Heavy handed Police tactics have been employed to force state tenants out of their homes in Glen Innes.
Is it because 30 years of neoliberal mythology repeated often enough starts to become unchallenged gospel or is it that we have too many right wing arseholes running the media narrative?
Can I just come out of a lefty political closet here and ask the question, ‘why shouldn’t a State House be for life’?
Why shouldn’t beneficiaries and the poor have access to stable communities? Are their 20, 30, 40 year roots deep within a community not as valid as the ones maintained in the leafy gated communities of NZ? What is happening out at Glen Innes is a national scandal. Some of those families were granted that land for the service their Grandfathers and Fathers had served in war. The price for those properties by those families has been paid in blood and sacrifice. Why isn’t their humiliating plight lead news item during ANZAC Day commemorations?
What is happening in Glen Innes is a class cleansing of a suburb to make way for the ever consuming global housing market where Auckland is actively promoted on the international stage as ripe for exploitation. History should be damning of our indifference to the state tenant communities we have torn from their homes as an easy sacrifice from a community with no voice. One of the few MPs who can hold their head up with any dignity in standing the line against such cruel policy is Hone Harawira, who was heroically arrested defending activists by parking his car and not moving it at one of the Glen Innes protests.
So why should the poor be forced to move and their communities gentrified beyond their wealth base? Why can’t a State House be for life with all the community stability that brings with it? It’s the mythology that the poor choose to be poor. I can almost see David Farrar spluttering from the idealogical gag reflex. I may be paraphrasing here, but the argument goes a little something like this, “If we allow these dirty filthy bennies to have the same level of community cohesion and stability as those striving up the slippery rope of property speculation capitalism, then you are rewarding people for being poor and people will then ‘choose to be poor’ and incentivising such irresponsible individual responsibility causes zombie Adam Smith to come back from the grave and cause market purity meltdown.
I did say I may be paraphrasing.
I’ve met a lot of people in my life, and I’ve never seen one who chose to be poor. In a consumer culture, invisible privilege gets misinterpreted as personal success because of excellent self choices rather than anything to do with the already existing power hegemonies. In a culture dominated by social status, being poor is about as welcome a choice as cancer, the need to damn the poor for their position in life creates an easy out, “It’s their choice to be poor, so I’m not under any obligation for helping make their existence any easier”.
Milk of human fucking kindness.
The argument that we need to throw these communities out to allow the lower class of poor below even them gain state houses isn’t only disingenuous, it’s evil. Playing one group of poor off against another group of poor is simply sick, and that’s exactly what National’s policy has generated. The solution is not robbing these communities of their community, the solution is a vast expansion of State Houses.
We need to embark upon a huge build and rebuild of our State Housing stock. A massive Keynesian investment into the housing quality of our poorest and most vulnerable while creating a jobs boom. Training courses would be weaved into industry players while green sustainability in building standards and a living wage for all contractors would lift the value ethically and economically.
That the egalitarian nation of NZ should turn its back on the collective good of the all without challenging free market social engineering myths needs to stop now. State housing tenants deserve the exact same community stability as every other NZer. It’s our responsibility to build more state houses, not fewer because it’s our collective obligation to do so.
These people are not getting some luxury gold coated free ride to becoming property magnates. They are poor families managing to gain all the security and stability in their neighbourhoods otherwise denied them. They deserve better than being driven out to the instability of large transient populations of deprivation on the fringes of our city. They don’t own these houses, they aren’t leveraging vast capital against them and investing in the stock exchange, they have homes.
And every New Zealander deserves a home.
+100 Martyn.
Long-term, stable populations in communities is one of the main factors to whether that community is healthy, and reduces crime.
This constant harassing of tenants is a abhorrence.
Great post, it is shameful the way our social security system is now looked down upon and the bloody coppers used against a once mighty state resource. State houses should be for life, and to match modern life trends transferable and swappable for education, work or holidays between tenants in different suburbs or regions by agreement. Or stay in the one place for decades.
With modular factory construction (heh, no more rimu timber) all sorts of layout and people combinations are easily possible unlike earlier iterations of the standard design plonked on a generous section. The nats portray this thing about aging couples in huge 4 bedroom homes etc. which is basically horseshit. In more rural areas shared gardens could be set up and smaller versions in the cities. Mini communities could be built with individual units for private space and shared utility spaces. Changing family sizes–add or subtract a module.
One thing is for sure, thousands more state houses/apartments need to be built. Even the ShonKey loving aspirational “tradies” and builders might have to support this. Stable affordable rentals would let more people just get on with enjoying life rather than trapped by the banks in the “own your own place” ratrace or gouging landlords.
If you agree go to the next Glen Innes action and offer support.
To paraphrase George Orwell, New Zealand in the 21st Century is a police boot, worn by a National politician, stomping on the face of the poor…
So much for Key promising no further asset sales. The man is a pathological liar.
Great Post Martyn Bradbury .
However . Is Nick Smith under siege , pinned down in his opulent office ? There is only one course of action now . Take it to him . Today .
Smith must go .
Bennett must go .
Collins must go .
jonky of course , must go .
If we the people do not insist they must go , we are fucked .
“ When a chicken has its head on the chopping block , it can squawk all it likes at the falling axe . “
One of mine . What do you think ?
If I were a little kid playing the ‘Monopoly’ board game, I’d disagree with your thinking, you sound like a loser. Perhaps some of our leaders played too little or too much as children.
Does their love of ‘Monopoly’ affect their ability to understand the complexities of actions?
I’m glad that my grandmother, many years ago, was able to pass away peacefully in her ‘state’ home. The place she’d lived forever.
?!
I think JPOTGIRLS’ point is that we have incorporated our housing into our economic system in a way that has turned society into the board game Monopoly…and silly children love playing the game.
I thought it was a good point!
Well written article.
Emotive.
Of course people should do whatever they can to hold onto their homes – it’s where the heart of their family is – or should be.
If someone was trying to kick me out of my home I would kick up merry hell about it.
I don’t think passive protests will do the trick at all, and while I was reading the gross injustices in your article, it caused me to visualise a group of people actually marching into Keys office, and literally picking him up and throwing him out of the Beehive.
God forgive my thoughts.
It’s easy for the government to pick on the poor as they don’t have the money required for political influence and favour. Just take away their homes!
Opinion and belief.
If you want a serious answer you can have one.
The reason people cannot have a State house for life is because people’s needs change as they progress through life and so should their demand for housing. As the market is not the determining factor in allocation of state houses then the State has to make that decision.
If I rent a dwelling privately I will make a decision that suits my particular personal and financial circumstances. If I need a three bedroom place I will have to decide on what I can afford. If I already rent a three bedroom place and don’t need it due to kids moving out or whatever then I will need to make a decision if I want to pay more for having more rooms than I need.
Someone who is living in a State house should make those same decisions however due to the government removing a large part of the market mechanism from the equation it is likely they will not want to move as there is little economic incentive to do so.
