MEDIA WATCH: The Nation TV3 – GRANT SAVE US FROM SCUMLORDS!

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Boom!

As the filthy scumlord property speculators flood social media with gloating threats of how they will punish renters by raising their rents to hurt Jacinda’s new property rules, Grant appears on The Nation to threaten them with new rent rise caps.

Hilariously this has National and ACT enraged.

ACT, Judith Collins on attack after Grant Robertson’s latest rent comments

ACT’s housing spokesperson Brooke van Velden says Finance Minister Grant Robertson has “dropped another bombshell on property investors” after failing to rule out putting limits on how much landlords can hike rents.

Following the release of the Government’s housing plan on Tuesday in an attempt to crack down on property investors, landlords have threatened they’ll hike rents to cover the loss.

Appearing on Newshub Nation on Saturday Robertson said “we’ll keep an eye on that” and didn’t rule out including caps on rent hikes.

Grant points out that the new rules don’t even take effect for 4 years, and is still available for new builds so the slumlord property speculators (who have been subsidised for decades with tax free capital gains, the housing allowance subsidy to renters AND tax loopholes) have no real reason to be aggrieved.

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The vast number of property owners are owner occupiers so none of this impacts them and the vast number of Landlords are mum and dad operations who have real relationships with their tenants.

Which is why we must assume that this spiteful malice from the slumlord property speculators is genuine class warfare and that they will fulfil those threats with cold eyed  dedication.

These feverish revenge fantasies to hurt renters just to attack Jacinda is group punishment and renters need protecting!

We must go beyond threats of a rent cap, and instead demand the Greens step in and call for rent freezes and permanent tenancies that can only be ended by Tribunal for not paying rent and or damaging the property or by the tenant.

That Grant has had to go on TV and threaten this at all shows how sensitive Labour are to criticism from their own side.

 

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44 COMMENTS

  1. Grunter is losing control. He is not the smug and assured operator that he was 6 months ago. The can has reached the end of the cul-de-sac and the true nature of our economy is being laid bare. Landlords should be the least of his worries going forward and the fact he is targeting them shows there is no plan B.

    Surely the bigger issue this week is a shortage of wood to build houses considering the majority of our issues on housing is supply. But no this is (little) Aotearoa where figuratively when someone breaks their leg we decide the best course of treatment is amputation…..

    • a shortage of wood to build houses

      Yes. That is crazy. We live in a land that has been deliberately covered in timber, to where it is going up in flames. It’s beyond senseless that there’s a timber shortage for building.

      A local/ regional timber mill has just been closed – They’re already laid off – 200+ workers.
      Mill closure

      Jacinda visited it shortly before it was finally decided, but could not do anything to save it.
      Why is priority given to a “Foam factory” over a mill?

      Elsewhere I read where other mills may be following, though right now I cannot find that link.

      • Foam factory owned by a NZ rich lister able to get government subsidies for beds. I guess John Key famously told Kiwis he didn’t want Kiwis to be tenants in our own country, Labour got in and did the ‘rental reforms’ which mean’t now Kiwis can’t even get a rental and live in a motel or car in their own country, maybe now the Labour idea is that we can just about afford a bed in our own country??? Check out the price of a bed. Thousands of dollars for a bed in Farmers. https://www.farmers.co.nz/home/beds-bedroom-furniture/beds/ManufacturerName-Sleepyhead-SortingAttribute-ArrivalDate-desc Beds are now more expensive than many cars in NZ which at least you can sleep in!

        • And the land it’s standing on!!
          Aotearoa has been carved up and sold off – vast chunks of this land – to foreign, overseas owners – It is now in foreign ownership. Kiwis don’t get this, or for some reason they don’t care. To me it’s incomprehensible.

          • Foreign ownership and outsourcing has gone so deep now, there is hardly anything left that is owned and made here.
            Walking it back will be far more difficult than it was get into this jam (it’s a bit like the frog in the pot on the stove) that it will take something quite out of the ordinary, like nationalization and such.
            Neo liberalism chickens now coming home to roost.

