The loudest cheers at any National Party conference come when a government minister announces another attack on social welfare recipients.
It was Paula Bennett’s turn to throw some red meat to National’s blue-rinse bludgers this year with another populist attack on state house tenants.
Such is the loathing National has for state house tenants that Bill English is comfortable saying the government is not a good landlord – one of the justifications he offers for the whole sale selloff of state housing.
English is right that Housing New Zealand is not a good landlord and it’s easy to see why. HNZ has been stripped down so far that HNZ managers now manage 350 houses each – three times as many per manager as in the private sector.
I’ve come across many horror stories about HNZ and the cowboy contractors who maintain their homes. Here is one I received just this week:
“Hired cowboys is another major issue is. Many of these contractors have no respect for tenants or their homes either.
2 years ago I moved into my home which had had some repairs and maintenance done. The work was shocking.
New carpet (in some areas, not all) with holes through it – one as big as 10cm diameter. The carpet was also laid sloppy and crooked.
Paint and glue and sealant spilt everywhere, over carpets, walls, tiles, bath and basins all left to set hard. Still remains today.
The previous tenants had several floods, most of the door frames, wash house cupboards etc are rotten.
Brand new oven also faulty and remains faulty today.
When the lovely auditor came through soon after I moved in to inspect everything he noted down all the faults, also writing off our kitchen with 75% damage.
The house was also riddled in cockroaches, both wood and German species. And fleas.
There was a make shift compost out the back that was 2 metres high in household rubbish. (And heaven knows how many feet deep…).
Over the last 2 years we have been creating gardens. Everywhere we dig we are pulling up bags and bags full of household rubbish. Obviously the previous tenants were burying it everywhere they could. Not only rubbish, but we also digging up used needles and syringes
After 14 months and several phone calls a couple of men came and finally cleared the compost rubbish. They were also instructed to dig one foot down and a meter out surrounding it. Unfortunately I was not there to supervise, after they left I noticed they hadn’t done so and laid a thin layer of potting mix over the ground. So there is still buried rubbish in that area.
All this was brought to the attention of the housing manager on her first welcome visit. I also encouraged her to get hold of the oven supplier and utilise the warranty – being brand new and all.
She was also supposed to have got hold of the carpet layers to have them come back and redo their shoddy job, but nothing!
After months and months of waiting for the insect infestation to be treated I gave up and treated it myself at my own expense. I see the odd baby German Cochroach and still bring this to their attention, to be told I should have told them within the first 3 months of moving in…grrrr I reiterated I had done so several times of course, but now that doesn’t count.
The lino in the house – and there’s lots of it – is worn and old and some areas have slashes through it.
The door handles keep breaking and who ever repaired them previously, must have used pva glue and screwed them all in crooked.
It is disgusting to watch and see how far both contractors and many HNZ staff exploit their very own.
Our rotten doorways, cupboards and kitchen have never been addressed to this day.
To top this off there are other concerns…
HNZ without my knowledge last year put my rent up to market rent although I haven’t been working full time, then when I went on ACC they took $600 off me without my knowledge, and the following week about half of this.
It put me into deep hardship as they stole my ACC income on 2 occasions…
This is not exceptional – this is typical of the treatment HNZ tenants get at the hands of John Key’s government. To them HNZ is a cash cow from which they take $80 million in dividends each year.
State house tenants are fighting back – join them in next month’s protest.
I’m brilliant. Not only am I incredibly gorgeous but have I a brilliant mind. Despite my gifts from God, an important fact only just dawned on me the other day. A fact so simple that a mind as deep and complex as mine, a brain so shinny and pretty, missed a point so obvious and important that when I had my revelation? I had to have a bottle of wine and a lie down with a beautiful woman just to keep me from wheeling off into oblivion. One should always have a grounding experience on hand just in case one’s ideas are too exuberant to keep tethered to the Earth.
The revelation was this .
The rich need us. Yes, they do. The rich , in this case , The Worthless 1 % er’s would not be rich if it were not for us. The Normals.
By contrast . The Poor i.e. us Normals DO NOT NEED THE RICH !
Now, let that sink in. Let that swill about for awhile. Do some kissing? Cuddle your kitten? Pat your dog? Have a cup of tea and a nice biscuit?
Now feel that? Feel that feeling? Despite the kissing , the patting, the cuddling and the tea and biscuit?
That’s called rage.
You’ve just realised , we’ve been suckered and are being suckered as I write, and as you kiss, cuddle, pat and sip.
The rich, sneering, nasty, cadre of fucks that demand YOUR money for THEIR fancy styling ( Think Paula Bennett applying her wattle polish , no doubt made from crushed butterfly foetus’ ) are suckering us into believing that they are the important ones when in “ brilliant, twinkle, sparkle, shinny-brain land “ it is in fact US who are essential. Not them. And who suffers ? Who goes cold and hungry ? Who has kids with chronic illnesses and a bung health system? Who can never, ever take a holiday? Who must only watch day time TV because other things are either unaffordable or you have nothing to wear to go anywhere in other than in Sir Steven Tyndall Poverty Uniforms made from recycled plastics by foreign children in sweatshops to sell here at unimaginably vast profits …. for him.
We’re a wool growing country and we also grow vast quantities of the worlds best foods and we get diabetes from sugar saturated insta-foods and wear plastic clothes that do not, and never will, look ‘ cool’, ever.
All because we have yet to have the penny, free falling down through a spiralling black hole of psychological traps and triggers , down further through logical fallacies and good old , old fashioned lies to yet hit rock bottom. Once that penny drops you sneering, fat, rich, politician fuckers had better have plane tickets booked to Liberia.
Eat the Rich ? You get my drift then .
See you on the 15 September then? Can I bring anything ? Tar? Feathers ?
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092944/
Just remember, you long suffering fellow humans ?
They need you more than you need them .
That’s called ‘ Power ‘ .
Problem is Countryboy, they only “need” us every three years. In that time, they do everything they can to make us “need” them again………..
I challenge anyone of those rich bastard politicians to live on the amount I am forced to…………bet none of them makes it !!
What’s more, they will never see that penny drop so blind are they to reality !!!
Holy shit John! That’s disgraceful and unacceptable.
Nine years of this neo-liberal crap has led to a change (for the worse) in public opinion. Because it’s perfectly acceptable (if you’re a Tory foamer) to belittle and victimise those who occupy state housing, this kind of treatment is now considered okay. Jump in and rip off the system and please don’t give a fuck that real people are involved.
When the system was initially set up (way back in the golden days of the 30s and 40s) it was considered such a worthy and virtuous thing that they made newsreels of ordinary Kiwis moving into their new state houses. Thus there was a positive socialist view of state housing, they were built wonderfully strongly and the occupants took good care of them.
They had such a good reputation that any state houses that were available to buy were considered a very good buy indeed because they were so sound and well looked after.
It is quite startling and appalling how a simple change in political will can have such damaging and deep consequences.
It is not a very good New Zealand/Aotearoa in which we now live.
That’s the problem with the contract culture. The government hires the cheapest tender and then gets poor quality work. I live near a reserve and I see the same. Work is either done by contractors or the PD gang who spend more time sitting on their xxxx than working.
The same thing happened in Cuba after the Americans annexed it from the Spanish, the Batista Regime and his US cronies ran the country and the business until the people had had enough and overthrew the corrupt regime on January 1 1959.
[…] that to Housing New Zealand tenants who have to put up with appalling maintenance done on the cheap by HNZ contractors. Your comments are public relations pap – deliberate […]
Comments are closed.