Where the fuck is the accountability to spend $100m on a contamination problem that didn’t exist, that left 240 state houses needlessly empty & threw maybe 1000 beneficiaries onto the streets?
How the fuck does that happen and no one is responsible?
The amount of money we just blew on pointlessly decontaminating state houses for meth would have feed breakfast and lunch to every poor child in NZ at school for a year.
Remember the context here, National were busy trying to privatise state housing, so this constant media attention on dirty filthy druggie bennies contaminating good solid taxpayer built state houses was a PR coup from heaven for National.
Scapegoating state tenants as druggies while National were privatizing state housing is fucking sick.
There were 240 empty state houses because of this! How many tenants were kicked onto the street? The enormity of this scandal is terrifying and there are accusations now that children were taken off State House tenants using these fake tests! What will be most depressing however is it will be forgotten by the end of week because this impacted poor brown people – the fake meth contamination scandal would need to appear on bloody Dancing With The Stars for the mainstream media to continue covering it.
If you as a state tenant had your house tested for meth, not only were you kicked out, you were banned from any State House for 12months – no wonder our homelessness rates blew out under National – this was a mad hysteria scam fed by the media for ex cop contamination companies
The most disturbing part of this meth scam is that so many in the media fell for it! We are a developed scientific country – we got duped into believing mythical monsters existed and the poorest suffered by getting thrown onto the street!
How the hell can a first world scientific developed country get conned into believing a monster hunt so ex cop decontamination companies could make a killing using meth hysteria which gave plenty of media camouflage to push through state house privatisation agenda by a hard right Government?
I think I just answered my own question.
We should be deeply ashamed of what happened here, we should be deeply ashamed at how muddle Nu Zilind were played, we should be deeply ashamed of how worthless our media were and we should be deeply ashamed of how our poorest and most vulnerable were treated by this.
Surely we need to find where the state tenants were kicked out to, we need to immediately house them, we need to immediately seek compensation for them and any state tenant who had their kids taken from them using these fake tests must immediately have their children handed back!!!
For fucks sake people – this is an abomination!
How easy was it for us to become fascist towards the weakest members of our society?
Jesus, I hate us sometimes.
Oh Martyn you only have to look at the underfunding of medicines on the waiting list which went from 24 in 2007 to 94 plus in 2017 and a drop from 6.2% of the health budget to 3.6%, to see the answer to that, The Nasti Nazi party just didnt give a shit.
@ G L. They will never ‘give a shit’ unless we make them do so. ‘They’, in this case, in the form of National Party members and MP’s don’t think they need to give a shit. They, in fact, think quite the opposite. ‘They’ think we should thank them for saving us from ourselves while they dollar-fuck us over.
There in lies the rub.
I don’t know if we should feel ashamed for being conned. I think we SHOULD feel ashamed if we let this, and other things, slide. That, would be shameful. We must stand our ground and push back.
It’s come to this because they brought it upon themselves, remember.
The sick cruelties that the neo narcissistic sadists have subjected people to in this case can’t be let go.
Plan of action please @ MB? Tell us what you’d like us to do to help you bring this to the forefront of the People’s attention? To make the MSM sit up and show some fucking respect to the people who pay their wages.
Its a pity that this report didn’t come out before the election, as it would have dented the Natzskis even further, as many landlords are ropable about the hundreds of thousands of dollars they have paid out in this scam.
Yes, that is what it is, a scam just as much as the one where some foreigner calls your landline and tells you your computer has a virus and offers to sell you a package that will “fix ‘it”.
This scam is slightly different though, it was done with the connivance of the National government.
There needs to be an independent inquiry on this so we can find out whether National knew it was a scam and perpetuated it or whether they were duped like most.
i believe that National probably suspected that the whole thing was dodgy but because it assisted their ideological hatred of state housing and state tenants they went along with it.
Well now the whole scam has been exposed.
