“Funny how this daft bat blames South Aucklanders for stealing when she is part of an outfit that is about to steal people's homes. I wonder if the irony of that ever occurred to her.”
- Little Green Man
UPDATE: And this, from commenter Buggerlugs at Kiwiblog is very good too, in response to Lee's "... it will stop criminals from South Auckland coming into the suburb to commit crimes . . . "
as opposed to the criminals currently living in Mt Albert? Oh, that’s right…one of them has already shifted out. To New York apparently.Keep those quotes coming in.
12 comments:
Perhaps Miss Lee could have South Aucklanders issued with Visas to enter Mt Albert like peasants have to have to enter the financial district of Shanghai.
If they get paid for the houses, then it's not strictly stealing. Taxing them to pay millions of dollars for a by-election that was engineered and planned by the previous MP before the general election last year is another matter though...
"If they get paid for the houses, then it's not strictly stealing."
If they do not consent to the transaction, then it IS stealing.
The only difference is that the government is trying to legitimise the theft by handing over the cash. Paying the owner of the house doesn't make theft a legitimate purchase, only the consent of the owner does that!
TWR said: "Not strictly stealing??? Dictionary says "Stealing...transitive and intransitive verb to take something that belongs to somebody else, illegally or without the owner's permission." Doesn't change because someone will pay money with a gun to your head!
"If they get paid for the houses, then it's not strictly stealing"
Well, that's just not true. As Ross Brader's Real Estate Blog summarises it:
"If your property is required for the project the NZTA will negotiate with you on a willing-buyer, willing-seller basis to purchase your property at market value. . . Compensation for directly affected landowners and occupiers will be provided under the Public Works Act."
And if you aren't a willing seller? If you don't want to sell, and no amount of money can make you? Then if you still view your home as (to quote a phrase) your castle, from which you don't wish to be moved -- " You can't buy what I've got," says Darry Kerrigan in the film 'The Castle' -- then under the Public Works Act you'll get the order to evict. Move along, get along, go, move, shift.
It's not good enough. The government is supposed to protect property rights, not do them over.
And there's no reason it can't all be done voluntarily. Simply buy up options from those who are willing sellers along alternative routes, and when one of those routes becomes live then 'bingo,' off you go. Your new route acquired peacefully, instead of with jackboots.
This method was used in both Britain and the US in the 19th Century to peacefully acquire routes for railways. It was used in 1950s NZ to peacefully acquire routes for the Kapuni pipeline. It was used in Melbourne to acquire the land for the private City Link. And it was even used here in Auckland recently to acquire land for the Mt Roskill extension, and for the Manukau one just being started.
So it's not lack of ability that is the barrier to building motorways peacefully, and without theft, it's lack of interest in the rights of property owners.
Time to call for repeal of the Public Works Act.
Peter, that was clearly and concisely put. It deserves to be a post in itself, for the general information of all the collectivists.
By their own rhetoric, it'll be news to most of them, if not all.
The problem with acquiring the houses voluntarily is that house-owners can demand exorbitant sums once they figure out what the land is going to be purchased for.
If the government has already purchased every house they need but one, that last house-owner can hold up the entire project by refusing to sell unless he is paid some arbitrarily large sum.
Which is the point of buying options along several alternative routes: options that are triggered when the route becomes "live."
This actually puts pressure on "hold-outs" on each route -- pressure from their own neighbours who are keen to sell and who want "their" route chosen so they can get the "windfall."
That's pressure in the sense of persuasion, not in the sense of force.
Like I said on another thread, if even the French can understand this, then surely we can. ;^)
BTW, if you're having trouble seeing the difference between persuasion and force, then see if this helps.
Just for the record, I didn't say I thought it was the right thing to do, I just didn't think stealing was exactly the right word for it, as it implied that they weren't compensated at all. I do appreciate the validity of all the counter arguments that have been put forward though.
PC: Are there any realistic alternative routes?
"Are there any realistic alternative routes?Scott will know more than I, but as I understand it there were at least three alternatives somewhat similar to this route that were considered by Transit this time, another version promoted by John Boscawen, and yet another version through the inaccurately named Rosebank Rd that is favoured by the Herald.
Fuck paying these helen-voting bludgers anything at all for their hovels.
Let's get some armoured D9s, and send them down a route 8 or 10 lanes wide. That'll teach 'em for voting Labour!
And while we're at it, let's cancel all the stupidly-expensive tunnels, do the whole thing on the flat, and make sure we can toll the rest of the "motorway" system at the same time.
These bludgers think they have rights?
Well they don't!
I mean, this is Mt Albert- as Lee reminds us, next door to St Auckland - not fucking Remuera or St Mary's bay! Send in the Killdozers!
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