It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that the National government has only contempt for poor people and last week Housing Minister Nick Smith showed just how callous the party of big business can be.
Responding to the deaths of 37-year-old Soesa Tovo and two-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne in August last year due to cold, damp state houses Smith said:
“People dying in winter of pneumonia and other illnesses is not new.”
Smith may as well have spelt it out:
“Just more good-for-nothing poor people dying – nothing to worry about here – move along – this government is busy. We are working hard to squeeze every dollar we can from state house tenants to increase the dividend Housing New Zealand pays the government. If that means our houses stay cold and damp and people die – too bad. If we insulate these houses it will cost money and reduce our dividend. If people call us the biggest slum landlord in the country – so what?”
In recent years, while the state housing stock has crumbled, successive National and Labour governments have demanded dividends from Housing New Zealand – dividends paid from the pockets of the most vulnerable low-income tenants and families in New Zealand.
Dividends paid by HNZ to the government in recent years:
- $71 million in 2010
- $68 million in 2011
- $77 million in 2012
- $90 million in 2013
National has plans to keep milking these tenants. Last year it announced it was demanding $252 million in dividends over the following three years.
So while the government rakes in hundreds of millions from state house tenants it refuses to upgrade their homes to a decent standard – and it is unmoved if people die as a result.
What did two-year-old Emma-Lita Bourne do to deserve the treatment Nick Smith delivered her?
Smith has blood on his hands – he should resign.
What a shithead.
Great points.
The callousness of the Government.
The amount of rent actually being paid as dividends by HNZ clients who are being short changed if they do not have warm dry housing. Those houses are NZ assets being sold off cheap to cronies.
Nick Smith should resign. He is a simpleton Idiot.
One other factor though, is that even if HNZ houses were warm and dry, power is now so expensive (in particular the daily charges) that low income people are unable to afford to heat their houses anyway.
I doubt Smith is an idiot. He’s just a good soldier, obediently following the dictates of his masters. This sort of moral cowardice is pretty ugly. He knows he’s doing wrong, but because he’s a part of this grotesque collective of… well, shitheads, it all doesn’t seem quite so bad.
“I vas just following orders. Ve all vere. It vas just ze vay sings vere.”
And if those dividends were actually put back into the housing then the government wouldn’t be able to claim that it would cost too much to upgrade the houses as they would be being upgraded by the rents that the people in the houses paid. They also wouldn’t be able to claim that the private sector could do it better or cheaper as there’s no way that the private sector could do it better or cheaper than HNZ doing it at cost.
In other words, the governments excuses would all disappear by the simple act of not taking dividends off of HNZ. $70m per year can build and/or upgrade a lot of houses.
Kia ora John.
Thanks for the little list of past dividends, and the plan to collect more, that show this government’s real heart so well.
If not the whole party, certainly the Cabinet has blood on its hands. Each week it becomes a tiny bit more obvious.
It is on the WHOLE party George and not just cabinet. Collective Responsibility means collective accountability. It is the mindless enabling action of the rank and file National Party that allows this crap to happen and to continue.
Government is milking every car owner to prop up its policy of building more roads to benefit road freight companies.
Nick Smith was not responsible then for the massive increase on my automobile ACC levy and increased road user charges in our fuel but through successive “skimming” tactics of National have hollowed out vehicle charges for road use are now subsidising private trucking companies to the tune of a massive increase in our road maintenance contribution is almost twice that of trucks.
IPENZ, and other overseas studies (HUD), road charges studies show interesting stats firstly stating that in a UK study shows that one truck causes almost 100.000 times more road wear than one car!!!
Also included are vehicle contribution costs to road wear maintenance oddities which shows;
Cars pay 68% -72% of total cost of their wear of roads depending on size and weight.
Road freight vehicles only pays 46% to 52% depending on size weight and number of tyres.
So we are again being bled dry for business interests by Key while he screws our rail company for an 8% return on funding while bankrupting it at the same time, and asks nothing of road freight companies????
Yeah – just shitheads.
And where exactly is the Maori Party here? Haven’t heard much from them on this issue!
Party being told to toe the NatzKEY line … or else?
Parliament right now needs the likes of Hone Harawira and his team to debate and challenge government’s social housing policies, responsible for creating tragic consequences for vulnerable tenants! But alas, Hone and the Mana movement were well and truly shafted last election.