The negative consequences of this is that there are less dwellings available for people who require more bedrooms and therefore a longer waiting list for needy families or there is far more money having to be spent on building larger properties when there is already enough accomodation available or that smaller places could be built for less thus saving money and resources.
The point is, Gosman, you live in a cocooned, privileged world based on the White, Middle Class Male.
You succeeded on the backs of state infra-structure built up by generations of taxpayers. (Not that you’ve ever expressed any acceptance of what has been provided for you.)
So for you to pontificate to the poorest, most vulnerable people in society is nothing short of sick arrogance. It is the sort of attitude that has resulted in aristocrats in losing their heads a few hundred years ago…
As usual, your sociopathic outlook on life focuses on “market forces” rather than the real needs of real families.
The answer is not to throw families out of their homes. That does nothing to alleviate transience and children moving from school to school.
The answer is to build more housing.
What National is doing is a wretched, selfish, ideologically-based attack on the poor and vulnerable.
It will do nothing to reduce the growing underclass that Key himself recognised three years ago; http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10759869
You are not offering a solution. You (and others like you) are part of the problem.
Explain to me why someone renting a State house should get more rights than someone renting a private property?
@GOSMAN:
Explanation for you as follows:
The state housing is paid for by the taxpayer – it gives the most needy of families a roof over their heads, and a home for them and their families. The rental income goes back into the government coffers.
This is the govt provision for the most needy.
Private rental is paid for by those who aren’t so needy of the basic requirements of life. The rental income goes into the pockets of capitalists, who own more than one property!
The greedy landlords overcharge this level of people for the basic right of having a home to live in. While their tenant/s (is struggling to save a deposit for their first home due to high living costs), are left at the merciless hands of these capitalist landlords, who use these people (tenants) to pay off their mortgage on their rental property/ies while speculating on additional properties to add to their capitalist portfolio.
This is the capitalists provision for their personal financial gain.
Can you see the difference?
Opinion
Explain to me why the person privately renting does not have the rights of the State tenant. They should have.
Explain to me why decent tenants in privately-owned rentals should live precariously and with little certainty as to their cost of housing or security of tenure.
Explain to me why the tax payers of this country are propping up landlords who are not equipped to provide the range of quality housing (i.e. insulated and low-care, and adapted for the elderly and the physically disabled) required in the communities of this country.
Explain to me why packing cases, garages, shambolic ‘bed and breakfasts’ are being called ‘home’ by single folk and families when there are plenty of women – and men, too, who would excel at designing, building, and all the associated trades, to house this nation in decent homes – if the training and the finance was available for the purpose.
Explain to me why this miserable nation does not have effective recycling to reduce the amount of resources used to replace or increase its housing stock: unbuilding, smart use of plastics, and so forth.
And then explain, patiently, why a person or family who or which still matches the criteria for renting a State home should have to up sticks and leave their community, unless they choose to.
(I can agree with moving a bit further down the road to a two-bedroom home if the family has gone. I can agree with a bed-sit, if that suits the tenant’s circumstances, but not this ‘feckless and idle tenants’ rubbish put about by people who despise the tenantry of any sort.)
If they still meet the criteria – they stay. For life. As was intended.
No, they should have the same rights, and all be lifted up to the best legal protection, public and private, equal, dear friend! Change the law, and hold landlords to account, the state or private ones.
Excellent. You are at least consistent. The question for you is do you think any mainstream left leaning party in NZ will implement your proposed idea? I would suspect not.
As for building more housing – do you care about wasting resources?
Yes boff head. Human resources, bugger me – a later day green saint are we now Gosman?
I care more that families don’t have a roof over their heads that they can comfortably afford on their minimum wage, while trying to feed their children and pay basic household bills.
Gosman, there is always the Christian and even Muslim compassion model, that we may learn from, let the wealthy estate owner open his and her doors, to share with the less fortunate. That will “save” building more housing, which you claim may “waste” resources, bizarrely.
Nothing is stopping this from happening currently. I suspect you don’t want to facilitate this though. You want to force people to do it. A very left wing solution I must state.
Think CHCH – let’s not build houses and infrastructure – what the city really needs is a Football Stadium and a Convention Centre!!! Bloody hell, putting a roof of people’s heads is the first and only obligation of Good Government – when are we going to see the back of this Natzi lot!!
You have no idea how true these words are. After 18 months of harassment from our new neighbours, and their new ‘friends’, my 12 year state tenancy has become a battle for survival. Egged on by their speculative/mortgagee aspirations and the government’s encouragement my life has been made a living hell. Now they have succeeded in having my 18 year old evicted, it was that or both of us on the street. This was my choice Housing New Zealand made for me. It doesn’t end there of course. That they have not managed to get this state house sold and their property value inflated, means more of the same. I might add thsat prior to their arrival we had lived without complaint for 10 years, and were part of the community. Not anymore. Now my community tells their children I’m running a p lab.
So thanks NZ, the Nazitional government, save your “filthy bludging state house scum who don’t deserve to live here” and go back to your bank owned mortgage prisons. I may have a new landlord next election but at least for now I’m still able to live without paying $800pw rent to the slumlords who want my home to cover their unsustainable credit maxed ‘lifestyle’.
And if you think I’m getting fat on my cheap rent, the difference between income related rent and an accommodation supplement is next to nothing, it just means some protection from over inflated property bubble rent rises.
The question really should be:
“Why should the state (ie: the taxpayer) provide any sort of housing at all?”
So called ‘rights’ are probably best described as thus: If there were only 2 people on the earth – what would be their human rights?
Pretty simple really – leave each other alone, leave each others ‘goods’ alone, respect each other. And thats about it.
Where such thoughts as the right to a job or the right to a house ever came from I dont know. There is no obligation on the taxpayer to supply all these things. There maybe a charitable arguement, but theres no absolute duty for me to contribute to supply a house for someone else.
If there is any such obligation on the tax payer – then we need to have a good look at obligations. If someone really needs a house – well shelter really – then the first port of call is that persons family – first the immediate family, then the wider family. If they cant find the money or the house or the room then maybe it might fall upon the state (ie: tax payer) – but then there should be a lein on that persons estate. IE: the state (the tax payer) has first claim on the estate of that person. There has to be some balance between what a person contributes to society and what the state (the tax payer) does.
And frankly I think the same system should apply to all state (tax payer) provide support. And then perhaps even like singapore we should be charging the family of those on welfare a higher rate of tax than the basic level. Its primarily the families responsibility to look after its own members.
well then Barry, given that there appear to rather more than two people floating about, where do cops, jails, standing armies, transport, education and healthcare fit into your particular law of the jungle? All on the state (aka ‘taxpayers’, in a civilised society) or are your ACT mates going to pay?
Barry, if there were only two people on Earth, I doubt they’d have many ‘goods’. There’d be no society to produce it for them.
Rubbish.
