a different planet, because the history of this one says it won’t.

Any drug you so desire is available in the most secure prisons in the country - how on earth does she and her sycophantic supporters expect to stop the availability of them out in the big wide world.

You are welcome to keep banging your head against a brick wall, although I guarantee the last time you bang it will hurt just as much as the first time - it’s just a shame you insist on wasting other peoples money in doing so.

The real solution to minimise the harm of drugs would be too unpopular for any political party to successfully campaign on, and so we have to put up with the totally ineffectual pretence and posturing of the national Party in their efforts to convince you they are doing something about it while knowing it wont do a thing! - Its a big con job, and you are the victims.

The real tragedy is that you continue to give them your permission to keep up the charade - and then complain when it doesn’t work! - sheesh!

National party keen to see "P" remains on the streets

Simon Bridges and the National Party have been beguilling the public with hollow promises and propaganda since they got into power, and in a recent column in the local newspaper, Simon Bridges - National MP tells the public how they intend to rid us of the "P" problem, but I am not taken in for one millisecond by his handsome smile, popularity seeking propaganda exercises.

You see in their effort to make you believe they are doing something to eradicate the evil drug "P" from the streets, this solutions-bereft party are just promising to do more of exactly the same that has been done and failed before, because the only real solution to the problem would not be a popular one, so instead of actually fixing the problem, they want talk you into believing they are fixing it.

If you were to poke yourself in the eye with a sharp stick you would find it very painful. Why then try poking yourself in the eye with a sharp stick again and again just to see if it still hurts?
Some would have learnt their lesson the first time, but not the National party - oh no - they keep on poking that stick in there, just hoping that one day it won't hurt.

The reason they continue to do that is because it is not their money they spend in doing it! Easy come, easy go - Poke - Ouch!

Well, here is a prediction for you (and remember, I am not getting paid for my predictions like simple Simon) I predict "P" will still be available despite the additional bucket-loads of taxpayers money they intend to waste in their previously tried and failed attempts at ridding us of the "P" scourge that they themselves precipitate. It will be more expensive because it may be harder to get, and there will be more armed robberies as addicts put the lives of innocent New Zealanders at risk in their struggle to feed their addiction. A stronger, more dangerous drug made from dried mushrooms and toothpaste (or whatever) will be developed, and the major political parties will all start the process of poking themselves in the eye with sharp sticks again.

It is quite obvious that these people don't want to eradicate "P" otherwise they would stop doing the things that have failed in the past - they just want to be seen to be seen to be trying, and which quite frankly is a pitiful waste of their time and my money and a danger to the lives of innocent Kiwis.

I predict that the very measures that they favour to fix the problem will ensure that the problem continues to plague us, therefore making them the cause of the problem!

It is time to face the harsh and realistic facts. Make no mistake, no matter what the government do, and regardless of how much education and prohibition is in place, some people will still chose to take "P." (and other drugs for that matter)

To reduce the harm caused by "P" - and everybody will agree this is the most harmful and evil drug ever to hit the streets - then drug takers need to have options (which they dont have at present because they are also illegal, and hard to obtain)

Legalise all drugs, make them available from legitimate pharmacies and manufacturers.
Spend the money wasted on the ineffective and totally useless war on drugs on TRUTHFUL, FACTUAL drug education (as opposed to the sensationalism and demonisation of cannabis), and rehabilitation programmes.

Drug problems should be the concern of drug takers
Stop forcing the problems of drug takers onto innocent, non-drug takers

DRUGS: Dont ban "P" - Ban "S"

To all those politicians and pharmacists out there demanding the ban of ‘P” - here is another letter of the alphabet you can ban.

Let’s ban “S!”

“S” stands for stupidity, and it should be banned immediately, and without delay!

A ban on pseudoephedrine can be equated to banning the tides by insisting people close their windows at night so they can’t see the moon.

Have the cheerleeders of the War on Drugs learned nothing in the thirty-eight years since that War was declared by Richard Nixon as diversion from other more personal affairs?

If you ban the stuff it doesn’t just go away. Thirty-eight years of “an increasing drug tide” should tell you that. Why do you continue to ignore this fact? It is the elephant in the room.

Have they learned nothing from the results of all the bans? That if you ban particular stuff, it just changes its form.

You make it difficult to import “buddha sticks,” and people bring in heroin instead.

You make it difficult to bring in heroin, and people start making “homebake heroine” made from codeine.

You make it harder to get hold of codeine-based drugs, and people find a way to make the even more virulent ‘P’ out of stuff contained in common cold remedies.

