The MPs who voted against Warrants of Fitness for all rental properties

1. Dr Jonathan Coleman, GP and THE Minister of Health, what a surprise. Of course he would vote against heathier homes!

   The National Party are full of shit!

   • @XRAY –

     Yes, no surprises there!

     And the irony here is that we fools keep paying the shit to keep shitting on us!

     What are we to do to get rid of this bunch sewer rats contaminating NZ? Nothing seems to taint the toxic scum!

2. Yep- same old hall of infamy names just keep cropping up , don’t they….

3. “It seems Conservative Compassion disappears when it might target landlords.”

   Absolutely Martyn.

   And business too.

   Poor ol’ Mr Montgomery Burns knows how to be compassionate, right?

   Yeah, right!

4. Surprised at Maggie Barry , thought she was made of better stuff,but no,conned by Key just like all the others.Shame on the lot of them.

   • She is a willing accomplice, not tricked into it at all.

   • Yes, we all used to know Maggie Barry as that nice lady off the telly. Now she’s a spiteful, acid-tongued harpy working for the Misery Machine. Ask Bomber, or Laila Harre, what a charming soul she is in person. I’m sure they’ll tell you all about it.

5. Should have read the front page befor Posting a comment over in ‘Open Mic’ on this very subject,

   Coming from the poor side of the street i am going to do a little ‘rowing against the stream’ when it comes to Warrant of Fitness’s for rental properties,

   HousingNZ by re-insulating and installing heat pumps in the lounge of all their properties have effectively met what is being proposed as far as such a warrant of fitness is concerned,

   As the Coroner pointed out in findings on the death of wee Emma-Lita Bourne it was Emma-Lita’s mums lack of ability to use the heating device provided for any length of time that would have made a material difference to Emma-Lita’s health that He seen as the material contribution to Emma-Lita’s death,(RIP Emma-Lita),

   That inability to use the heating device provided by HousingNZ was purely brought about by lack of income,

   The Facts: of 30 OECD countries only Turkey rates worse than New Zealand in child health and safety rankings,

   In 2011, so put a large Addition sign when we consider the year is now 2015, 25,000 children were admitted to Hospital with respiratory disease,

   Remember when considering the cost to the health system that each of those kids, and i would suggest 1000’s upon 1000’s of other kids have made multiple visits to their doctors with the same respiratory ailments and thus 25,000 hospitalizations are only the glaring tip of a huge ice berg,

   The cost of treating one of those kids in hospital for one day is $1200 and i would have to hazard a guess as to the average number of days each admission spends being treated,(4–5 days),

   Now, we can demand that rental houses be treble insulated,(most HousingNZ ones are now double insulated in the ceiling cavity), quad-treble glazed with 6 heat pumps in every room and such will make NO material difference to the health outcomes of the children living there if they cannot afford to heat them,

   Such houses will simply be well insulated, triple glazed breeding grounds for respiratory diseases with the codicil that those owned by the private landlords will cost the already poor residents more to rent,

   While i totally agree that all Homes should meet minimum standards, the idea that such a warrant of fitness for rental property will produce any markedly better outcomes for the health of the tenants is in my view spurious rubbish,

   Could the life of baby Emma-Lita have been saved by a warrant of fitness sticker on her HousingNZ Home, NO!,

   As i said you can insulate a house to kingdom come, triple glaze the windows and provide a heat pump in every room and it WILL STILL be a cold damp breeding ground for respiratory disease if the tenant does not have the financial means to heat that Home,

   Befor we get to spending millions of dollars on spurious warrant of fitness examinations of rental property what we need do is ensure that any child,(or adult for that matter) with respiratory disease, has the financial ability to do the one thing that is shown to prevent respiratory disease from becoming a matter of hospitalization, repeat visits to
   doctors, or death,

   That being the financial ability to provide the necessary home heating,

   It would be a simple matter to give every doctor the ability when presented with the early symptoms of respiratory diseases to simply issue WINZ with a prescription for X amount of weeks/months where WINZ would then pay the difference in electricity charges between an unheated and a heated Home for all such prescriptions presented,

   An insulated Home, without the benefit of affordable heat, will in the colder months be just as cold as the ambient temperature outside that Home, insulation DOES NOT heat homes,

   The temperature inside my insulated HousingNZ Home at 11.30 this morning was 10.1 degrees, at which point i opened the front door, the temperature of that same Home at 12 noon was then 11.4 degrees,

   Do you see my point, the night time temperature of my insulated house remained the same until i exposed it to a greater temperature than that nighttime temperature and insulation helped keep that night-time temperature even tho the outside temperature was 1.3 degrees above the inside temperature of my home…

   • Well I dunno , mate….fact is….so many of these Auckland so – called rental properties I wouldn’t want my dog staying in.

