Hong Kong

Len Brown’s vision for Papakura? Is this affordable housing Labour style?

Images of Hong Kong ‘living cubicles’ that look just like Borg cubes.

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Wharfies in Hong Kong are striking for a 17% pay rise. They make the POAL wharfies look reasonable…until you look at their pay rates.

They want their daily rate raised to HK$1600 or $246 per day…their monthly salary is reported as HKS21,000 or $3234 meaning they earn HK$252000 per annum or $38,798.  Read more »

This, from a piece in the NBR yesterday (behind paywall)

NBR Online asked Mr Dotcom why he put one of his Hong Kong companies in charge of Megabox.

“It involves some US artists as potential shareholders and they want a more tax-friendly jurisdiction. That’s why we looked at Hong Kong and Singapore,” he replied.

That sounds dodgy to me, and indeed the NBR consulted their own tax expert on the issue.   Read more »

Hong Kong is recruiting teachers from New Zealand. Any union flunkies popping off over there looking for a quick buck should be warned there are no uppity unions causing problems over there. In fact if you decided to vociferously oppose government education policy it is likely you’ll be on the next plane home if you are a foreigner or a nice trip to a holiday education camp near the Siberian border if a local.

I suspect though, that the ones applying for the job will be the best we have, while the union indoctrinated chaff will remain to brainwash our children.

Hong Kong is trying to lure Kiwi teachers with offers of up to $100,000 a year for teaching English.

The recruitment drive, to attract at least 40 secondary and primary teachers from New Zealand and Australia, comes as Education Ministry-contracted seminars are advising graduate teachers that only 20 per cent of them will get jobs.

Victoria University teaching students were shocked to be told last month it would be better to head offshore than give up teaching altogether.

Diane Jacoutot, whose recruitment company Teachanywhere has been contracted to run Hong Kong’s recruitment drive, said the city was the ideal place to cater for those teachers.

Aside from housing allowances, shipping and flights, medical insurance, and end-of-contract gratuity payments, the Education Bureau offered monthly salaries of between NZ$3500 and NZ$7200 for primary teachers, and between $3700 and $8500 for secondary.

The former British colony placed importance on children growing up in a bilingual environment, she said. So New Zealand’s bilingual culture and its “broader outlook of the world” were perfect for what the Hong Kong government was trying to achieve.

The South China Morning Post is running a poll “Are mainland Chinese people still welcome in Hong Kong?”

It looks like even in Hong Kong they don’t like chows moving in. Shades of Crafar Farms in Hong Kong?

I was perplexed by the numbers so I gave gave Cactus a call to translate.

Yes = Need desperately to move my overpriced luxury apartment up The Peak, so welcome anyone with coin.

No = They take my minimum minimum wage sweat shop job, like f*ck I want them here.

Some are, Some not = Burgeoning middle classes who are trying hard to say we want the rich ones only, and the poor can FRO.

48h in Hong-Kong, ’12 from Claire&Max on Vimeo.

Cactus Kate sent me this yesterday at lunchtime as she was flicking through the only newspaper in Hong Kong she can understand.

The only question in New Zealand would be which feminist would turn up first on Campbell Live calling for a boycott of the product?

Cactus explained in Hong Kong that women from upper and middle class families are forbidden heavily discouraged by their family to marry men who cannot afford to keep them in the style they have become accustomed to as acceptable by their father.  So the text will not be viewed as offensive.

Cactus Kate has been doing some investigation into housing arrangements for our top diplomat in Hong Kong. She OIA’d Murray McCully’s office for the details only to be fobbed off.

McCully claims commercial sensitivity for not releasing how much this rent costs. But as you can see on google it doesn’t matter. The answer is a shit load and it would make most New Zealanders, even those in the 1% blush.

I don’t know anyone in Hong Kong, even wealthy clients who pay this much rent.

The brilliance of McCully lies in the last paragraph. He knows the answer looks ugly if he gave you the number, he’s taunted you by not giving it to you as he hides behind the skirt of a strict interpretation of the law and possible scenario. But then for those charmable bimbos or men in awe of the McCully, he makes it sound like he’s actually listened to you and is concerned about the answer that he cannot give you.

Masterful.

The problem for McCully is that by now not giving me the answer I can tell the story based on the numbers I have dug up and call it New Zealand’s most expensive rental from probably one of the best diplomatic troughs around these days Hong Kong and China.

If I was actually a journalist and not a blogger, I would have the time to now follow up precisely the value of renting a “flat” that even the richest New Zealanders would not be able to afford (we are talking ball park Hong Kong current market value of NZ$40,000 per month here so NZ$480,000 p.a) and whether New Zealand through its former nice but average and new Consulate-General are using the expenditure to provide the sort of return it would need to justify investment in a city such as Hong Kong which is increasingly becoming critical along with China to the success of the New Zealand economy.

I could also call the real estate firm renting out the above apartments in the same building and find out from them what House 2, Duplex 1A is renting for. It would not take much to get the estimate from the agent based on the big mouths in the industry.

It is time McCully asked his charges just what New Zealand taxpayers are paying for and the return on this astronomical expenditure. How are the KPI’s going and how deep has the diplomatic trough here become.

Phil Goff may also like to ask the question, problem is in 2005 he was the Minister in charge and probably started the rorting himself and if made Ambassador to China basing himself in Hong Kong and taking over this relative palace may be part of the grand plan.

McCully should have made up a figure, any figure and given it out. I doubt Cactus would have pursued it then, she would have looked at the number, thought that it sounded about right and forgotten about it. Instead McCully ducked for cover and skirted the details and tried to hide under the little fib about confidentiality without actually understanding the mind of a Chinese landlord wanting to skite to his pals that he has a long term government tenant pouring cash into his coffers.

via Boing Boing

I am reliably informed by my Hong Kong correspondent that this is usual in Hong Kong aas well.

Cactus Kate shows us via Twitter how market forces and risk and reward works in one short tweet.

Discuss the merits of this case.