Have they learned nothing from the prevalence of drugs in prisons?

For goodness sake, if you can’t even make them disappear from supposedly the most secure places in the country, then how on earth are you going to make them disappear from people’s more private places?

Milton Friedman (now here’s a guy that should be compulsory reading for all bureaucrats and politicians) proved that prohibition changes the way people use drugs, making many people use stronger, more dangerous variants than they would in a legal market.

During alcohol prohibition, moonshine eclipsed beer; during drug prohibition, crack is eclipsing coke. He called his rule explaining this historical fact “the Iron Law of Prohibition”: the harder the police crack down on a substance, the more concentrated it will become.

What’s next? It’s almost like watching an episode of ‘McGyver.’ Ban all the ingredients you like, but criminals are still going to find a way to make recreational pharmaceuticals using a roll of toilet paper, a lady’s stocking, a tub of shoe polish, and a small bit of blue tack. And the drugs get progressively more virulent each time.

Friedman once told Bush Snr’s drugs tsar Bill Bennett, “You are not mistaken in believing that drugs are a scourge that is devastating our society. Your mistake is failing to recognise that the very measures you favour are a major source of the evils you deplore.” The evils have only got worse since.

Banning pseudoephedrine is just another road down that sorry path. And it will make it damn difficult for all of us presently suffering from cold (and colds) because we haven’t pumped enough carbon dioxide into the atmosphere to warm us up. ;^)

John Keys says “I understood pseudoephedrine was banned in some American states, and he wanted to know if that would work here.”

Well he doesn’t have to look far to get his information - in Oregon when they banned pseudoephedrine. No surprises. More meth - more meth-related crime.

For Friedman, the solution was stark: take drugs back from criminals and hand them to doctors, pharmacists, and off-licenses. Legalise. Chronic drug use will be a problem whatever we do, but adding a vast layer of criminality, making the drugs more toxic, and squandering $40billion on enforcing prohibition that could be spent on prescription and rehab, only makes the problem worse.

Here is the most important part though!
Drugs are a tragedy for addicts, but criminalising their use converts that tragedy into a disaster for society, for users and non-users alike.

Brilliant minds have developed and designed wonderful remedies to make our lives more comfortable in times of discomfort, and mindless morons are insisting they are banned, and we are made to suffer like neanderthals.

Here are some ideas that do not involve banning anything, and do not impact on the lives of innocent people with a cold, who just want the best relief possible for their symptoms.

Chemists get together, and have a duty chemist - criminals will never know where the drugs are going to be the next day.
Security then only needs to be at one venue on any given day.

Make the drugs only available from the Police station, or the Bank, or from dedicated and secure premises

Come on you people use some imagination - mindlessly banning stuff because you are too lazy to give your braincells a workout should be banned.

Ban Stupidity - NOW!

GOD - No!

Atheism is not another 'faith': it is not a primary; it is a conclusion based on the absence of evidence for a supernatural world, and abundant evidence for this one.

There are many kinds of atheist and certainly many reasons for being one, but overall it consists of a refusal to accept the supernatural, an unwillingness to place FAITH above the EVIDENCE of one's own senses, a resolve to believing NOTHING WITHOUT REASONABLE EVIDENCE, and above all a commitment to the existence of which we KNOW and not to the super-existence of our IMAGINATION.

Atheism is not primarily negative; it is not primarily anti-supernatural -- it is instead primarily pro-existence, pro-reason, pro-evidence.

That by the way is not faith -- it's simply accepting the fact of existence, and our means of knowing it: Existence exists. There it is. Existence itself is its own evidence. Fairies at the bottom of the garden do not exist, and there is no evidence that either they or imaginary friends do.

Existence itself requires no proof -- it is the very fact of existence upon which all proofs are based: Existence exists.

Existence itself requires no explanation -- existence is a self-sufficient primary: it is not a product of a supernatural dimension or of a supernatural being or of anything else or anyone else. Existence is not a why, it's an is.

Existence itself is simply all that exists -- there is nothing prior to it; nothing antecedent to it; nothing apart from it -- and no alternative to it.

Existence exists -- and only existence exists -- and both its existence and its nature are irreducible and unalterable.

By contrast, "gods" as traditionally defined are a systematic contradiction of every form of evidence, and every form of valid logical reasoning -- all gods; all forms of supernatural superpower, from Thor to Wotan to Zeus to Io. No valid argument -- no reason -- will get you from existence to non-existence, or from existence to the supernatural, or from existence to a world contradicting existence.
No valid method of inference will enable you to leap from existence to a "super-existence," and nor should it be necessary to try.