          • It’s gone too far, it will be very hard to turn things around. The only thing that gives me hope, is many other countries are starting to see through the whole business of a few extremely large multi-national corporations controlling just about everything is not good for those individual countries.

      • “a shortage of wood to build houses”

        This all under a National government, Timber mills close, meat works close etc etc. All for cheaper imports.
        Now Collins wants the Government to guarantee that there will be no rent increase freezes. How many properties does Collins have that she can increase the rate at her want?

    • Here is a link that suggests others may be closing: Mill Closure from Feb

      ”Without having some serious change to how we do things in New Zealand around wood processing, then I don’t see that things are going to change and we’re probably likely to see more closures.”

      One option was the regulation of export log prices, a market that was dominated by China and open to manipulation, Abbott said.

      A brief search shows it’s a massive topic. High electricity prices are one part of the problem, for mills.

      Even if this mill was not designed for producing building-timber, planks etc, couldn’t it be upgraded to provide those? When we in AO/NZ are embarking on such a massive home-building venture, and it’s so urgently needed, surely we should be putting all resources into ensuring we produce as much base product as possible.

      • Foreign owned Rio Tinto seems to be able to get the massive electricity subsidies. Maybe they get special treatment due to Tiwai Point smelter stockpiling 100,000 tonnes of hazardous waste near Bluff beach… weird who seems to get government subsidies and who does not…

  2. “Grant points out that the new rules don’t even take effect for 4 years”

    There you have it folks, this “policy” was never about correcting the crisis or even an attempt to fix it, but it was a prime example of smoke and mirrors. Its only objective was this get housing off the front pages. Honestly, how stupid is Labours leadership if they think that will happen?

    Why can Labour not see the damage housing unaffordability plus reliance on a cartel of landlords is causing?

    Why are they so stupid as to think house prices must only go up?

    The rich irony is our very own Jacinda Ardern is the minister for children, claiming some three and a half years ago she wanted to see a fall in child poverty or resign. She cared, apparently (and made some other very bold promises like Kiwibuild, Light Rail to Mt Roskill opening this year in fact, Skypath…).

    Well PM, your lack of care for a basic like housing means you best start looking for a job because you are clearly to blind to see when these kids mums and dads can’t afford rent and have no hope of ever owning their own home, guess who suffers? Children!

    • don’t even take effect for 4 years

      That’s a shocker alright.
      So, in reality nothing changes?
      I’m still trying to comprehend it.

      • Pretty sure that this must be to discourage investment seen as speculation and so dampen the enthusiasm that’s fuelling the bubble. It gives plenty of time to back off if the that turns out to be all that was needed without distorting the market too much.
        D J S

    • I could be wrong, but I had the impression that the removal of interest deductibility was to be phased in of four years; which is different from not taking effect for four years.

    • For properties already owned, If you buy one now it is subject to the full trance of new rules. At least that was my take on it.

  3. Yes, well…what is happening with CHH apparently turning the tap off with framing timber?

    Three of the bigger building supply outfits have predicted in the media a year long shortage. So is this really due to CHH’s journalistically untested claim that housing developments have swallowed up the supply, or are they politically intervening like the industry did by “going on strike” re Kiwibuild?

    Who knows yet, but the raw logs are still heading in great numbers at all the usual ports for China

