It’s hard to know where to start with Bill English and his comments blaming growing inequality on local council regulations on housing.
With his latest comments he has become the Prince Philip of New Zealand politics.
This same Minister raised GST to hammer the incomes of the poor while giving massive tax cuts to the rich in the first months of National. As Minister of Finance responsible for a host of support-the-rich-and-hammer-the-poor policies he is more directly responsible for poverty and inequality than any other single New Zealander.
The real message is that he doesn’t care about poverty or hungry kids and continues a long historical line of rich pricks who have nothing but deep contempt for anyone living in poverty.
It’s Bill English’s poverty of spirit, compassion and empathy which fits him in with everyone from the hated tax collectors and Pharisees of the bible to Marie Antoinette and John Key.
And Bill English’s latest plan to reduce poverty and inequality was announced yesterday – the mass privatisation of state housing. Here’s the MANA Movement release:
Mass privatisation state housing will be vigorously opposed by MANA
Announcements over the past 12 hours from the Minister responsible for Housing New Zealand, Bill English, and Minister for Social Housing, Paula Bennett, make clear the government’s intention for the mass privatisation of state housing.
This comes during the middle of a housing crisis with over 3000 families in absolutely urgent need of housing.
“When such families are living three to a house or in garages, cars, vans and cockroach-infested caravans then the government should declare a state housing emergency and begin an urgent state house building programme” says MANA Movement co-vice President John Minto.
“It has to be the government rolling up its sleeves because nowhere in the world at any time have property developers built quality, affordable homes for low-income families. The best “the market” provides is a cardboard shack on the side of the road as happens in many other countries and has already begun in New Zealand.”
“Transferring state houses to the “social housing sector” is NOT the answer because it doesn’t increase the housing stock for low-income families. We refuse to accept the government can wash its hands of responsibility.”
“Successive Labour and National governments have underfunded state housing for three decades at the same time as pursuing economic policies which have driven more families into poverty and in need of state housing.”
“The mass privatisation of state housing is a government priority. Fighting that policy will be a MANA priority.”
The problem is that there are people who will believe it
Bill is now in the USA, a country that has Ebola patients. Let’s use that as an excuse to keep him from returning, or at least put him in quarantine.
The value of land and housing in Auckland mean getting rid of state houses and big profits in selling them ,so hand the problem over to
“charities” . So where do these charities house the dispossessed? the land is no cheaper for them.
Otara is full of state houses, but close to the city in relative terms ,will they be next?
Is there only to be comfortably off people to live in Auckland.
Will the charities be able to pass Aucklands problems onto a cheaper towns and cities somewhere else . There will be a need for more WINZ offices, and more unemployment in those places.
Or does John Key want Auckland to be a bigger draw to speculators from overseas. its money ,money ,money ,people don’t matter anymore.
The spin from the nats has changed over years; a while back it was, “there is no poverty in NZ”, and, “if people are poor, its their own fault”. Then, before the election, it became “the government is concerned about those living in poverty but it hasn’t increased under national”. Now its “It exists but we aren’t responsible for any solutions. Its those damn local bodies.” How come nobody in the MSM challenges this constantly changing line?
Although I do disagree with you that Bill English “is more directly responsible for poverty and inequality than any other single New Zealander.” That distinction must surely go to Roger Douglas.
Trouble is , Bill English and his brother Connor, for that matter are not the sharpest knives in the draw .
So silly old Bill , with his simplistic lazy thinking, thought if he gave New Zealand another dose of ‘Rogernomics’ , the ‘trickle down ‘ effect would do the job. That’s his best shot and he’s already admitted on T.V that he doesn’t have any other ideas. Oh boy!
Here’s Bill, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, who has rorted the housing market in Wellington via his own private collection of ‘rentals’, lecturing people about how they need to ‘get real’ and be prepared to live in ”ugly” housing developments if they wish to own a house!
I mean, the audacity leaves you speechless!