     They are that appalling.

     All jokes aside….for the colossal amount these sharks are asking for some of the most squalid looking dives and slums….they really need an authority to look into them .

     It just isn’t on.

     And if its good enough to have a warrant of cleanliness for these fast food takeaway joints and restaurants to ensure basic health standards , free from infestations of cockroaches – its good enough if you want to make a buck out of this overheated artificial speculators market that you damn well have to comply with some basic hygiene and insulation issues.

     The last bloody place I lived in in Hamilton crawled with bloody cockroaches…and not just the bush ones either – and most of them around a bloody inch long.

     And if as you say a family cant afford the damn heating during these bitterly cold wet winters we have – then that is yet a further indictment against the neo liberal so – called ‘ rockstar economy ‘.

     If you want to make a quid out of a housing shortage then you damn well SHOULD have to comply with regulatory standards.

     This isn’t the bloody third world – so why should people have eat this sort of shit all the time.

     Fair sick of it.

     • Thanks for the ummm, ’emotion’ Wild Katipo, my whole point is that a warrant of fitness for rental housing will do little to reduce the instances of children with respiratory diseases as insulation does not in itself provide any heating in the Home,

       The temperature here at ‘the Mansion’, a 1940’s State House, is currently 10.4 degrees C and i would expect it to drop to single digits during the night,

       Having read the full news article Martyn provided with this Post i am of the opinion that more of the fault for baby Emma-Lita’s death probably lies at the feet of the usual suspects, WINZ,

       Without knowing just what Emma-Lita’s mum was told by the family Doctor, who may also have to shoulder some of the blame if blame is to be apportioned, it appears that Emma-Lita’s mum had received the usual lack of information from WINZ as to exactly what Her entitlements were,

       As there was a prior diagnosis of a respiratory disease for at least one of the other children in this family from a Doctor, who may have also been the victim of a lack of information from WINZ this is a death that should be investigated by at least a Government select committee,

       after my first comment above i continued my digging and came across this from the Ministry of Social Development,

       http://www.msd.govt.nz>…>Publications&Resources>Brochures

       ”Disability Allowance”…
       ”This allowance can help with extra costs that you, your partner, or child may have because of a disability. It can help pay for things like regular visits to the doctor, medicines, or, extra heating for your home”, unquote.

       So, in theory baby Emma-Lita and her brother also suffering respiratory disease were entitled to $180 a month through this disability allowance for home heating, and, those who withheld such knowledge of this from baby Emma-Lita’s mum whether that withholding of knowledge was the fault of the family doctor, WINZ, or both, have to carry with them the culpability of that child’s death,

       Now if the Prime Minister cares enough about rheumatism enough to have issued specific instructions to HousingNZ about the needs of families where that particular respiratory disease is present then i suggest that He Wake The Fuck Up and ensure that ALL families with such respiratory diseases and their Doctors are fully aware of the entitlements available and that WINZ pays such entitlements upon receiving notification from a Doctor that such payment is necessary….

       • Hop over to Frank Mackasy’s post….you will see just what we are all talking about, mate.

         ‘ Government Minister sees history repeat – responsible for death ‘ .

         And if that doesn’t open your eyes to whats going on nothing will.

         And as for the ‘ ummmmm….emotion’ bit – mate, – if you act in a cold clinical response to that , and have no emotions and refuse to see what is blatantly obvious and right before your very eyes ….

         Your a sad old kid to say the least.

         • Interesting Wildkatipo, i spent the first 14 years of my life in a HousingNZ property, even renting privately during my working years i chose to live among HousingNZ properties,

           Old, and, a HousingNZ tenant again i may be, but, sad,hardly, such blathering invective on your part reveals a level of irrationality and as i am a rational person who relies upon fact to make a point i find little point in you having wasted your invective upon me without having actually addressed any of the points i raise in my comments in this Post…

       • “…a warrant of fitness for rental housing will do little to reduce the instances of children with respiratory diseases as insulation does not in itself provide any heating in the Home…”

         Pish. I have both anecdotal and research counters to that ridiculous statement. Assuming we’re not being obsessively technical here, and allow for basic improvements to solve issues that defeat insulation – like leaks and vents from bathrooms and dryers.