Shame on Labour, shame on NZ First and most of all the greatest shame belongs to NatzKEY, for orchestrating a deliberate move to deny society’s most deprived, the lower socio economic sector, a strong voice in Parliament!
Time to stop being polite with these arseholes .
They don’t give a shit how many poor people die from common communicable disease , lack of basic medical attention and an income that means they freeze in winter and their kids are malnourished .
These are the sort of fuckers we have making policy in parliament.
So get with the program – these pricks are nothing but shitheads.
Shitheads.
Total shitheads.
And the only salute that shitheads get is the one fingered one.
Forget the Maori party … they are just more self serving scum bags…..proved it when they didn’t cross the floor against asset selling of our power companies…so long as Maori Elite get a piece of the privatisation pie they don,t give a fuck…and pretending to other wise, is abominable!.
Dead right Mary.
I’ve not forgotten that treachery by the so-called ‘Workers’ Party’.
Government is following the predatory privatisation game:
1. Get as much divis as possible, pressure to extract.
2. Don’t do the maintenance about a billion saved so far.
3. Flog off to charities who’ll hopefully do the maintenance
Only the charities are onto the game and don’t want them!
Does that mean poor ole Nats will have to spew up that billion maintenance after all? We’ll see.
Might mean reversing those tax cuts to the already well orf! Oh dear! Instead of a world cruise my dear we’ll have just visit Europe for a month this year! The pain! Oww Owww
There’s a nice warm although contested spot near Nimrud we could send em off to if they don’t like Europe – we wouldn’t miss em.
I have saw him on the news saying the first quote, when did he say the second bit?
What a shithead.
Resign is too good. I hear ECT is still happening in NZ, so before we move on from the stone age, a good long session may produce an improvement in the lack of empathy he clearly has.
While on the subject why stop with one of them? NZ should show Iceland we Kiwis are not all sheep & have the nads to scoop off the surface scum & expose the corruption.
Trouble is the puppet master is feeding us too well. Hunger & extortionate food prices are becoming more of a problem & soon will be the catalyst for riots & change.
But, for a limited time only. Do it before the police are more militarised & the armed forces review allows them to shoot NZ civilians.
Its all part of Key’s, the national party & their supporters master plan on how to exterminate the poor, sick & invalided legally.
Not only does Nick permanently look like a drunk that came home and whacked his head in the refrigerator door, but now he is permanently behaving like one too.
The Nats just dont give a damn! Most kiwis are oblivious to this fact – which is the cause of most of New Zealand’s present problems, and yes Wild Katipo they are shitheads. Having a small child die under their watch is shameful.
Nick the Dick is just that, a total dick-head, who loves window-dressing to “dress up” the shambles he is responsible for, covering up the truth.
As a commenter writes under another post, this endless talk about insulating state homes is much BS also. I know a man who lives in such a state house, and all they did was staple some foil sheets under the floorboards and put some padding on top of the ceilings.
A kind of heat pump is at least in his home. But after all that insulation, the temperature may have improved by two degrees, from unbearable cold in the house as it was before. It is still a cold and damp house, and most heat goes right out the thin window glass panes, the uninsulated walls and gaps between doors and windows and the walls.
And then there are many homes standing empty, even in Auckland. New homes they build are mostly units, blocks of units, where they stack people on top of each other, forcing them to live in less space and having no access to a garden to use.
That is the future of “social housing”, people cramped into cheaply built blocks of units and apartments, which will be the slums of the future. And wait, there will be leaky homes as well, yet again, but it may take a few years to show.
Shoddy, cheap, BS homes, and old ones are left to be run down, so people get sick and die.
Indeed Nick Smith and others in government have blood at their hands, for the neglect and lack of care they show. Shame on them, sack them all in 2017!
Yeah…just shitheads.
That’s the way it should be. It’s costs far too much (in real terms) building outwards in larger and larger sprawl. This is especially true as the availability of oil decreases although considering Climate Change we should already be building high density cities so as to decrease GHG emissions.
And, IMO, once they’ve lived in an apartment with all conveniences nearby most people won’t want to live in sprawling suburbs any more. As for a garden to use? Most people don’t use the garden anyway and there’s always good parks nearby.
BS, New Zealand can with its present population afford housing on some space with green gardens to use outside, for EVERY person. Only if you fall for this fallacy that we need to grow the population, will you be able to see any “economic” sense in what you suggest.
