online poll | your say on the unit titles bill

ONLINE POLL Have your say on the Unit Titles Bill. Vote on the planned legislation or preview the results here. Let others know about this online poll by clicking on the email link here or below. This independent poll will stay open for 30 days. powered by avaiki - your worlds most transparent companies ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I would be much more certain on voting if I had access to the proposed legislation. Is the anywhere on-line where one can see a copy

Anonymous said...

This petition is clearly inspired by Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt (FUD). The Unit Titles they are talking about are leases, not freehold, and will enable meaningful investment and create wealth in the Cook Islands despite high levels of country specific political and economic risk.

A Select Commitee went to all the islands to take submissions on the bill. To bad these naysayers and negative people didn't say anything until Government spent all that time and money with public consultations to change the bill to protect the Cook Islands interests.

I think the bill (as it now stands with amendments) is probably the most visionary and bold piece of legislation we have seen in a long time.

Avaiki Nius said...

avaiki responds: unfortunately requests for digital copies of the bill to post online have not been answered by Crown Law or other agencies, including the bill's promoters, Tepaki Group. If the bill is as visionary as anonymous FUD suggests, it seems strange no one will release a copy of it - or indeed, in thise case, put their name to support for the bill.

Anonymous said...

Why not pop down the road and pick up a hard copy of the bill and put it online for us? Why is everyone so negative these days?

Avaiki Nius said...

avaiki responds: what a good idea. Thereby avoiding the whole point, which is that government should be making digital copies freely available online, especially since its already public in hard copy. This is the third millennium. Digital copies are now considered normal in most places. If this was picked up here, then no time would be wasted scanning in the bill, page by page, to produce a digital copy already in existence. Bonus: anonymous commentators would not have to waste time worrying about rising levels of negativity. Not that avaiki sees anything negative in robust public debate.

Anonymous said...

I went and got a copy of the proposed Act and studied it which I felt I had to do before I made comment on it. I cannot find the clauses that would deny me as a landowner my rights as they are today. Can the proponents of the petition please point me to where it takes away my rights as a landowner. The only difference in the way things are today and after the unit titles act is that a secondary market is able to be created. Again only if I the landower agree to it - and I don't have to. If my lease says that at the end of 60 yers I get land and improvements back then thats what I get. I don't have to pay for anything that was put on the property - it is just the same as it is now.

Anonymous said...

I have to agree. I am not a lawyer, but I have spent a lot of time reading it and asking questions. I think the Act is creating a lot of extra rights for landowners .. and with the extra money we can invest in improving our lands and everything will be owned by us at the end of the lease. It is wonderful!!!!

Anonymous said...

i am against the bill. I don't know why people associate the benefits in terms of $$$. if anything the financial benefits will only be for a very few. there is no limit set on development on rarotonga. if anything it encourages more. is this what is best for Rarotongans - I don't think so? wake up the bill was designed for the investor. we already have a lease system in place. shouldn't we fix that!

Anonymous said...

The petition is a product of ignorance and envy - people trying to make mischief. People should be allowed to develop their family lands. Unit titles is just one way.

Anonymous said...

I disagree that landowners should be left to develop their own lands why, because I also am a landowner, from Aitutaki and Rarotonga to be exact. Sell my lands and Im left with no heritage, nothing to fall onto and be proud of. What is going on...even we are that desperate for financial stability we cant be that ignorant on what is important and valued in our island culture, untouched environment and future.

Anonymous said...

A lot of people here do not understand that the Unit Title is a lease. Our land can never be sold!

Who is out there misleading the people? We are only here for a short while, and when we die all we leave is our land. We cannot leave our land as weeds and dust, we must use the tenants money to improve it and put it to good use.

Are we like the lazy servant who hid his coin in a hole while the others put their coins to good use?

Anonymous said...

Many third world nations have an easy laid back lifestyle that tourists (particularly backpackers love) but why should we be like that?

To get quality tourists that spend and tip generously (not low end quantity tourists like backpackers like we have now that cause the strain on our infrastructure) we need to invest in our land and our infrastructure. All most of us can afford to do now is run backpacker hostels.

The Unit Title is the best way for this to happen. The foreign investor buy a lease, pay for the improvements and the infrastructure to attract the high end tourists, pays the rent to the landowner and training and money and tips to the staff, and at the end we get it all back.

There is too much FUD at the moment. What if this? What if that? We have an environment authority and the unit title will be controlled.

Anonymous said...

Guys,
You all seem to be intelligent people and seem to have read the bill in depth. I have only read the bill summary and boy did I have to read it over and over for it to make some sense. I doubt if your average Rarotongan can make head or tails of it? But thats the whole idea I suppose? What really concerns me is that a small group of individuals were able to exert such influence on the Government yet a multi-tude of concerned citizens were all but ignored? We all want to progress financially however many of our people don't have the knowledge, education and discipline to live the life style this new found highway to wealth poses. Many of our people love to party hard but not work hard and they can do so in the current environment. But bring in development and high end tourism ...soon the goverment will be building concentrated slums to hide away the undesirables. Poverty will be a reality. I am deeply concerned about the integrity of Government!!