Such “obligations” haven’t existed since the Victorian Era.
And thankfully so.
We have a civilised society that we all enjoy – and that means not having entire families and beggars living in streets like in the United States or India.
Is that the kind of society you want to live in? Well piss off to a Third World country if you do. I understand Somalia have next to nil taxation and social welfare.
You have been lucky enough to be born into a country where our grandparents created an egalitarian society – which you have benefitted from.
And all you can do is bitch and moan and complain about providing basic housing for those less fortunate than us?! Your selfishness is boundless. Your empathy is non-existant. Your common sense and appreciation of what we have is utterly lacking.
It boggles the mind that ideologues like you (as well as Gosman and Darren) will never be satisfied with what you have because you’re always looking over your shoulder at the poor getting minimal assistance.
And you can’t stand it, can you?
It’s called greed, Barry.
This issue is not about providing basic housing for the needy. It is about providing approporiate basic housing for the needy versus the rights of the needy to live in a house for however long they want.
I have yet to see an argument why a state house tenant should get more rights to their rental accomodation than a tenant in privately owned accomodation has.
if they are needy – arent they … loike … ya know … needy?
unless your arguing for time limits regardless of need – but you didnt say that
first you need to prove they people being evicted arent needy
then you need to prove that they are being replaced by someone with more need
thats the only way your argument can work
if we are talking about better use of resources thats a different discussion than the one your line of argument has embarked upon
No. Being needy just means they qualify for social housing. It does not mean they qualify for the SAME house for as long as they like. As stated private sector tenants don’t have the security of tenure in a property so why should State house tenants deserve MORE rights than them?
A cardboard box will suffice, Gos(h)man states with “authority”.
You won’t have seen it yet: I asked you to explain why the private tenant doesn’t have the same rights as a State tenant.
Why not????
Why are you apparently giving a landlord more status than a tenant? The tenant is the buyer, the landlord the seller. Do you hold sellers in higher regard than buyers? Why? They are equal, surely? A mutuality of need.
What is so different about this market situation that a tenant holding to the terms of the transaction should live precariously – with uncertainty about their rent or their tenure, or their agreement with the rentier?
Stop. Think.
Landlords put their socks on one at a time just as you do. They are not Special. They chose to do this because they thought it would pay off. Don’t hand over any more power than you are legally obliged to. And buy your own home as soon as you can.
And why not the same house? Why not? Where’s the soul-forging virtue in shifting house repeatedly? Do tell.
Well at least you have consistency in your position. However no mainstream left
leaning party in NZ would campaign on that as a policy if they were serious about getting elected. It would be electoral suicide.
so all youve got is distraction and goal post shifting? – fucking typical
No. I also have the fact that allowing people to stay in a State House regardless of their personal situation is a terrible waste if resources. It would be like giving out people carriers to everyone when only a few people need them. I find it funny that leftists bemoan waste when it comes from the private sector but it is fine when it comes to the public sector.
Gosman, only a sociopath like you and other ACT supporters would see social housing as “waste”.
Referring to “personal circumstances” – you forget that personal circumstances change.
At the end of 2007, there were 78,000 unemployed people in this country according to Statistics NZ (plus an unknown number of under-employed).
By 2012, 173,000 were unemployed (plus an unknown number of under-employed) according to Stats NZ.
That means 95,000 New Zealanders lost their jobs in just four years.
The number of unemployed is now 147,000 unemployed (plus an unknown number of under-employed).
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/new-zealand/unemployed-persons
People’s circumstances can change greatly, almost overnight.
You have a job Friday, at 5pm. By the following Monday, you’re phoned at 8am and told the factory/shop/office has closed and the business gone under.
So throwing people out of their State homes just because they have a job ignores the reality they may not have that job next week. Or next month.
Do you understand this? Please tell me that you understand this, and I’m not talking to a concrete wall?!
Secondly, if getting a job and an income results in losing your State home; uprooting your family; and shifting your kids to another school – kindly answer me this; where is the motivation to find work and earn a good income?!
If you knew you’d be evicted because you happened to find a job – would you bother?!
This is a ludicrous way to incentivise people. In fact, it dis-incentivises them.
It’s the best incentive I know to stay put; keep your head down; and not bother finding work (even if work is available).
Again, does this not seem readily apparent to you?!
And lastly; if we’re trying to get kids from certain families to stay in school and not move around and drop out of the system – how does it help the situation to force them from their State house and rely on private providers who can raise the rent every 180 days?!
You don’t seem to have thought through the implications of this situation.
Instead you’re fixated on ideological issues.
Try looking at it from other viewpoints, and you might just arrive at differing conclusions.
I think you have created another large strawman here. Not sure who is arguing that people should be turfed out of a State House if their income increases. It is certainly not me. In that case I expect income based rentals and/or accommodation supplements to change to reflect the new situation.
What you are not addressing is someone who continues to live in a four bedroom house when they no longer need four bedrooms because their kids have moved out. They are effectively denying a more needy family of accommodation due to their selfish desire to stay in a subsidized home.
Typical troll response – trying to start an arguement about a non-issue and distract people from the real issue at hand.
And GosmEN (Why the change of spelling?) please dont’ ask what the issue is.
Because that is not the argument, Gosmen ( “men”?!). You are the only one constructing that straw-man argument. You are deflecting from thew actual point; that of creating communities; stability for low-income families and their children; and giving those families a chance to avoid on-going transience.
You seem not able or willing to comprehend this.
Obviously your mind is utterly closed to the concept of community-building’ family stability; and avoiding transience.
The only one pontificating about “more rights” is you.
The real need here is not to evict families; increase transience; and uproot children from their schooling. The real need is to build more social housing.
This conflicts with your ideology, obviously, because you are more fixated on monetary concerns than human beings.
Not for the first time, I point out to you that your sociopathic tendencies are fairly fucking obvious.
“If there were only 2 people on the earth – what would be their human rights? Pretty simple really – leave each other alone, leave each others ‘goods’ alone, respect each other. And thats about it.”
Wow. This is an excellent concise description of the far right thinking. It’s truly horrible.
If you were one of the last two people left on Earth you have the RESPONSIBILITY to care for each other. You would be relying very heavily on that person for your continued existence. If you get sick and need help there’s only one other person to help you. If you need human contact and company then guess what, there’s only one other person there to help you.
If you turned to that other person at the beginning and said something like: “I’ll leave you alone and you leave me alone, leave my stuff alone, and we’ll get along just fine” what kind of relationship do you think you’re going to have with that person?
I’ll tell you. Not a very good one mate.
And that is your problem in a nutshell.
We live in communities. Our strength is in our numbers and the connections we make to help each other. It’s called responsibility. It’s called being a bloody decent human being.
Focussing on your stuff, your property rights, and your right to be left alone to choose your own path? At the expense of your relationships with your fellow human beings? Gross.
I sure would hope that if I’m left alone with only one other person in the world it’s not you.