The problem is people have been brainwashed into using cars to get everywhere, while even in spread out cities public transport can be feasible and affordable, if the majority commit to funding it. The problem is getting people off their car obsessions, and not wanting to share vehicles like buses.
And having grown up in the country side, it is easy to cycle distances, even within Auckland. Promote cycling, walking and public transport, yes, but that does not mean we should all live in multi-level apartment blocks.
And if people move jobs, they can also move flat or house, and work nearby, whether they live in apartments, in blocks of units, in houses or whatever.
This density promotion is absurd, as living in high rises in Manhattan or Sao Paulo, or Tokyo, Hong Kong or anywhere else is hardly that desirable, you would have to be a lab rat to feel comfy in little spaces and live stacked on top of each other. It leads to over-individualisation, isolation, more anonymity, social divisions, lack of community feeling and thus division. I have lived in such housing and found little desirable about it.
Why expect this from those that are poor, while others maintain their privileges of owning a quarter acre section?
If an MP died from bad champagne in the beehive there would be a Royal
fucking Commision. Sometimes profanity in language is required to express it when a situation is profane.
Nick by name….Nick by nature.
This Government is nothing but a bunch of crooks, frauds and liars with access to enough ‘dirty donor’ money to buy democracy in order to flog off our country.
Stand up. Take it back. We are many and they are few. This is our democracy. Struggled for and hard won. It is not for sale.
just one question…
If “37 year old Soesa Tovo and 2 year old Emma-Lita Bourne’s deaths in August last year [were] due to cold, damp state houses”, why are those people living in the southern parts of the South Island and other areas of New Zealand that are colder than the sub tropical city of Auckland in “cold, damp state houses” owned by a government that “refuses to upgrade their homes to a decent standard” not dying like flies?
Don’t know for sure: however, it may be that the housing stock down there is older and there are still chip heaters or fireplaces in those houses.
Used to be common in the older places so washing could be dried in the cold, wet weather and, with a wetback, the hot water could be heated, too.
The houses were neither flash nor insulated but those basics were usually there. Even a coalbox out the back. (No good for Christchurch with its fogs, but further south coal makes a lot of sense for heating.)
And the cheap electricity flows on down to the smelter…
So by alluding to the fact that chip heaters and destructors have been removed or not included in a great number of state houses, especially Christchurch (although Timaru does in fact have more ‘pollution nights’ than Christchurch), can I assume that you are not a fan of government regulations around smokey chimneys and clean heating? I certainly am not as I am in a position where I have more potential firewood than I know what to do with it. All I have to do is cut it. In my opinion, the clean air rules may allow one or two people to go for a jog at night without complaining, but at the same time it denies hundreds of families the chance to do what comes naturally…cut and collect firewood to keep their family warm.
From a global perspective, electricity in New Zealand is cheap, but to a recreational firewood gatherer, electricity is charged at retail, as is diesel, LPG, and even pellets for a pellet fire are all charged at retail price. But self-cut firewood is accumulated at cost price.
The unintended consequence of government regulations around clean heat is unaffordable energy costs and a feeling of helplessness among families with the initiative to cut their own firewood.
How do you know they aren’t?…got the statistics to prove that or is your question subject to the fact that this may be about the demographics in state houses, general health and overcrowding etc?
Looked into the demographics and susceptibility of some groups to respiratory infection?
Ever wondered why there’s a little questionnaire at the bottom of a doctors medical form that asks you to fill in what ethnic group you are?
Think that’s there just so they can say ” oh look- this ones from the Cook Islands,…this ones from England” ?
No…the plain facts are so many of NZ’s rentals are a disgrace. No matter who you are. And this isn’t the once proud place it used to be when I grew up, and it needs a boot up the arse.
Plain and simple.
So lets stop apologizing for it and get cracking on improving the situation.
I am assuming that we are not dying in cold damp houses down south because the media are not telling us that we are.
@ mike@nz – so when someone in the South does die from cold while living in a state house, then your theory will be shot, is that it?
It will take another person to die to make you see reason? WTF.
I don’t have a “theory” and certainly don’t wish any more people to die.
I am just curious as to why the publicity surrounding people dying in cold, damp houses is centred around one of our warmest cities.
Doesn’t that seem a little odd to you?
I guess as long as the majority keep voting for arseholes (again and again) we can’t really be surprised when we get covered in shit.
Try NOT voting for National, EITHER electorate vote OR party vote.