New Zealand is now stuck with a thicko financial architect, that has no design ideas. So dense and ideologically straightjacketed is he, that he’s still talking about tax cuts whilst he can’t even arrest the plummeting tax take that we are currently experiencing.
It was ‘game over’ for English once his tax cuts for the wealthy, (to make him look like ‘the man’ ), and the raising of GST were introduced.
He is now snookered, and unfortunately so is the rest of the country!!
Well said John.
The Prime Minister John Phillip ShonKey grew up in a state house via his mum’s widow’s benefit–she would be a ‘job seeker’ nowadays. We used to take care of our own–and will again.
Blinglish (Double Dipton) knows all about the selfish squiggling required by private landlords and developers and speculators to get a piece of the massive transfer of taxpayer wealth the Nats are advocating.
Anyone in the same position today as John Key’s mother was would get support now, including state housing or equivalent allowance. Not that much has changed as far as that is concerned. I’m not convinced the Govt. has to ‘own’ all of the state housing stock. In fact English makes a good point when he says that a mixture of private and public ownership is a more flexible approach, making it easier for the Govt. to meet the specific individual needs of those in need. If that is the outcome, then I wouldn’t have any complaints.
If this were true
‘Anyone in the same position today as John Key’s mother was would get support now, including state housing or equivalent allowance.’
we wouldn’t have people living in cars – there aren’t enough state houses, there isn’t enough of an allowance for rentals. People are paying well over half their income to rent.
I watched TV3 show a solo mum, who got a social work degree, and works part time and has $120 left over after rent etc to feed 5 people. Now tell me what would you buy with that to feed that many. Nah I expect it is all her fault that she is in this position, she probably is really lazy and she probably really spends it all on booze and cigs.
“In fact English makes a good point when he says that a mixture of private and public ownership is a more flexible approach, making it easier for the Govt. to meet the specific individual needs of those in need. If that is the outcome, then I wouldn’t have any complaints. ”
In other words, neo-liberal answers to poverty?
So how’s that been working out for us since 1984, Nehemia?
From the MSD web site…
To be eligible for Widow Allowance you must be a woman born on or before 1 July 1955 and:
•not be a member of a couple
•have become widowed, divorced, or separated since turning 40
•have no recent workforce experience
•meet income and asset tests
•meet residence requirements
So women born after this cut-off date will not receive it?
the bit I don’t get is how selling state housing to charities and having charities provide housing for the poor, is supposed to increase the number of homes available to the poor?
this is not a policy which will result in any increase in housing available to poor people. it just moves the ownership.
lassiez faire didn’t work in the 1800’s in Britain and Ireland, and it won’t work here now. will they never learn from history?
how did those policies help you in your bid for election?
was selling of state houses a nat policy in the election?
Tightyrighty – got anything intelligent to say, rather than firing potshot questions?
Everyone calm down. There are seldom easy answers to issues like these, but in this case there is an easy answer. I’ve just returned from a seminar run by my local Grazz-Rootz Labour Party called, “Thinking: How do we do it and what is it good for?”.
It was during a module on memory and how it stifles profitable strategies that I realised, OMG, if we can turn the clocks back or forwards for daylight savings, why not do it with the calendar too?
All we need to do is pass legislation under urgency to turn the calendar date back by 200 years – it’s that easy! Then the Church can run poor houses and places to hide women with illegitimate children, the ruling classes can imprison the poor or kill them off as cannon fodder in foreign wars, and no attitudes or outlook need to change. Imagine, change… without actually changing anything! You may say I’m a dreamer, but am I the only one?
Next week they’re running another seminal seminar on political fashions in the field called, “Dress to Oppress: How dressing like the enemy can make you feel superior.” I can hardly wait.
National want to generate a new slum population whilst in their reign and recorded in history as the Government who brought NZ down from a once proud clean safe fair society to a less than desirable place to live, so watch as we slip down that UN list of most desirable countries to live.