I suppose all these worthy businesses who specialised in meth house testing and cleaning will be scuttling off to Australia or elsewhere just as quick as they can before anyone can get their money back off them.
If we had had a proper MSM staffed with real journalists to investigate the claims back when it began, instead of just photocopying the National Party line the scam might have been nipped in the bud then.
I hope the landlords who voted National will remember at the next election which government it was who let them down over this.
The more people there are chasing around doing stupid stuff, the better the GDP.
I really hope that someone has a good close look at the real estate ties to this scam. It seems they are quite upset that one of their income streams has been nipped in the bud? I think they have been pretty heavily invested in the meth contamination clean up business?
How much moolah is everyone gonna blow wasting thousands of (maybe resistant) cows? It’s the same type of phenomena
Purge it! Burn it! Drop 1080 on the forests! Hunt down the different skinks! Hunt down the Asian Paddle Crabs, they are evil!
Could be pathological madness. When I say could be, I mean time to completely shit your pants panic and pray to God
Why has it taken Dr Gluckman so long for his research on this to see the light of day? Was he silenced by his previous bosses (Key et al) and only with a new government and new boss has he the freedom to come out with the truth?
Maybe it’s not as sinister as it looks but it would be good to be convinced by some facts.
Anyone?
Don’t forget that Key’s little party trick when faced by unpalatable facts from scientists was to discredit the scientist and not to objectively address the facts.
Hence on a BBC interview re the work of a leading water scientist Key said scientists were like lawyers and that he could easily find another one to give an opposing view.
Under National, differing from the status quo could cost people their jobs, or at least their research funding, or promotion.
It’s clear now that National politicians and others were aware that the standards were flawed, but no-one is accepting any responsibility.
Regardless of any other agendas, like flogging off state housing, the people who were dispossessed here, and in some cases literally tossed out into the streets, families with children uprooted and made homeless, were the voiceless poor, and sinister is an understatement, it was socially irresponsible and very cruel.
How quickly people are forgetting that right up to the election, the Nat govt was denying that there was even any housing crisis. And how easy it was, and may still be, to blame the feckless poor for contamination in properties which they often knew nothing about, but which they had to pay for, at so many nightmarish levels.
There should be some sort of inquiry, if only to ensure that the incompetent public servants and/or whoever who authorised this damaging and costly debacle, are never in the position to do so again.
It won’t happen.
They should be made to explain themselves and to quit blaming everyone else.
Great cartoon about Doris the cow.
Well done to the creator of the above cartoon.
Very clever it is.
Come on, you would not expect accountability from standards set under National’s laissez faire rule, where private entrepreneurs set the rules that suit themselves:
https://www.standards.govt.nz/sponsored-standards/testing-and-decontamination-of-methamphetamine-contaminated-properties/
If you do not get it, read the list on page three in this PDF doc:
https://www.standards.govt.nz/assets/Publication-files/NZS8510-2017.pdf
“COMMITTEE REPRESENTATION
This standard was prepared by the P8510 Committee. The membership of the committee was approved by the New Zealand
Standards Approval Board and appointed by the New Zealand Standards Executive under the Standards and Accreditation
Act 2015.
The committee consisted of representatives of the following nominating organisations:
Analytica Laboratories
Andy Andersons Industrial Services
Auckland Council
Cleaning Systems Ltd
Contaminated Site Solutions Ltd
Environmental Science and Research
Forensic and Industrial Science Ltd
Hill Laboratories
Housing New Zealand Corporation
Hutt City Council
Independent Property Managers’ Association
Insurance Council of New Zealand
International Accreditation NZ (IANZ)
Local Government New Zealand
MethSolutions Ltd
Ministry for the Environment
Ministry of Health
New Zealand Property Investors’ Federation
NZ Decontamination Services T/A Fresh Living
NZ Remediation Services
Real Estate Institute of New Zealand
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Standards New Zealand gratefully acknowledges the contribution of time and expertise from all those involved in
developing this standard.”