People have this wierd idea that they can vote for a National candidate if he’s a good bugger in his electorate and cast their party vote somewhere else or vice versa.
Splitting your vote like that simply negates your vote; cancels it out.
As for Mr Smith it really doesn’t matter whether or not he feels ‘bad’ about this business; I can only judge him on his performance and at present he has manoeuvred himself into looking like a compassionless dick. If he objects to being seen as that it is in his hands to do something about it. I shan’t, however, be holding my breath…
To the best of my knowledge Labour did not expect Housing NZ to pay a dividend and in their time many houses were modernised. they also changed the rules back to income related rents, as used to be the case prior to the Bolger govt. What needs to be done is for the houses to have decent floor coverings and curtains, whether owned by the state or privately owned rentals. What also needs to happen is for the tenants to realise thhat good housekeeping can help solve the mould problem, and for the state to realise that everyone needs a basic decent wage or income. How about for a start reintroducing the basic family benefit that many of our parents received regardless of other income. I am sure my mum made very good use of the amount she received for each of her 5 children. I have calculated that it was about equal to 25% of the household expenses in the 1950’s. that might be a good start, and then get a grip on electricity prices and still allow coal fires where there is plenty coal available. We were warm and safe and healthy but mostly only because our mums were at home, had the knowledge and equipment to cook good meals and also we wore sensible woollen clothing. Did many of us get sick? I don’t recall anything other than the standard childhood illnesses.
No, not good enough, we live in 2015, and we should all live in warm, heatable homes where there is a guaranteed minimum temperature of 17 to 18 degrees, 24/7. All else is window dressing and managing the poor standards we have.
NZ is behind other developed and even some developing countries in this. And we do not need coal to heat homes, we live in modern times, have solar energy, thermal solar energy and other heating options, thank you.
Uninsulated houses is only half the story. Even an insulated house will get cold, damp and mouldy if unheated, and heating is unaffordable to beneficiaries and low-paid workers , as the death of Emma-Lita Bourne and Seosa Tovo proves respectively. So Paula Bennet should resign too, not to mention John Key, who predicted that “bugger all” would starve even if all benefits were cancelled. Well John Key, it did not take the complete cancellation of benefits to kill these two, and they did not die of starvation. But dying of starvation was the only way they could have avoided dying of pneumonia.
Emma-Lita and Seosa may be “bugger all” to you and your kind, but “bugger all they are not.
You point this well out, Keith.
The talk about “home insulation”, under that propagandistic “Warm Up NZ” BS motto, is ridiculous.
See the state funded propaganda here:
http://www.eeca.govt.nz/eeca-programmes-and-funding/programmes/homes/insulation-programme
Most Housing NZ homes are of old stock and poor quality, that may once have sufficed to “house” people, decades ago, it is NOT fit for modern day living.
The old stock has deteriorated, has been neglected by repeated governments, Nats and Labour, and they both lament the condition they themselves created.
What is needed is a massive social housing plan, to create thousands if not tens of thousands rent alone, rent to buy and otherwise affordable new homes, built to modern standards, to house people.
Old homes are not insulated, the floor-board foil sealing, the ceiling pad covering, that is NOT going to make for warm homes, it is an emergency stop gap measure, and that is why the Nats were happy to take over that policy from the Greens, who only came up with that, nothing better.
While walls remain uninsulated, while windows are old, thin pane glass, and while there are cracks and so between doors, windows and walls, all heating, no matter how much, goes right out the home again.
It is time to bring in building standards that guarantee at least 16 to 17 degrees inside temperature 24/7, and to force all landlords to improve homes to meet this.
In a place like Germany, it is legally enforced, that any rented home must at least offer 17 degrees minimum temperature, while being able to use functioning heating. So where is NZ on that?
It is third world standard, that is the truth, Housing NZ told me years ago, they cannot accept any application on emergency housing based on any minimum temperatures, as that is NOT one of the ridiculously low criteria they have for “suitable housing”.
There is NO minimum temperature criteria or expectation for ANY homes in NZ, that applies, 0 degrees temperature may be “suitable” to live in according to them. Few know this, that is FACT.
Even the Greens should feel ashamed, to think, as Metiria suggest, that it may suffice, to have homes “carpeted” and equipped with “thermo drapes” or curtains. FFS, where do we live?
“where do we live?”
We live in New Zealand. A place where slaves are born for rich foreigners.
Comments are closed.