Neo liberal economics, turned loose on New Zealand by Roger Douglas and Labour in 1985 (and still adhered to by both Labour and National today) has failed. The results speak for themselves - hundreds sleeping on the streets, in cars, in sheds and garages, hundreds more living in taxpayer funded motel units because they have no homes, full time workers unable to afford their rent, a health system in crisis, inequality at its highest level ever, roads, sewage systems, water supply and other infrastructure in disrepair, our "clean green" country under threat.
We need an economic system that works for people and the country, not for a favoured few. Such a system exists. It's called Social Credit. It has been tried before in New Zealand and other places and worked brilliantly. It is being increasingly talked about internationally. It could work for us again.
"Funny Money", once used in a derogatory way to describe Social Credit, is a term that would best describe the stupidity of our government borrowing the money it needs from private financial institutions when it could borrow from the country's central bank (the Reserve Bank), which it owns.
This means that $4,500,000,000 of taxpayer money every year goes to pay interest when it could go towards things that benefit Kiwis.
Social Credit is committed to fixing that, and putting in place a financial system that works for New Zealanders.
Imagine if the government could create all the money that is needed.
“Our own history offers us one of the most important instances of this being done. In the 1930s in the middle of the Great Depression, the great Labour Prime Minister Michael Joseph Savage authorised the creation of new money so that thousands of new state houses could be built, thereby providing jobs for the unemployed and homes for the homeless and – incidentally – an income-producing asset for the government."
Quote from Brian Gould, “Creating Money for the Good of the Country”.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/thecountry/news/article.cfm?c_id=16&objectid=12006636
Chris Leitch is Leader of the Social Credit Party and its finance spokesperson.
Has been a campaigner for monetary reform since 1972.
He stood as candidate in Whangarei in 1984 and 1987.
He became the Party’s National President in 1989.
After his party joined the Alliance, he became the first ever Alliance Candidate to stand for parliament – in the Tamaki by-election in 1992 after Rob Muldoon stood down, coming in second. He and the team reduced an 8,500 majority down to just 1,200.
Elected to the Auckland Regional Services Trust in 1992, Chris fought efforts by the government to force the Trust to privatise and was successful in keeping revenue-earning assets in public ownership.
Elected to the Waitemata Electricity Trust, Chris helped resist attempts by a foreign company to get full ownership and asset strip the company.
He has served as Board Chairman of the Whangarei Youth Centre, and the Onerahi Primary School.
He has been deputy leader of the party for two periods, once commencing in 1993, and again in 2014.
He was elected leader last month.
Social Credit’s web site is http://www.socialcredit.nz
Crime and family breakdown is seen as Gross Domestic Product
Household and volunteer work is seen as Gross Domestic Product
Pollution and its consequences is seen as Gross Domestic Product
Long term environmental damage is seen as Gross Domestic Product
Even War goes through the books as Gross Domestic Product!
So all of the above, don’t really benefit society at all - as they are all major losses yet, Governments globally have always classified these as a measure of economic growth!
In this interview which becomes quite riveting in the end - Dr Coleman talks of the challenges of putting GPI in place within the government economic apparatus. That prior to the 3 term National Party Key administration, that Labour Minister of Finance Michael Cullen was very interested in this concept - but Labour was voted out of office - and he was not able to follow through in taking this forward.
But in the meantime these losses are costing society and the country dearly!
Genuine Progress indicators is a ‘holistic’ way of seeing a more integrated bigger economic picture, that factors in the environment, as well as the community as a whole.
Holism
A holistic way is to view all the various facets to life in a more homeostatic way. As in a integrated whole of interconnection and interrelationships. In this interview he mentions that when he engaged the leaders of the NZ Maori Party they instantly and intuitively grokked his reasoning as applying to our planet - Papatuanku as alive - or the earth acting as one great superorganism.
This was then extended to the Whanganui river being classified recently by the NZ Government as a living entity that has a vast catchment area of some 7,000 square kilometres. - The next question is, do we have the will to see the far larger picture as we further our knowledge of the interconnection of life. (James Cameron in the blockbuster movie Avatar, introduced the moon Pandora as a living being and that all the tree roots interconnected in one vast - neural network). See the Gaia Hypothesis - James Lovelock
One of the larger challenges is that both in business and in Government there is compartmentalisation. Where there is very little to no ‘cross fertilisation’ or sharing - people are often in positions of ‘need to no only’ so they only understand a very limited perspective of how the whole organism/organisation works. That the company or the Department is not acting as a ‘dynamic whole’ and thus efficiencies as well as enthusiastic participation - is throttled back. When in a very connected electronic world - the imperative is energetic team spirit, that on a grander scale then spontaneously engenders novelty and innovation.
Bhutan
This subject came out of the blue in that I was wanting to see what country was further along the ‘conscious journey’ of seeing the world in a more futuristic and caring perspective. So knowing that Bhutan was a country that had a ‘happiness’ indicator I threw in a the comment - what about Bhutan?
Well Ron came back to me and said he had lived there for 5 years - and so could tell us far more than virtually anyone in the West has heard.
He said that they had a fairly enlightened King who wanted to gauge the feelings of the mainly Buddhist inhabitants of that small kingdom. With initiating a Gross National Happiness (GNH) goal.
What comes out of this discussion is that the Bhutan government wanted to float this idea through the UN so that other countries could participate. When this happened - and though a lot of countries thought this was a good idea, there was pushback especially as this would have had to deal straight at face value - with other countries poverty and all the other contingencies like clean air, water, land and food production, housing, education and health. You name it.