OECD Better life index for N.Z. in 2014 says;
http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/countries/new-zealand/
“Money, while it cannot buy happiness, is an important means to achieving higher living standards.
In New-Zealand, the average household net-adjusted disposable income per capita is 21 773 USD a year, less than the OECD average of 23 938 USD a year.
But there is a considerable gap between the richest and poorest – the top 20% of the population earn five times as much as the bottom 20%.”
Bill English you dumb f–ck, are you happy you are about to lower further these grim statistics?
All this while you continue to borrow $250-300 million a week and keep increasing the crown debt now at over 66 Billion when it was only $6 Billion when you took over in 2008?
Kiwis will start to take notice once people living in cars park and live in downtown city centres.
…. but will they care? They will shuffle by, heads down and pray it doesn’t happen to them. NZ looks more like the US every day.
“Bill English is the Prince Philip of New Zealand politics” = profligate use of letters.
“Bill English is an idiot” = economical use of letters but says same thing.
Some people think Bill English is less unpleasant than John Key but I think they are all unpleasant but just in different flavours – like a box of L’Orrible chocolates
English and the Nats talk of a church taking over state housing… a church!!!?? (He’s named the Salvation Army who recently got the contract for helping gambling addicts – work that used to be done by the secular Gambling Foundation. Maybe the Sallies are less a church and more a business). Where do the Sallies get the capital from for this new venture? They survive on charity – at least that’s what they ask for from the public and they’re registered on the Charities Commission. What expertise do they have in such a massive housing undertaking? What’s the unspoken agenda here? What is going on?
I thought church and state were separate in this country.
I further note in the DomPost today an ad for an HR manager for the Sallies. In it they state they have a nationwide staff of 3,000, including only 300 (10 percent) who are ‘Officers’ (that is, clergy). Who are the other 2,700 laypersons? Is this in fact the Dept of Housing under another guise? Again I ask: what is going on here?
Alan Johnson works for them, he is a lay person, he is their housing spokesperson and Child Poverty Actions housing spokesperson. He is a good man doing what is right. The Sallies do lots of good work in the community, funded by donations and government grants.
The Mana policies on State housing are well intended but dont mention how it is to be funded. Labour will borrow on the international market to raise the money. Not a good idea. Sinced no-one else wants to propose the solution used by Labour in 1935 (to borrow from the Reserve Bank at 1%) why isn’t Mana the first to pick up on it. Or you could pick the better solutions of Social Credit or of PositiveMoneyNZ. There is growing support for such ideas these days.
If I recall correctly they were going to use some of the money that is sitting in the ACC fund invested in nefarious things.
ANYTHING that arsehole says is to be viewed with having an ulterior motive in mind.
THIS …..FROM THE SAME MAN………..
‘ We should be glad we have a low wage economy , as this encourages overseas foreign investment.’
TRANSLATION : ‘ We should be glad we have a growing peasant class that will work like Third World untouchables for dirt cheap to enable the ‘Born to Rule’ 1% super rich to get even more rich.’
The man is a cunt.
Whilst I appreciate your sentiments I’d really appreciate it if you didn’t use this sort of language, it is really unnecessary.
I’m not terribly surprised the central govt is selling off state housing – and it’s short-sighted – but what really worries me is the broader influence they’re having on local govt. Funding incentives are leading chch city council to look toward partnering with other organisations instead of retaining their own social housing stock, the govt passed into legislation ‘special housing areas’ which screw the ratepayer twice (waived consent fees/rates rebates + a speedy time frame and political pressure that prevents our cities being well planned), RMA reforms… To suggest Bill English is Prince Philip is flattering; one of a group of bullies set about the Act agenda of dispossessing councils of any control they might have to reduce inequalities is probably more accurate.
How about the govt come up with a real solution to poverty and inequality instead of focussing on lining the pockets of the private sector?
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