One of our reader community recently sent me a link to The Dark Times Academy, so I looked it up.

https://darktimesacademy.co.nz

It is jointly owned by Mandy Henk and Byron Clark, and is a community education project that puts teachers and students of all ages together with courses designed to build, they say, “the kinds of communities that help us get through hard times.”

Well that sounded interesting, so I called Mandy and our chat not only covered why she and Byron started The Dark Times Academy, what it is and what it does, but, because Mandy is American, we wandered off into talking about how it was that Trump got elected for a second term and what that portends for the future of the USA and the World.

Thanks to the generosity of my paid supporters all Head2Head interviews are free to anyone to watch and/or listen to. Please consider supporting my public journalism work by subscribing $9 a month ( including GST) . Thanks.

Blake Forbes has a disability. He has spastic cerebral palsy with mild autism and ADHD, but that hasn’t stopped him running a very effective interview podcast called BFG (short for Blake Forbes Gentle) which he produces with co-host Paul Barlow.

Paul has a media background and, in addition to working with Blake, runs his own podcast show wittily entitled Paul The Other One, for reasons I’ll let him explain.

Blake has become an effective advocate for people with disabilities and at the moment is rightly concerned about the loss of respite funding for care givers.

Kia kaha Blake and Paul .Thank you for a very enjoyable and informative conversation.

If you want to check out Blake’s Channel you can find it here:

https://www.youtube.com/@thebfgpodcast

Paul’s personal channel Paul The Other One is here:

https://www.youtube.com/@Paul...theotherone

He is a former political commentator with a background in media studies and pop culture, and has over 35000 followers of his content from across Aotearoa.

This content is also available in video formats on Tik Tok, YouTube, Facebook and Instagram as well as audio versions from wherever you get your Podcasts.

Thanks to the generosity of my paid subscribers who help fund my Head2Head interviews are free to access. Please consider supporting my public journalism work by becoming a paid subscriber for $9 a month (including GST) as only paid subscribers can comment in the chat room.

I read a Tax Justice Network online report recently that stated New Zealand was one of 8 Countries that had refused to sign up to the United Nations Tax Convention . I thought, What’s that? Why haven’t I heard more about it through our mainstream media ? and Who are the Tax Justice Network anyway?

So I did a bit of research and late one night last week I ended up talking with Sergio Chaparro who is the international policy and advocacy lead for the Tax Justice Network and is based in Chile.

Our conversation ended up being quite detailed so let me give you what I took to be the key points.

The United Nations Tax Convention is largely an attempt to stop Multinational Corporations cheating on their taxes in the countries in which they operate.

The Tax Justice Network is a non- profit organisation that aims to make tax systems work of people and the planet. They believe that taxation is a social superpower that can create a fair and just society.

In its latest report The Tax Justice Network estimates that countries are losing US$492 billion in tax a year to multinational corporations and wealthy individuals who are using tax havens to underpay tax.

Nearly half these losses (43%), they say, are enabled by the eight countries that remain opposed to a UN tax convention: Australia, Canada, Israel, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, the UK and the USA.

Ironically the biggest enablers of global tax abuse are also some of the biggest losers: US$177 billion was lost last year by the 8 countries that recently voted against UN tax convention terms.

They estimate New Zealand lost US$1 billion in tax avoidance and evasion last year!

We are being told we have to pull our economic belt in, and cut back on this or that, while the wealthy hide their money .

Just imagine what we could do with $NZ1.75 Billion? A couple of years of collecting that amount of money from the tax cheats could pay for that new Dunedin Hospital or for those two large interisland ferries with all the associated infrastructure that Nicola Willis said we couldn’t afford and cancelled.

So why didn’t New Zealand sign up? Well the UN Tax Convention is being championed by African and poorer nations. The wealthier OECD countries, of which New Zealand is a member, have come up with what they call the Two Pillar solution to tax cheating.

It's a softer approach to the issue and it’s not working .The Trump administration doesn’t want a bar of it and the UK, who are the worst offenders, certainly don’t want us voting for the UN Tax Convention.

Given our current government’s right wing determination to pander to the wealthy, then I think you can understand why our government voted against what would deliver a fairer distribution of wealth both nationally and internationally.

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PS. Just as an aside I asked Sergio about Capital Gains Tax in Chile and Colombia. Chile has Capital Gains on house sales and Colombia, in addition, has a Wealth Tax.

If they can do it- so can we.