I’m glad to see this comment. You are at least consistant and paint the picture of what the alternative might look like. I find this alternative abhorrent personally.
I’m going to guess you are white, male, intelligent, not disabled ie have all the unearned advantages from the randomness of life, that help you detach yourself from any collective empathy.
What if they’re not white, male, etc?
@Barry:
What an ignorant and idiotic outlook you have.
Go and be poor and disadvantaged yourself for a few years will you.
That’d soon make you change your Tory attitude.
In this situation there are two minds present and assuming they are both healthy human beings, what makes you certain they would reach this consensus?
Considering the extremely asocial nature of your perspective says more about yourself than humanity in general. I’m a rather reclusive person but find your perspective extremely disconcerting.
Adhering to your philosophy will obviously pose major problems with regard to procreation considering “leaving each other alone” (assuming the two are male and female). It’s almost like an admission that you hate life and even yourself.
The Loonatarians are in the house. The extreme right wing, bat shit crazy, anger, white men. Throwing there toys around in the cot.
It’s crazy, it’s dangerous
it’s childish, it’s lazy
It’s the Loonatarians
(Sing along with the Adams family theme)
@Barry:
“Why should the state (ie: the taxpayer) provide any sort of housing at all?”
Because the govt receive taxes specifically for this purpose!
This govt are creating more homeless and poor families, so the need for subsidised housing can only grow.
Opinion
When the first Labour government started the modern state housing initiative in the 1930s, they did not specifically state that these were just temporary or emergency houses. Now state housing has been turned into something of a temporary shelter thing with the threat of eviction hanging over everyone to make the occupants keep quiet and not complain about anything. Unless there is a good reason why the occupants should be moved out (drug dealing, noise issues, vandalism, etc) they should be able to stay put for life unless they voluntarily move out.
Well said, Matyn.
G I is the first suburb to be hit : out in South Auckalnd I’m picking Mangere/Manurewa/Clendon…and throughout the country.
There is no acknowledgement of community or social cohesion; what incentive does a tenant have to take care of the house or engage in their community if their residency is open to review ( by people who do not live in the community)…
With the administration of this scheme being ‘folded’ into WINZ, we have a superministry of jackbooted paperpushers in the making…no flexibilty, compassion allowed.
I am STILL WAITING for ANY politcal party to address the unemployment issue with a real, comprehensive policy…and how this issue is handled will also be noted.
In the interim, all we can do is ask each candidate thier party position on these issues, and encourage everyone to VOTE….
I can’t believe the apologist comments here.
Long term reliance on handouts is not what “State Assistance” is for is it? You’ll have to forgive me for asking, because I’m what you’d refer to as a right wing fascist piece of uncaring scum. ie Have worked since 17 and never been on a benefit & own my own home. lol.
If any benefit or access to a state house is “for life” it’d be a great incentive to do bugger all towards improving your lot wouldn’t it?
Someone sitting in a 3 or 4 B/room State house for decades after the kids have moved out is ludicrous, instead of freeing up for the next generation of tenants.
It’s not ‘ludicrous’, Red. It’s intelligent behaviour.
If you know you live on the smell of an oily rag (try existing on a pension or disability allowance), and your chances of ‘improving yourself’ are slim to zilch – why would you abandon hearth and home for some over-priced, poorly-built, miles-from-anywhere box where you know no one?
That section of the population has always been there. It’s part of communities.
In this country, because the Great and Good who Run Things wanted all available hands on the tools of toil, they provided ‘tenant housing’ just as ruling classes have always done. Well over many centuries and in many countries, anyway.
But Great and Good is not the same as Bright with Foresight, is it?
Based on the current situation – no. We have a nasty mess where some people are ripping off the rest of us – and I do not mean State house tenants – because our ‘masters’ thought The Market would provide – and The Market is as thick as they are.
Some people would suggest, a little unkindly, that you might appreciate the sturdy independence required to survive briefly in somewhere like Somalia. I wouldn’t.
Instead, I’d invite you to check out the big storm-water culverts under Las Vegas, or the tent cities out in the woods under the snow, or the after dark park-ups in the supermarket car parks for the homeless with vehicles – and decide for yourself whether you want those situations from the ‘land of the free and the home of the brave’ unleashed here. And then ask ‘what good would it do?’
@ Red –
Or – and here’s “ludicrous” suggestion – how about,
(a) building more houses,
(b) see above.
As for your comment,
Evidently, there is a surplus of larger State houses. So your argument doesn’t stack up.
It also ignores the fact that sometimes relationships end and kids (with their own children) return to the family home.
Considering the growing number of grandparents looking after grandchildren, I’d say that’s not unlikely.
Really?! You’re going to go with that?!
You haven’t thought that through, have you?
Where is the incentive to improving your lot if, at the end of it, you loose your State house and are evicted because you’re considered “well off”?!
And Red, really, it doesn’t seem to have detered John Key, has it? I’d say his $50 million is a “fair improvement” on his life after living in a State house.
So. Fucken. What?!
Is this some expression of resentment from you, laddie?
Well, excuse me if I don’t give a rats about your luck in life (and there is a fair measure of luck involved) and instead suggest you should be thankful for all the social services our grandparents built up (free education, free healthcare, etc) which you’ve used to become successful. Your success was built on what other have done for you.
And just as important, we have a relatively stable society which allowed you to become successful.
People living in houses and not back alleyways or under bridges are less likely to climb through a window in your homer searching for food or money.
And lastly, though this probably sounds like I’m speaking Mandarin or Klingon to you; because it is the decent thing to do.
We’ve treated housing as a commodity for too long, and both major parties appear to want to continue this.
Should we even have a housing market? Just like the ‘health industry’, should that exist?
Health and housing are inseparable – now we’ve turned housing into a commodity we have gambled people’s health. How did we get to our current position considering where housing was at in the 1960s?
It’s all very well critiquing National’s housing policies, but they’re not supposed to help people are they? We need to be critiquing Labour’s.
The problem we have at the moment is the push towards ‘affordable homes’. Ironically this is being presented as the solution, when it is actually the problem. If the state is going to be involved in housing it needs to build state houses, not become another market driven entity.
So long as our governments talk of affordable housing we will never have affordable housing. The government needs to build state housing so that the market becomes saturated with quality houses and prices drop.
I don’t really give as shit if someone’s investment becomes worthless. I am quite comfortable putting the health and wellbeing of people before an individual’s unproductive investment. If the investor was not a leech on society then they would have invested in a productive form of capital. They’re lucky people don’t just rise up and demand the end of private property, that would be more logical. Fuckin property investors – go cry me a river. Do something useful with your life
“If the investor was not a leech on society then they would have invested in a productive form of capital. ”
Housing is a productive form of capital.