Faith -- the means by which one tries to reconcile reason and un-reason, existence and non-existence, evidence and the contradiction of evidence -- is not a means of knowledge, it is a method of rejecting knowledge; it is a means of acting against knowledge, against evidence, against existence.

Faith is not reason. "Faith" designates blind acceptance -- acceptance because it is blind; acceptance because it is unreasonable; acceptance induced in the absence of evidence or even (one might say especially) in contradiction to evidence, in opposition to existence -- acceptance induced by feeling in the absence of either evidence or proof.

Faith is not knowledge, it is an alleged short-cut to knowledge which is only a short-circuit destroying the mind.

As Thomas Jefferson affirmed, " Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear."


I enjoyed this short exchange from Graham Greene's 'catholic' novel, The End of the Affair:

If religionists stopped dreaming of how good it is in heaven, and realised that there was nothing else other than what we have in the real world - they could concentrate on making this world like the fantasy world they dream of!

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NOTE: I've quoted from a number of sources, including Bertrand Russell, Ayn Rand and Leonard Peikoff.

There is no market in New Zealand’s factory schools

When I purchase goods and services, I always attempt to get the best value for my money.

It’s not wise to pay top prices for, faulty or worn out goods.

So why are schools any different?

Why should I not attempt to get the best education for my children that my money can buy?

This is how the government run school system works! Parents are forced into paying top prices, and forced into receiving what they are given, with no option to change or exchange!

For example, can you imagine being called a “zone cheat” because you’ve been to the “wrong” supermarket or service station?

Why are there arbitrarily-drawn zones for schools when we don’t have them for supermarkets or service stations?

Because for privately-delivered services we have something called a market, a place where people can freely bid for the services they wish to purchase, and pricing and supply are set by specialists looking for a place in the market by meeting the needs and wishes of the customers they hope to attract.

There is no market in New Zealand’s factory schools. Instead we have rationing.

In the absence of a market, we have government-imposed rationing by zone; if you want to send your son to Tauranga Boys you will either have to move to the zone, or become a “zone cheat.”

In a market, extra customers are a good thing.

Without markets ... extra customers are a bad thing!

“What’s the difference between a bright, inquisitive
five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year- old?
Fourteen years of the British educational system.”
- Bertrand Russell

“School is the advertising agency
which makes you believe that
you need the society as it is.”
- Ivan Illich

music funding

Before I justify the comments I made in my column which has attracted the wrath of the socialists, first I must make it quite clear that I did not say that funding should be for young artists only! That headline was fabricated by a staff member (editor or sub-editor) at the BOP Times.

I brought this to the attention of the editor pointing out that I cannot afford to have words put into my mouth because of the principled stand I make on these issues, and a retraction was printed on page two the following day.

My view on this issue for those that missed that retraction are as follows: "Government funding" - or the redistribution of other peoples money to those who seek it - should not be available to anybody, and that musicians and artists should stand on their own achievements rather than be artificially inflated with other peoples money.

As for everything else, I steadfastly stand by everything I said.

The reason I wrote my column on the subject of Government funding in music and the arts was as follows.

First Margaret Wilson threatened to get involved in the local music scene - a scene that is envied by musicians all around the country and that has prospered and flourished without any government assistance that I am aware of.

Then a BOP Times columnist explained in great depth how much easier it is going to be to get your hands on funding, and the just recently, another BOP Times columnist told us that ratepayers should be forced to pay more to council so they can provide us with a long list of attractions that private enterprise could provide better, more efficiently and without the use of force!

Where were the objections to these immoral and one sided socialist ideologies ? - Not a "baaa" was to be heard!

On any topic if only one side of an argument is presented, how are people to make an informed decision.

Jane Wrightson, chief executive of NZ On Air uses the "Ad populum" fallacy to publicly denounce my statements, ie: the arguer takes advantage of the desire most people have to be liked and to fit in with others and uses that desire to try to get the audience to accept his or her argument. One of the most common versions is the bandwagon fallacy, in which the arguer tries to convince the audience to do or believe something because everyone else (supposedly) does.

Because other columnists seemed to have no qualms in announcing their popularist views, I thought I would let readers know there is a different side of the story

In their constant search for supporters the looters are delving ever more regularly into the vulnerable arts and music fraternity who are generally not overly political people, but who are susceptible to being bribed with promises of wads of other peoples money.

Socialism is a runaway train picking up speed, and getting harder to stop by the day.