Standards NZ have become a fricking joke of sorts, same as many ‘ministries’ under the last government.
Look at MSD also, that outfit, OIA complaints to the Ombudsmen have resulted in BS responses saying, the information asked for is not to be found, not held, hence section bla, bla, bla OIA applies, the info is refused.
An underfunded, useless and anyway often complicit Ombudsmen Office does nothing, and basically lets the crims in government get away with murder (here on other matters):
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2016/09/05/the-new-zealand-ombudsman-underfunded-and-compromised-the-auditor-general-sees-no-need-for-action/
https://nzsocialjusticeblog2013.wordpress.com/2016/07/24/the-new-zealand-ombudsman-fairness-for-all-an-empty-slogan-for-some/
Only because most people are too lazy to check on the government and system, or are too busy with their own day to day challenges, or too indifferent or stupid, do the players in the system get away with all the BS they deliver, that is 24/7.
This country is beyond repair, believe me.
Stunned Marc, that so many people could get it so wrong – that’s if they really did.
The fact that someone like Key enjoyed so many years endorsed by the MSM and public suggests that we may be a stupid people.
Not so long ago a retired judge talked to me with tears in his eyes about poverty in the Hokianga, inter-generational welfare dependency etc and said “they” know and “they” don’t give a damn – called Key a crook and said that English was another one.
We are a young country and may not have yet worked through the damaged genetic coding of so many of our colonial forebears and perhaps systemically dumbed down again by the opiate of mass media, leaving our children and their children a tawdry legacy.
Change is possible – if the will is there – but it may need leaders who are not currently evident.
31 May 2016
Minister of Housing
Nick Smith
‘Open Letter’ /OIA request to Minister of Housing Nick Smith, about the testing of HNZ properties for suspected “P” contamination.
Dear Minister,
Can you please provide copies of the following:
A) The information which provides the legislative/ policy / procedures which cover the TESTING of Housing NZ properties for suspected “P” contamination:
1) Legislation
2) Standards
3) Regulation
4) Policy
5) Procedures
6) Protocol
B) The information which provides the legislative/ policy / procedures which cover the DECONTAMINATION of Housing NZ properties for actual “P” contamination, discovered through testing:
1) Legislation
2) Standards
3) Regulation
4) Policy
5) Procedures
6) Protocol
C) Copies of the nformation which explains when, and why HNZ properties are tested for “P”:
1) What ‘triggers’ a “P” test?
2) What triggers “P” decontamination?
3) At what point is it decided that the risk of “P” contamination warrants tenants having to leave the HNZ property?
D) What exactly are the official ‘levels’ upon which HNZ is relying in order to define that a property is ‘contaminated’.
E) What exactly are the official ‘levels’ upon which HNZ is relying in order to decide that a property is so ‘contaminated’ with “P” that it needs to be demolished.
F) Names of the company / companies employed by HNZ who carry out testing for “P” contamination.
1) A copy of the ‘qualifications’ which confirm these companies are ‘fit for duty’.
G) Names of the company / companies employed by HNZ who carry out “P” ‘decontamination’.
1) A copy of the ‘qualifications’ which confirm these companies are ‘fit for duty’.
H) When did HNZ start testing properties for ‘P’ contamination.
I) What are the total numbers of HNZ properties on an annual basis, since ‘P’ testing was initiated by HNZ, that have been found to have ‘P’ contamination.
J) What are the total numbers of HNZ properties that have been demolished because of ‘P’ contamination.
K) How does HNZ determine WHO caused the ‘P’ contamination.
L) What is the HNZ process / policy / procedure for deciding on potential consequences for HNZ tenants who have been allegedly responsible for ‘P’ contamination.
Yours sincerely
Penny Bright
2016 Auckland Mayoral candidate
So did you get a response, and what was it?
[…] most of the money ($100m) was made from HNZ contracts and similar big clients. HNZ didn’t bother doing the more economical field and laboratory […]
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