I am a landlord. I provide housing for those who choose to rent or can’t afford to buy. I invest capital in purchasing the properties, maintaining them to an appropriate standard, and then cleaning up after some of the feral’s who have occupied my properties. For that I receive rental income, which barely covers the cost of my interest. It is a business, on which I pay tax if I incur taxable income, and GST on all of the maintenance. I have my properties managed (since a tenant pulled a knife on my other half), which provides employment to the property manager, and yet more GST to the Govt.
Now tell me again who the leech is?
“Housing is a productive form of capital…It is a business”
And there we have it. The two social constructs that simpletons such as yourself assume to be objective truths.
If you think you’re such a talented capitalist you should try to create wealth in the real economy, rather than through speculative capital gains. Try to have some self-belief…I bet you won’t.
“Now tell me again who the leech is?”
You. And you’ll realise that when we start introducing capital gains
The supply of rental housing is part of the ‘real economy’. It involves supply and demand, a willing buyer and a willing supplier. We do have a capital gains tax now. If I go into property purely to speculate, then I must pay tax on my gains. Simple. Of course in your world the Govt. would provide all rental housing, but they tried that once, it was called the Soviet Union.
“We do have a capital gains tax now”
Don’t play dumb, you know what is meant by the term capital gains tax.
“Of course in your world the Govt. would provide all rental housing, but they tried that once, it was called the Soviet Union.”
No IV, I’m not into totalitarian control. Only a tiny and irrelevant fraction of the left want anything resembling that system.
The system we have now is not much different to the Soviet State you think you despise – both claim to deliver ‘freedom’, both blindly strive for productivity, both are controlled by a small elite, both ignore the limits of ecology, both result in poverty…I could go on.
“Don’t play dumb, you know what is meant by the term capital gains tax.”
You don’t understand the tax system. If set out to make a capital gain, then I have to pay tax on it.
“The system we have now is not much different to the Soviet State you think you despise”
Huh?? The system we have now encourages people to take risks, invest capital, employ people, in the hope that they can increase their own personal wealth, and in turn the wealth of others. The mixed market is the best system for operating an economy ever devised. It ensures the most people are employed, that those who invest people are rewarded, and that nations don’t collapse.
“Huh??”
Pretty simple.
You’re just talking about simplistic superficial economic-political concepts.
I am talking about the deeper underlying discourses and philosophical assumptions of both systems.
“The mixed market is the best system for operating an economy ever devised”
And how will this be sustained indefinitely on a planet with finite resources?
Really?
I’d change my accountant if I were you. Because you are obviously quite ignorant on the matter of Capital Gains in this country.
To quote from the IRD (Whom,. I trust, you acknowledge as a reputable source?);
https://www.ird.govt.nz/property/property-common-mistakes/mistake-dealing-with-investment/
There is more, and some speculators are taxed when selling properties. But as the IRD states, quite clearly, it is your “your intention when you buy a property” and the patterns of your previous property transactions that matters.
There is sufficient ambiguity to allow tax-free trading to occur.
Hence, there is no Capital Gains Tax as you maintain.
You are mistaken.
Or, just as likely, you are lying (again).
Frank you know full well that if I purchase a property with the primary intention of making a capital gain, as opposed to being a landlord, then that gain is taxable. That is a capital gains tax.
Yeah, right. Cute straw-man you have there, Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue.
Of course, if your precious “free market” was so fucking marvelous, how come we have a massive housing shortage in this country?
Why isn’t the “market” training more builders?
Why has home ownership fallen from 73.8% in 1991 (http://www.stats.govt.nz/browse_for_stats/people_and_communities/Households/housing-profiles-owner-occupied.aspx) to 49.8% last year?! (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11221811)
Not exactly a stirling endorsement of your creaking system is it, Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue.
At least they made a decent effort in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to build housing for their people, even if the quality was questionable.
Which is more than the United States can claim, despite being the richest nation on Earth, and despite Bill Clinton trying to improve home ownership in the late 1990s.
The reason we have a housing shortage is because of restrictions on the market, not the market itself. The market has been prevented from meeting demand by artificial restraints, such as the RMA and, in Auckland, a nutcase Mayor with an obsession for public transport.
@IV:
“Now tell me again who the leech is?”
That would definitely be you, and your ilk you capitalist moron. It’s the likes of you who have driven house prices out of reach of most NZers.
You should be ashamed of yourself.
Opinion and belief.
No Mistery, it is people like me who provide the capital for housing for people who can’t afford to buy. Your comments are just the politics of envy.
No IV.
It is people like you who get their mates in the real estate biz to give you the nod whenever a mortgagee sale comes up.
I have no envy of you at all, there is no reason for me to. However I do have pity for you, and your misguidedness.
Would do you good to see with eyes the of your heart for a change rather than the eyes of your pocket.
Opinion and belief.
I’ve never bought a rental at a mortgagee sale. Be that as it may, what is to stop anyone in NZ from having real estate ‘mates’? What is stopping any NZ’er from becoming a landlord or owning their own home?
No, you don’t pity me, you envy me. And envy is a very powerful distraction from rational thought.
“I have no envy of you at all, there is no reason for me to. However I do have pity for you, and your misguidedness. – See more at: https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2014/05/12/um-why-shouldnt-a-state-house-be-for-life/#comment-219038“
“‘why shouldn’t a State House be for life’?”
Because no-one should expect the rest of society to pay for their lifestyle for life. Simple. Welfare is a legitimate response to people’s circumstances when unfortunate things happen to them that are outside of their control. It should be short term, and require people to be seeking work and living to a strict budget.
IV – your suggested philosophy is divisive, full of envy, of hatred for the worst of, and not constructive at all. If all would work together, and be encouraged to do so, if we were all committed to deliver on more equal terms and incomes, we may actually have everybody be quite happy to chip in their bit, and make society work.
Just a thought, dear “friend”.
Why are you so hateful of others, that you suggest they are all after your wallet and what is in it? Have you a bad conscience, or what? If you had a clean record, a good conduct record, and a sound, faithful conscience, you would not run around mistrusting your less well off fellow citizens.
I fear you have a real problem, it is your view and attitude. Sorry to get so “personal”, but I feel you need some help!
“IV – your suggested philosophy is divisive, full of envy, of hatred for the worst of, and not constructive at all”
It sure is.
IV’s ideology is built on fear and jealously – both of which reinforce each other. This problem is endemic throughout the world now and has become a form of hegemonic irrationality – disguised of course as ‘rationality’.
It’s a philosophy based on emotion instead of rational thought.
Divisive? Hateful? No, just pragmatic. Assigning welfare to someone for life is a soul destroying trap that saps initiative and enterprise. Collective Welfarism is a failed experiment that is being replaced by individual responsibility and a safety net for those genuinely in need. And not before time.
“Divisive? Hateful? No, just pragmatic.”
You’re pragmatic about a hateful and divisive system. Nothing to proud of.
The system is neither hateful or divisive. Systems can’t hate, they are devoid of emotions.
What I’m pragmatic about is that turning people into permanent dependencies may be good for Labour’s electoral vote, but it doesn’t help the individual or society.
