open occupation

Giving John Banks the message33 & 59 Beresford Street, Ex-pensioner houses, Open Occupation. Auckland is under a housing crisis, but the housing crisis is not something that affects the well to do, but affects students, the unemployed and pensioners. John Banks has no solution to this crisis, in fact he is hellbent on privatising low-income homes or simply bulldozing them and replacing them with apartments for the upper crust of Auckland. Banks and his Council don’t seem to give a damn about either tenants or ratepayers (owners of public assets) and what we want done with these houses. Banks is happy to sell these homes off to investors or to simply have it turned into yuppie apartments so the poor of Auckland are forced to move further from the central city making it more viable for the rich. This is why we, the working class citizens of Auckland are taking direct action to let Banks and his minority upper class support know that we have had enough of being able to start our own homes. PLEASE SUPPORT THE OCCUPATION.

The occupation hardcore was made up of commies, C.W.Y.A.O. and local Iwi and residents. The occupation ended the next day and most participants ended up at the second meeting of the John Banks council. Which was subsequently cancelled due to unforeseen direct democracy eg: the council chambers were filled with pissed off people protesting by holding placards. The issues involved were: no aerial spraying; against censorship of Ike Finau; against water privatisation; pensioner housing; and against privatisation of public assets. As a reaction against Banksian despotism, moderates (together with some radicals) have launched a coalition & lobby group with the patronising name “Wake Up Auckland”.The only known photo of the elusive Te Aro Biotic Baking Brigade This is mainly made up of GE FREE NZ members, well known for their “confrontational” slogans like “keep it in the labs” (sic!), although it also contains some more radical groups like Water Pressure and the Council Housing Action Group. Wake Up Auckland are mostly liberals whose concept of protest equates to a slap in the face of the capitalist class with a soggy popularist media savvy. The next council meeting however saw the moderates take a back seat and the radicals stand up. After interjections and several awkward questions to Mayor 18% Banks, members of Water Pressure, C.W.Y.A.O. and a S.W.O. member were assaulted by security guards and handed over to the police. No charges were made, and the 17 were held for a couple of hours and released. We are now pursuing police complaints but since we are “complaining” to the same state organ that did the injustice to us in the first place we don’t hold out any illusion that justice will be done. Banks has now reinstated the submission section of the council meetings and also catered for the large crowds that now attend meetings. We don’t accept this as anything but token gestures as the council still holds most of their meetings in secret because of “commercial sensitivity!” In the time Banks has been in power he has complained of being constantly seig hailed on the street, receiving hate mail and being sexually assaulted in a public toilet, all of which he blames on protestors!

– Anthony (taken from http://free.freespeech.org/thrall/)

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