Synchronicity with what’s happening in New Zealand
Fortunately, this goal is still alive and well today and the present NZ government is putting a lot of attention into it..
The Government's plan to announce the world's first "wellbeing" Budget next year resonates with business people if a big Waikato Inc turnout to hear Finance Minister Grant Robertson is any gauge. NZ Herald 10th July 2018
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12086507
Then Ron takes his attention to what’s happening in the biosphere and the overlapping challenges and tipping points as to what we as a humanity are doing to our planetary ‘life support system’.
Bangkok under water by 2033, which I question him about - because Al Gore said that the Arctic would be ice free in summer by 2013, and it has not happened. Yet, the warming continues - see the temperatures in Europe over the last month.
Shift in planetary consciousness -
The interview moves on to talk about planetary leadership and there is a vast vacuum in all governments globally. The fact that people are rebelling against neoliberalism and the status quo and that of the whole Brexit domino situation etc etc. Listen
Empowering Youth and Women
There is an acute need for empowering of the worlds youth and especially woman (and their reproductive rights) - to nurture their/our common future. Plus, for them (that in this somewhat tumultuous world) to be in a healthy position to make this change possible. This is an area that we all intuitively know that as a human society, we need to engage in - and urgently.
Though we still have to trust that the top down model of leadership ‘may’ engage the population with an enlightened approach - the thrust of this whole interview is about grassroots movements. An energised bottom-up regeneration and metamorphosis movement. This interview carried on to include many small towns, villages and regions in NZ consciously coming together as small focussed communities. See main page GreenplanetFM.com
These are about farmers markets acting as a catalyst to bring the community closer together so as to have access to cheaper, healthier organic food as well as to network together plus organising a of time banks. Especially that volunteerism can be rewarded by time bank credits.
Other Initiatives
In Auckland the Manukau District Health Board now has worked alongside the championing of 70 community gardens in the area. The benefits are many, and this can only encourage the community to healthily become more engaged and connected.
This was a very lively and empowering interview. We both came away ‘happy and empowered.’
This subject of the horrors of child abuse has not been covered by GreenplanetFM, as this program is basically premised on environment, health and consciousness.
However a ‘chance’ meeting of Ludovic C. M. Romany the author of the book ‘Innocence’ shifted my perspective so as to tell the NZ public that there is a major problem ‘lurking’ under the radar across this most fortunate yet unknowing nation.
With challenges coming to us daily via the worlds media - Child abuse - is an overwhelming subject and when we are bombarded with all the other horrors that the world media-corporations seem to hurl at us, I felt to go more public on this important issue.
When a baby is born into the world, we at heart, want that baby to be loved and cherished, to be wanted, by both its mother and father - however if this baby is unwanted and is instantly perceived as a burden - this can become hell on earth for this newborn. This in essence - is the story of Wi.
However there is a happy ending to this interview of Wi, coming through this harrowing journey in his 47th year - he is healing a broken heart and a shattered upbringing. This allows us the public to realise that we can always in the end, save the day. That against the odds, we can all come out - ‘sunny side up’
A profound account of how a little boy can come through this saga and still carry love in his heart gives us hope for all children who may have been born into a world of abandonment and suffering.
REVIEW
Jim & Helen Moriarty
In one solid committed sit down, I was able to ingest the weight, the daunting but inspiring tasks of opening myself to the Mauri of Innocence.
Innocence without question is a testament to the mana, the resilience, the survival of Wi Peepe in post-colonial New Zealand, against a backdrop of an upbringing, that defies belief. A New Zealand where the horror of Wi’s childhood, the guilt and blame is attributed to none other than the monster, the demonic force that is his father. So graphically detailed and truthfully portrayed.
This is a harrowing, yet ironically beautiful account of Wi’s deep connection to his wairua, and emancipation from a life that leaves many dead in its wake. That the occasional right kind word and action, amidst his nightmare existence coupled with a deep knowing of the healing, found in the constant of the river and nature, were enough to feed the soul of a child. A child who fought the complexities and distortions of those around him, themselves products of post-colonial alienation and cultural disenfranchisement….It is a window into Wi’s determination to fix the things himself and be accountable, into societies shifting lens around the intolerable, and at times over zealous reporting and response to family violence and harm. ‘Thank God for that.’
In the end, it is about Wi’s purotu, the magic within, that never deserts him. That equips him along the way, that is part of his whakapapa, that is recognised and supported by others, who could see beyond the battered exterior into Wi’s loving sacred self.
Thankyou Wi and to your whanau for letting us in.
Nga mihi aroha ki a koutou katoa.
Jim and Helen Moriarty
Though overstated, it has also given New Zealander’s a wake up call - as to what do we want for our families and particularly our children in our country so as to make our communities more resilient, and viable, but more so - economically, more friendly, as well.
Towns, Villages and City Suburbs are becoming closer and safer.
From ‘transition everything’ to, farmers markets, time banks, permaculture, holistic health, homeschooling, garage sales, and food buying co-ops - Communities are realising that localising as much as possible especially around food, learning and backyard growing activities …. Is making small towns, city suburbs and small rural villages far more cohesive and enjoyable. People are discovering their neighbours and creating deep connection and relationships.
It’s about innovation and integration of small business modals and setting the template for a regenerative 21st Century where families and communities can thrive together.