“Systems can’t hate, they are devoid of emotions”
What an absurd thing to say, you really have no clue at all do you IV? Systems are driven by ideology; fascism, capitalism, communism, colonisation…these are all ideologies that create systems of distribution.
Our system of globalised late-capitalism is driven as much by emotion as any other.
Watch Adam Curtis’ The Century of the Self if you think our system is devoid of emotion.
@IV:
You don’t know much about much do you!
These state houses are for the neediest of our society.
Who are you to say with your ignorant attitude, that these people who live in these govt provided homes cannot have the opportunity to be well, and to grow as a healthy family, and for the children to always have a home to come home to.
You do not know each person in each house and the personal circumstances that led them to qualify for their tenancy in the first place.
You are continually proving your lack of kindness towards those less fortunate than yourself.
Opinion.
I can safely say that, apart from a teeny-tiny reckless few, most welfare recipients are infinitely better budget-makers and keepers than Bill English will ever be.
And, before you draw breath for the standard rebuttal, the reckless feckless few don’t cost us nearly as much as the feral scum that start shifty ‘finance companies’ or Ponzi schemes. Ratbags can be found from low to lowest. Can’t they.
PS – if you are having trouble with ‘ferals’ – leave them to Housing NZ. They’re much better equipped to deal with them. A friend of mine worked for them and came back to the office shocked.
‘They shot my car! There’s a bullet hole!’
‘Oh, yeah. Them.’
See. The public sector really is useful to the ever-so productive private sector…:-D.
A state house is intended as assistance. We assist people in need. They know best when they no longer require that help. Formerly many people did move out of state housing as their circumstances improved. But for the last generation that trend essentially ceased. The neo-liberal reforms destroyed the meritocratic process of upward mobility in favour of entrenched privilege.
NZ has an aging and deteriorating housing stock, a low construction rate and a relatively rapidly growing population. Even a government as useless as this one is beginning to realise we need more houses. Evicting state house tenants is just another bene-bashing distraction.
Let’s have a little bit of honesty in this discussion. The people are not being evicted on to the streets if they are in need of social housing. They are being allocated another State house in a different location. They don’t want to leave because they have formed an emotional attachement to their property. While understandable it is no different to if a private sector tenant has to move because the landlord has decided to do something else with the property but with the added bonus is that the State helps the State house tenants get a new place.
Another state house in an unfamiliar neighborhood, in different structures, now often stacked on top of each other, with no garage, no use of a tiny plot of a garden, and only condemned to sit in front of the “dumbing down box”, to soak up the commercial and other propaganda that the equivalents of a Mr Goebbles serve up here day and night, on light hearted, silly and shallow television.
Why not let people live in decency, and not in hen cages, where they do hear the neighbour snore through the walls at night?
That may sound a bit extreme, but I have heard such stories from people living in Housing NZ blocks.
You still haven’t explained why a State House tenant should have MORE rights than a private sector tenant.
Gooseman – I would actually give private house owners AND tenants the same right, as we should reclassify accommodation and residential housing investment, to meet “social obligations”! They even have that written into the basic law in such a “capitalist” country like Germany, believe it or not!.
A persons’ home should not be a commodity, an investment model, just to make someone earn great profits and enrich themselves, they have as landlords moral, social and other obligations, to look after their tenants, within the law, within reasonableness.
If tenants are good tenants, follow acceptable agreements and norms, they should have rights to live in their accommodation for long, perhaps life. That shapes communities, with bonds.
Social bonding and wellbeing will be beneficial for the whole of society, and so we must break down barriers, and treat private residential tenants the same as state housing tenants. Some law changes can provide for that. And if private investors do not want to commit to that, then they betray their double standards, that they do not want obligations and responsibility, so they should then perhaps leave it up to state housing providers to do the decent thing.
Take a hike, mate, if you do not like our music, there is always Kiwiblog or the gutter whalesoil.
Sorry flawed type, should be Gosman, of course!
Please don’t banish him. He sometimes has good points.
And it takes a certain amount of bottle to keep turning up here and receiving our invective.
What unadulterated bollocks! Housing is not a social good it is a financial one. People need to live within their means, and even more so if other people are contributing. When circumstances change, people in state houses should have to move, just like people who rent or own privately make decisions based on their particular personal and financial circumstances as appropriate.
Where do you get the idea that a state house tenant couple should have the right to continue to live in a 3 bedroom house once their kids have left when private house owners/renters have to downsize to suit their circumstances?
Spoke like a true ACT Supporter, Intrinsicvalue. Only the most self-serving, greedy type of neo liberal could come up with such a belief.
Thankfully we still have a vestige of compassion in our society that advocates for the poorest and most disadvantaged in our community for State funded housing.
There is good reason why you want social housing reduced no0r eliminated; you’ve admitted you are a private landlord, so it serves your interests to have tenants pushed into the private sector.
I could go on about poor families needing security and committment to their local community and to reduce transience so that children can find permanence with their local schools.
But a rightwing idealogue like you cares more for profits than the needs of others, so why bother.
One thing is clear, you are a prime reason why your party, ACT, is still polling at 1% or under. No one could stomach your selfish policies.
Private landlords can and do provide ‘social housing’ Frank. There is a well developed system that links private landlords and Housing NZ to do precisely that, and it works very well.
As to ‘transience’, people move all the time, it’s part of life. Why should those living off the taxpayer not be required to move when those in private and public employment often are?
Piffle.
Next to no landlords build new for tenats – so they do not ‘provide’ housing. They compete with owner occupiers, and should pay a swingeing tax penalty for their sociopathy.
Stuart you are absolutely wrong. Landlords do build homes for rental. And in many cases landlords are not competing with owner occupiers but other landlords.
The % of landlord build houses is extremely low – as you know perfectly well.
Have you nothing better to do than promulgate these shameful lies? What a pitiful collection of subnormal muffins ACT trolls are.
I would love if that became a policy platform for sat The Greens or Labour. However neither are that political stupid unfortunately.
You forget, Gosman, that Labour built over 60,000 state homes over the last decades.
I can think of one multi-millionaire who benefitted from the provision of State housing.
The fact you’re too selfish to understand this simply reflects on your own stunted values, and not State housing itself.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/construction-and-sale-of-state-houses-1938-2002
Govt’s of both stripes have built and sold state houses Frank.
Both Labour and National have have been in power and were also happy to have homosexuality illegal…so what’s your point IV?
Frank’s point is that Labour have introduced social housing when needed in the past – his context is applicable now. But you seem to think that Labour in ’84 defines Labour for the rest of eternity.
Context is everything IV.
Another way of thinking about context is how you are logical on whaleoil’s blog, but you’re a moron here…same comments, different degrees of intelligence.
Context is everything. The entire social welfare system was established in a very different context to today. Do you advocate we dismantle that?