         1. Insulation doesn’t *provide* heat, but that doesn’t mean the house won’t be warmer. Houses trap heat, if well designed – from the sun, from human bodies, and from appliances like ovens. This is going to come down partly to design and location – my house warms up much faster in the mornings than the example given above.

         A well insulated house will be less cold than a poorly insulated house, which means less heating is needed. (My parents have spent ten years insulating – their house is now far, far warmer. The difference is very, very noticeable in the same property. I also have moved from no insulation to well insulated – again, the difference is very noticeable).

         A well insulated house will also *lose* less additional heat, making it easier and more feasible for people to run heaters to warm the place up.

         2. Properly insulated houses will be drier. Cold *damp* conditions cause respiratory problems even without mould (there were studies on this recently). So simply insulating will help prevent that.

         Damp air is also much harder to heat, so fixing that ALSO raises the ambient temperature and decreases the amount of power needed to heat the place.

         I have my own respiratory issues from living in a truly terrible damp, cold rental property. Moving to a properly insulated, dry home solved them almost overnight (I still HAVE those issues, but they’re only triggered occasionally, and not while I’m in the house). My power usage for heaters is also a fraction of what it was – the last place had a fireplace, but the heat never reached any of the bedrooms, and I could have a heater running full blast next to the bed and have all the heat rush out the walls, and spend the night shivering. In this house, I run the heater in my room for half an hour and am warm enough to sleep through the night (also, cold air means I can’t actually breathe properly and spend the night coughing violently due to afore mentioned respiratory issues, so just piling blankets on doesn’t help much. Before someone jumps in with that helpful suggestion).

         I also have tenants, and – even if I wasn’t living here – enthusiastically support the rental WOF idea as a bare bloody minimum. I’ve seen firsthand how bad NZ landlords can be, and how difficult it is to get it changed.

6. And how many of these NatzKey carpetbaggers against rental “warrant of fitness”, are landlords themselves of unfit for living properties?

7. It’s alright for those on the list who voted down on the housing WOF, they don’t have to worry about lacking of comfort, health and finances. Imagine if they were to spend a week living in some of the housing conditions they choose to ignore, because they consider themselves above everyone else, including the law.
   It takes a young childs death, for Smith to say he will act upon the housing conditions.
   How many years have people been waiting for action from Nationals promises? And how long will it take Smith to actually do anything?
   Meanwhile, …..

8. More gutless left-wing self-entitled crap. Get off your arses and provide for your responsibilities, don’t leave it to taxpayers. There should be a WoF to breed then we may not have so many leeching fat bed-dwelling breeders getting lead intros on socialist radio and print media. Like the commenters on here leeching disgraces.

   • Ian/Mortense, you’re repeating yourself. Old age must not agree with you.

   • All this entitlement you write of Mortense, supported by the National Government must really be taking a toll on your mind,

     Your reaction here is probably one of mildness when compared to what must have occurred in the bowling alley of your mind as Bill English read His 2015 budget giving these ‘breeders’ you so despise an extra 25 a week in the pocket,

     Your anguish, ill expressed in your comment, simply provides me with yet another day of mirth considering how you must be suffering…

   • L0L!….a troll….and good for a laugh .

     Sounds like a leaf from Jenny Shipleys ‘personal responsibility’s ‘….

     Honestly mate…couldn’t you have provided insight , originality and flair instead of this ‘ stuck – in – the – 1990’s ‘ garbage?

     Truly – after the the laughter fades from what you wrote…a sense of sadness that people like you actually continue to parrot this drivel actually still exist,…and seriously believe anyone takes them seriously.

9. We’re issuing them all a challenge: vote for the Healthy Homes Bill or go live in a cold, damp house this winter http://www.actionstation.org.nz/healthyhomes

10. It’s very easy to spout on about “personal responsibility” when you have the financial means to do so. I find the hypocrisy astounding when these same people demand their pension ‘entitlement’.

11. […] to know who didn’t vote for the Healthy Homes Guarantee and who to personally email, have a read. Listed here are all of the MPs who voted against making homes safer for children. I’ve included a list of their email addresses here so you can copy-paste that into an email and […]

12. I say again: why is car safety so much more important than home safey?. We have wofs for cars but not for houses. Of the two, which do most people spend more time in?

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