I have seen the runaway train and trying to raise the alarm, but it seems most are too interested in watching the ensuing wreck and to do anything about it!

It’s a sorry place we live in when every socialist on a soapbox - demanding to be given other peoples money - is accepted as moral and acceptable behaviour, but one person points out that it is immoral, he is slammed for political grandstanding!

By simply exposing the immorality of a bunch of looters intent on using force on others to get what doesn’t belong to them, I’m accused of political grandstanding!

On top of that, since when did one of the ten commandments - ie “thou shalt not steal” become a political issue since when JC was a boy it has been a“moral” issue?

Graham Clark

Government-run health system

This woman was complainig about the health system - here is my reply

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Helen I completely sympathise with the sentiments in your letter, but you must realise that - people in this country do have an option, but they continue to chose a government-run system that advocates healthcare rationing.

If a supermarket advertised they were giving away free food, they would never be able to keep the shelves stocked. The same goes for the Government run health system. The only way they can continue to operate is if they ration the health care.

This is the system New Zealanders continue to demand, and the system they continue to moan about. No matter how much money any government put aside, it would never be enough because they are giving it away free.
You would do just as well to cut the bottom off a bucket, and try and fill it up with water!

It is fact that the majority of New Zealanders are denied the best healthcare available because they are forced to pay for a rationed, government-run system.
With a private healthcare system you would be telling “them” when you “want” treatment instead of waiting for them to say you are sick enough to receive it.
Everything the government is in control of is in crisis mode - thank god they dont run the supermarkets.

Simon Bridges Brownie-point scoring survey

I have as much right to point out the hypocrisy and waste of taxpayers money in Simon Bridges Brownie-point gaining exercise (survey sent out to Tauranga people) as Mary Brooke (local busybody and National party cheerleader) has of being sucked in by it, and if I ever feel the need to write a pointless or boring letter I will consult her for some pointers.

To answer her question though What makes her so sure I did not reply to his survey? I have also written to him personally - and guess what! No response.

This is what you get when you elect politicians who have no principles. Just like when the previous principle-less local national party politician who stood on the steps of parliament and told the crowd to their face that he opposed the anti-smacking bill, but then turned around and voted for it - now look at the mess we are in.

What is the point in spending all that money asking what we think if you are not prepared to do anything about it?

The point is is to suck the public in and make them think you care in order to perpetuate your popularity for the sake of the party.

Try reading the National partys list of principles (yes, they do have one - and see for yourself how they compromise every one of them. Shameless.

Ban on Sunbeds

Why do they bother teaching history in schools?

Nobody learns a damn thing from it - that or they just don’t teach the right history!

What is banning sun beds going to do?

One thing for certain it will not remove peoples desire to use them.

Banning them will have exactly the same result as banning anything else!
(NOTE: If you are one of the mindless ones that screams BAN IT at every opportunity, please replace the word "sunbeds" with your BAN of choice - ie: Cigarettes, tobacco, Pseudoephedrine, Chocolate etc etc)

What is that?

Let me list them for you.

Drive them underground and create a black market for them.
Hand a new business opportunity and monopoly to unscrupulous, unhygenic, un-trained, un-registered operators trading with no responsibility, no guarantees, and no rules.
Create a market for dangerous, home-made, un-regulated, un-tested equipment, because purchasing quality, tested equipment has been outlawed.

Turn schoolgirls, young mothers, healthy young bodybuilders and otherwise law-abiding people into criminals.

The lron law of prohibition guarantees that outlawed goods become smaller (for concealement purposes), more concentrated (for ease of transportation and economy) More expensive (due to the risks taken) and far more dangerous.

The answer lies in Education, and personal responsibility. Instead of rewarding people with free healthcare for putting their lives at risk doing crazy things, make them responsible for their healthcare.

If they wish to partake in dangerous activities, insurance companies will charge them accordingly. People would become better informed, and more careful and whats more, receive the best healthcare available instead of healthcare rationing.

Fashionable non-conformist

"There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist:
the fashionable non-conformist."

Ayn Rand

The Common Good

"The common good of a collective -- a race, a class, a state -- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men.

Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive.

Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism?

Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle?

The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose.

It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men.

Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same.

A humanitarian who starts with the declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it is unselfish.

That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing of themselves. But observe the results."

Ayn Rand

The role of Government

Government is that organization which claims the right to command all individuals to do whatever it desires, and to punish disobedience with loss of property, liberty, and ultimately life. It is nothing more. The fact is not changed by its occasional beneficence. Anderson, Poul

When is a vote not a vote? When it's an AUCTION

This nice chap wrote a letter to the BOP Times complaining about how many letters I have published on the topic of Property Rights.