Yes, the welfare state is no longer sustainable. I think a UBI is far more suitable to today’s individualised culture. Also, the limits of growth can no longer be denied
Oh, enough of your BS, Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue. Left-leaning governments do not sell State housing, they build them.
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/construction-and-sale-of-state-houses-1938-2002#sthash.R8LJuFZ1.dpuf
And please don’t try to paint the 1984-90 Labour Government as a left-leaning government. You know as well as I do it was a right-leaning quasi-ACT administration.
Your mendacity means no one takes your word on anything. No wonder you haven’t the balls to put a name to stand by your comments.
“Left-leaning governments do not sell State housing, they build them.”
Nonsense. http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/media/photo/construction-and-sale-of-state-houses-1938-2002#sthash.SyRR9TIU.dpuf
This data shows a substantial lift in sales between 1972 and 1975, and ongoing sales throughout all Labour Govt terms.
You looked at the cite and yet still got this wrong.
As I stated to Andrea at least you are taking a consistent approach and one that can be the only logical one if you push for life time tenancy agreements for State House tenant’s. However no mainstream left leaning party would ever advocate for that as it us electoral suicide.
You are being disingenuous (again). Labour, Greens, and Mana do not support throwing people out of their State homes.
Hence that is a home-for-life, or as long as the tenant requires it.
There, sunshine. That is somewhat more honest, don’t you think? And it wasn’t all that hard.
So they are advocating home for life for both pricate and State tenants are they?
1. You haven’t explained why they shouldn’t.
2. You’re right. Private tenants should be given the same rights as tenants in public housing.
3. By the way – what are those “MORE rights” you refer to?
4. Because they are the poorest in our society and forcing them out of stable communities into a life of transience serves no one’s interest.
5. Because your sociopathic attitudes would line the streets of our cities with hundreds more homeless than we have now.
6. It is the humane thing to do.
The last one, #6, is probably an alien concept to you, Gosman, as you have no empathy for your fellow man and woman. But trust me, it’s the right thing to do.
It’s the difference between living in a relatively stable society like New Zealand and not your neo-liberal nirvana in Somalia.
Where would you rather live?
We have discussed this before Frank. Your contuinued attempt to paint Somalia as somne sort of neo-liberal ideal is completely bogus and essentially a strawman. The country has in fact multiple layers of governmental and non government coersion and control.
” Multiple layers of governmental and non government coersion and control”?!
Really?!
That’s a pretty neat trick for a failed state where the latest “government” – the Transitional Federal Government was only set up in 2004 and southern areas being reclaimed by government forces (with assistance from neighbouring African states) since 2006.
Until then there was bugger all central government. Certainly no enforceable laws. And the only “taxation” was at the point of a gun.
Y’know, sunshine, maybe I’m guessing here – but that all sounds pretty much like the stereotypical Failed State to me. Wadaya reckon?
Yup. Definitely a Libertarian Nirvana according to at least two out of three definitions;
1. No pesky governments. Check.
2. No “thieving” taxation. Check.
Of course there was no Police Force either to enforce property rights (#3), but I guess in a Pure Libertarian world, you’d pay for your own Police protection? Right?
Send me a postcard when you get to Somalia and settle in, eh?
I’ve already discussed this with you. Anarchy does not equal libertarianism. It certainly doesn’t equate to neo-liberalism which requires an effective and active central authority to maintain control of the money supply.
Not very clued up on this issue, are you ,Gosman?
National Minister Nick Smith said,
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11196750
This is about evicting state house tenants into private rentals to make way for others on the waiting list. National hasn’t added to the housing stock – they’ve been busy covertly selling them off .
So to reduce the waiting list, they’re throwing tenants out to make way for new tenants.
It is a dishonest way to “reduce” the state housing waiting list.
It is how you right-wingers operate.
I stated they weren’t being evicted on to the streets. That is entirely accurate. You somehow think being a private sector tenant is worse than a state house one. Why is that?
You have referred to any of the issues I raised. Nice side-stepping and avoiding points you find difficulty to respond to.
Private sector tenants will be worse off.
There is no allowance made in the private sector should a person’s personal circumstances change.
A private landlord can increase rents every 180 days.
A private landlord can evict tenants if the landlord wants to put their own family into a house, sell the house, develop the property.
Those are some of the problems.
But the question is how this helps families create a stable community, including stable education for their children, if they become more transient.
You have failed to address that critical problem.
All very interesting – but I dont see any real reason or arguement as to why there is any responsibility on the taxpayer to provide housing.
Telling me I am a rather weird person isnt any sort of reason at all about the provision of housing.
Its a pity there arent more intelligent arguements put forward on some of these subjects.
Here one Barry, we grew up and decided the age old arguments of the individual verse the collective were narrow minded and bigoted. This came about because the economic system collapsed – some say a few idiot bankers who gambled all day were responsible – and people who worked hard and we really honest lost everything to the same dishonest and nasty bankers. Children and women were left to live on the streets whilst men went to find food and work.
Then a few Aussies, a Scot or two, and whole bunch of good Christians decided we to take the bible a bit more literary, and look out for their fellow man. Love thy neighbour and having a real community spirit was reborn. Honest hard working folk who had been done over by a few nasty bankers and their lackeys were able to have a productive life again.
That was the past Barry – I know your probably a Loonatarian and think the world is all about individual rights and responsibilities. And if you are, you don’t have a dogs chance in hell in understanding the idea that collectively were are the sum of our parts, and better for it.
How is providing housing to the individual benefitting the collective? And your appeal to 19th century society is emotive crap.
Actually, it’s not crap. At least one Libertarian/ACT supporter has voiced precisely those sentiments. Read Richard McGrath’s comments here: http://fmacskasy.wordpress.com/2012/09/30/neo-liberal-libertarian-holds-up-victorian-england-as-model-for-success/
No, it’s crap. People don’t live in 19th century conditions in NZ today Frank. It is irrelevant nonsense.
Adam – there is a balance between rights and responsibilies. The arguement about state housing – or”why shouldnt everyone get a state house’ is all about rights and bugger all about responsibility.
The end point of “Collectively” is of course the communist state – the Great Collectives of last century. They have never worked and will never work.
Where I come from is that the direction of pressure over these things is towards individual self sustenance, because if you go the other way – you end up in a collective. Collective have never worked satisfactorilly.
OK. Let’s begin.
What’s your real reason or argument to deny people the means whereby they can make their own places free from stupid protectionist laws while letting landlords rake in rent supplements from the frequently robbed tax-payers?
Who is this particularly loaded question directed towards?
To propoerly answer that you have to first deconstruct the question.
How are the free from stupid protectionist laws?
Why are the laws stupid and protectionist?
Why do you object to rent supplements?
Are you concerned about the misuse of taxpayers money?
Rent supplements? Please, tell me more!
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ACT Supporter Barry – the reason is simple. It is the decent thing to do.
That notion of helping the poor and disadvantaged probably escapes you, as you are so self-focused. But it is the values upon which our society was built.
