The Guaranteed Basic Income Co-operative approach, which is my main background in community organization, is about directly empowering residents in co-operative solutions without politics. The Earthquake showed that communities pull together naturally when this happens.

But at the moment we have politics. One reflection of this, is that when people are asked about local body elections, by and large, most people know next to nothing about what it's all about, and around 60% of people don't even bother voting.

So there is something fundamentally wrong with the whole approach!

I am standing in order to promote the creation of new powers and for those to be given directly to the people, enabling greater co-operative approaches to be applied via increased participation of self-organising by people in all spheres of activity. Primarily this involves creating a Guaranteed Basic Income to all the residents in the local body area, this being paid directly to all residents - paid for not by taxes or rates, but by the proportion of wealth that has already been created as represented by the last annual accounting cycle but which is above the amount that was earnt in that same period. This is distributed to all residents in the form of Credit, so it doesn't have to be paid back instead of being distributed by privately created debt money with interest as is the current situation.

 

When Debt is paid off with Debt, we just end up with more Debt and inevitably more politics. When our just Debts start being paid off with Credit instead, people will be more involved with local govt because they will be self organising with their communities alot more.

A couple of years ago, the world was 52 Trillion in debt to the private banking system, and this was before the recent unprecedented global bale-outs of banks and financial institutions of the last few years. Who knows what the amount  of Debt has escalated to now! And if you know this, then you will know what sector of society will end up owning the re-building of Chch and who will have to bear the cost, on top of all the other increasing costs people are having to cope with.

 

SO for something new, logical, and non-political, please consider my candidacy for the Shirley-Papanui Community Board and we can start creating local govt. democracy in our day to day lives.

 

see: www.gbi-coops.org.nz

for more details.

Top 5 Issues

1. Participation of People
2. Empowering people
3. Public infrastructure
4. Community co-operatives
5. Community Currencies

Personal Profile

Student finishing off a computer qualification.

Have varied education qualificational and work back ground, everything from physics to dishwashing.

Am in my early 30s.