Here is my Reply


Yes Kevin Newman, property rights do dictate what I have for breakfast. They say I can eat anything I like that belongs to me. Unlike those who do not value their importance and would have a vote on whether they should take 20% of my breakfast or whatever else takes their fancy!

The letters column is 95% full of people demanding a share of one thing or another that belongs to others, and you feel the need to complain about the 5% who point it out! One person opposing the abuse and ignorance of property rights, and it upsets you!

When your grandchildren ask you one day “what are property rights grandad?” perhaps you will reflect on the time you had nothing better to do than complain about one person who campaigned thanklessly to protect your grandchildrens rights to their own property, before you have to look up the meaning of the words in the dictionary in order to answer them. Or will you just say “they are a thing of the past son - Nobody has property rights these days! I don’t know how, but they just slowly disappeared, one at a time, until we had none left! We voted them away, and changed the meaning of words in order to get our hands on other peoples property if we thought we had a better need for it” Now get back in the bread queue!

I see the enemy coming, and I am raising the alarm - but the lure of other peoples money is far more attractive than boring old property rights!

Good luck in the future! - you’ll need it without them!

Tauranga Electical Consumers Trust

Tauranga Electical Consumers Trust

This is the situation


The local power company issued shares to all the people who purchased power from them some years back.

Each year the profits are divided up, and we all get a cheque in the post for about $300
the board of trustees keep 20% of the total profits, and donate them to local charities, which is all very well and good, but recently a bunch of ACT supporters got voted onto the board, and they say that the people should receive 100% of the money, as it is theirs, AND ALL HELL HAS BROKEN LOOSE, with all the charities who receive a handout calling for their blood, and saying that they could not survive without the TECT donations.

TECT have issued a voting paper asking people to:

VOTE BOX A: Stay with the status Quo - that is keep taking 20%

or

VOTE BOX B: Return 100% to thee shareholders

I am quite happy to donate 20%, but that is not the issue.

The vote is WRONG!

They are asking people to vote away the rights of the minority

They are not asking what you wish to do with your cheque, they are asking what you think other people should do with THEIRS.

This is not a VOTE - Its an AUCTION!

Here is my letter on the subject.

*************

I suggest that sooner, rather than later, people start teaching their children and grandchildren about property rights, because by the time they reach adulthood, the way things are going they are going to have very few of them left!

They are in danger of becoming extinct - Just like animals of the past that have been taken for granted while we had them and not protected, property rights are in danger of extinction and cannot survive being abused indefinitely.

Unfortunately there is as much chance of this happening as there is of a Moa turning up and biting my bum, because those who understand the meaning of property rights are almost extinct themselves.

If you think the loss of the Kiwi would be a sorry affair, wait till you lose property rights, and see what your quality of life will be like then!
The pleading and begging of those who stand to lose funding is bad enough, but it doesn't end there! There are those who should know better - businessmen - calling for voters to vote away other peoples right to their own property which is truly shameless.

I do not deny some charities are worthy of the funding, but to achieve something good by doing something BAD first - taking peoples money by FORCE is wrong! - Shame on you for not thinking

If you believe you "are" thinking, then shame on you for chosing to use force upon others to get what you want, and taking their money because you want it!

The voting form is flawed because the TECT charity trustees stand to lose EVERYTHING due to their ignorance of property rights, and if they are as community minded as they say they are, then this has done the community a huge injustice!

In fact it's not a vote - It's an AUCTION of other peoples property

Instead of a majority wins vote, (where the minority have NO RIGHTS), this is how the TECT voting paper should have read:

Do you wish to continue donating 20% to the TECT fund - YES - NO

Do you wish to receive a 100% refund - YES - NO

Do you wish to donate a larger percent of your TECT refund ( Please state Percentage )

If you do not respond to this message, the default is to continue with the 20% donation.

This way nobody is forced to donate anything, however they are given the opportunity to increase their donation, or continue with 20%
With our poor response record to votes, a good number would do nothing, a this makes it easy for TECT to continue to receive DONATIONS (and not resort to robbery)

You want my money then ask me for it - but dont encourage other people to steal it from me! - or don't you care how you come by the money?

For those who need to brush up on property rights I suggest they go to the library and get out one of the biggest-selling novels of all time called Atlas Shrugged.

Do your children and Grandchildren a favour!
Save their property rights now!
Do not vote for A or B

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