You also benefitted from living in a social democracy where the poor, vulnerable, and disadvantaged were provided with State housing. It created a stable society where people were not forced into desperate measures to survive – with the result being to making your own existence more precarious.
People who are cold, hungry, and miserable tend to lash out.
You live in a modern society of relative security, all thanks to progressive Labour governments. Otherwise you’d be living under a constant state of fear, like in some parts of the US, where the poor resort to desperate, violent measures to survive.
Is that the kind of society you want to live in? Dog-eat-dog?
You might have less tax to pay, but youi’ll be paying more for private security guards in your gated community or apartment block.
It is an indictment of ACT supporters like yourself that people with your attitudes exist. You have little appreciation for the kind of country you live in, thanks to progressive policies.
If social problems caused crime how do you explain that crime rates are generally falling in NZ at a time when social problems are supposedly increasing.
Cough-cough – sexual crimes are up #getbettertrollskills
You need to do better Martyn. Crime overall is at historic lows. Under a national led Govt.
Mis-information Alert!
Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue has omitted to mention that crime has been trending down regardles, in the last twenty years.
As this graph from Statschat shows: http://www.statschat.org.nz/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/recorded.png
Or here; http://www.police.govt.nz/sites/default/files/resources/crime-statistics/00-national-2011-12-crime-stats.pdf
Always check Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue’s claims. He tends to be a right little fibber! 😀
*tsk, tsk!*
(BY the way, note the low crime rate in 2005, when we also had the lowest unemployment rate in decades!)
@Gosman:
That is because our Justice Minister, has separated the crime statistics into different catogories.
One for general crime, and one for sexually violent crime.
She must have figured that some people will be stupid enough to think that crime is on the decrease by doing this dastardly lie and deception, of removing sexual crimes from the general crime statistics. She thinks it is OK to manipulate the numbers obviously.
Sexually violent crime at last statistics – 2013 – have increased by 10.6%.
And if you take a look at the real current statistics, you will probably see this is on the increase too – why else would the Nats build a new and (staffed by overseas management) privately run prison using ACC money.
Opinion and belief.
Also, those stats can only take reported crime in to account. Just because crime is not being reported, does not mean it is not happening. I read somewhere (sorry can’t recall where) that up to 80% of crime is not reported. This is impossible to prove, but certainly a very high amount of crime is not reported.
WTF?!
Is that all the answer you have to my post at May 13, 2014 at 8:34 am?!
I’m sorry – did I use big words you couldn’t understand?
There are many reasons that can be produced around housing – but in a situation of sustained shortage it is a social good.
With a faltering and unreliable external economy, housing is a safe sector for government to support, which will materially benefit society as a whole. Savage’s housing scheme was adopted around the world because it worked – it rapidly increased the wealth of his society.
Competent governments like Singapore use state housing programs to generate state income – one of the reasons they are able to maintain low tax rates.
If the Gnats were not woefully incompetent and thoroughly corrupt they’d have done the same. The encroachment on state housing is to benefit developer cronies, arranged no doubt at the corrupt cabinet club dinners.
Yes, why not? I remember that debate they had on “The Vote”, and where the moderators and a few others ridiculed Metiria Turei for saying something along the lines, that house prices should go down:
http://www.3news.co.nz/Metiria-Turei-caught-in-housing-U-turn/tabid/421/articleID/312837/Default.aspx
So there was a storm of criticism and ridicule thrown at her, because it should not be allowed that house prices come down, even just slightly, because this would lead to “loss” in equity, the owners would face.
Yes, many in the middle class would have been negatively affected. And yes, the loss in value could have some negative economic consequences too. But be honest, it should never have reached the house price and apartment price levels we have, to reach crisis point. How dumb is that for economic planning, to not invest and boost supply, exactly where housing is needed the most?
I think the Greens have a good plan there, catering both for the middle class and the ones that would possibly never achieve their own home ownership. I think Mana have an interesting policy there too.
We need sound and more investment in affordable state housing, offering affordable rentals to the poorest, and it should be a right, to live in a home for life, as long as a tenant meets the reasonable obligations a Housing NZ tenancy agreement can expect, and as long as they do pay affordable rent, if they earn good money, by paying just about 25 percent of their income on rent (that should be ceiling for “market rents”).
Indeed, there was this talk about tenants paying 25 percent of their wages on rent, and no more. What happened to that policy? We have now many individuals and families paying HALF of their income in rents, in some cases more than that, certainly in parts of Auckland and Christchurch.
So the government neglected housing, state housing and investment in this, and now they are caught out, but they are too busy to talk about the “rockstar economy”, fueled by Mainland Chinese parents’ hunger for milk powder and baby formula, and a rebuild in Christchurch. How “cunningly smart” an economic “plan” that was. I suppose the Nats placed an order with a superior being ruling the universe, to have a convenient earth quake occur down there, so they could boost the economy afterwards.
John Key just called. He wants his Christchurch state house back because it should have been a ‘house for life’. Once deserving of welfare, always deserving of welfare.
Great piece Bomber – well done!
Answer to title of blog = because you have to lose everything to get a state house in the first place. This could be due to an earth quake, financial crash, a multitude of reasons but you need time to start over. Starting over with a family is harder as your expenses are higher. It’s not just first time house buyers that need some relief. There are plenty of Gen X that need reprieve.
I do not share the sentiment of the neoliberals that there is no right to housing. I have the UN on my side, who in their Universal Declaration of Human Rights explicitly included the right to adequat housing. But that aside: the choices for society are: a) provide decent housing for all, b) pay the medical bills that are a result of substandard housing. Now, some neoliberals will probably advocate to simply not pay for medical treatment of the poor. Let’s consider this. Even if you do not feel an ethical obligation, as I do, it will be very unpleasant stumbling over half-dead bodies lying on the streets all the time, and having to wear gas masks in public to try and escape the resulting epidemics. But: as neoliberals have great difficulty looking beyond their bellybuttons, it’s probably a logic they fail to see as well.
I’m afraid that quoting the UN doesn’t add much to the credibility of your argument, as they argue internet access is a human right.
The only right anyone has to housing is ‘access’. There is no right to ownership, no right to an extra bedroom, no right to the same house for life.
Easy to say that when you are in the privileged class, eh Anonymous ACT Supporter Intrinsicvalue?
When you’re at the bottom of the economic scrapheap, and promises of “trickle down” have proven to be a scam – your pontificating comes across as self-serving and shallow.
“Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well- warmed, and well-fed.”
― Herman Melville
Those words stand truer today than they ever did. You could learn something from them.
It would be just as easy to say if I had nothing Frank. There is no right to the same home for life. None. Families move, circumstances change. That’s life. Suck it up.
Even in the US, Bill Clinton – one of America’s most popular Presidents – tried to get low-income Americans into their own homes. Even he realised that homelessness in a modern First World nation is an abomination that should not be tolerated.
Yep, it was called Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae.
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