  4. So by not behaving like a competent political body, Labour goad criminals who use Labour’s economic ideology into attacking the most vulnerable, without even doing anything to solve the overall issue. So at the next opportunity, enraged white collar criminals go wild for at least the next four years. At which time, assumedly Labour aren’t in power because a “tough on social issues” crowd like National and ACT are in power to “meet the challenge”. Nice work, you fuckn fools. Start a war and then leave the field.
    I look forward to more waling about the importance of new hate speech laws from Labour, while landlords keep up their hate speech, and I want to see these people charged with terrorism, because threatening to kill for political gain is what it is. Read the law – a pass is given to weaker parties protesting industrial disputes. It’s not to give a free pass to an unofficial ruling class attacking their weaker tenants. There is the malicious threat, there is the opportunity, they even give a date for god’s sake. The reason no one will be charged is because these so-called landlords are neoliberals. Usually a government would come down hard on a group appropriating their consent to rule. I guess this time it just comes too close to the government incriminating themselves. Without the voice of a competent leadership that makes an attempt to articulate new values, this will only end one way. Keep an eye on it, Grant, you do that. Should I send you some binoculars or will you need an telescope?

  5. NZ is the country version of the Titanic. You have the slumlord speculators Landlord Class living it up large on the top decks, the single home owner owner occupiers on the middle decks and renters in the bowels of the ship in steerage. The top decks lavish over the top luxury was mainly supported by charging many many steerage passengers to cram into small windowless rooms. The rich were living on the backs of the poor suffering poor people below. The steerage passengers were travelling out of necessity to escape desperate poverty and start new lives. The rich were a mainly just on jollies peacocking their presence on such a luxury liner.

    When the disaster struck (COVID) the steerage passengers were locked below while the first class were taken to the lifeboats and were allowed to escape the unfolding disaster. There were many empty places left empty on the lifeboats (ghost houses) that could have given poorer people a chance but that was not acceptable to the rich.

    So many lives were lost and destroyed because of the disaster it was obvious that to the people in control some lives were much more important than others…… isn’t that right Jacinda, Grant, Adrian and Captain Smith?

  6. Just so everyone knows just how cynically the Reserve Banks of Australia and New Zealand have played the COVID crisis to keep the property bubble alive so the rich stay rich and become even richer watch this from Australia on August 2019. A few months before COVID struck. Also consider that since March last year 40% of the houses sold were by people who owned more than one home and on average they made 300k tax free capital gain. How did Jacinda allow this mammoth transfer of wealth?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AB6yM9puTY0

  7. Exempting new builds is a very short fix. Any new builds by spec builders or property developers are built to sell. Usually they must be sold for the developer of builder to move on to the next project. They have expertise and contacts that make the continuation of their business logical and efficient. Property management is another business , suited to a different kind of operator who has money to invest but not the contacts or expertise in the building industry , or the patience , persistence and gumption to deal with the RMA and councils. The builders need this second tier of the system to be able to continue building.
    To single out this part of the economy for discriminatory penalty, removing the greatest business cost against their trading profit is utter insanity in a climate where accomodation is in crisis deficit. Talk about killing the goose that lays the golden egg! Biting the hand that feeds you! It’s fair enough to criticise the pure speculation where houses are left empty to avoid the problems and risk associated with renting, and relying purely on capital gain for return on investment,though it’s o use complaining if this is the most attractive policy on offer, but to penalise people who have property for let can’t but disincentivise owning such and hence discourage or curtail construction.
    Are we more concerned about homelessness or about someone else making a profit that we are missing out on? I think we want more housing not less. If the government could force people to let empty houses, or single out empty houses for the tax interest penalty there would be some sense to it.
    In the meantime I’d better go up the hill and cut some more 10x2s.
    D J S

  8. A few days ago Grant said that rents wouldn’t “necessarily” be pushed up because tenants “have the option to look elsewhere”. Here is a link to those comments.

    Grant’s comment is so completely off-the-charts out of touch with today’s rental market, with available options for renters, that it requires some effort to not feel despair for the future.

    • Speaking of off the charts is his latest solution for the housing crisis. Robertson is trying to solve this crisis by farming it out to the private sector. Again. And giving money to councils to get the private sector to build subdivision infrastructure. Because private sector won’t do it.

      How slow and how expensive is that?

      Firstly he needs councils to get on board, then draw up plans, then get consents, then tender the work out to the private sector who might do the work but only for a fortune.

      Then find a building firm to construct a suitable housing subdivision but we know it will only for houses of their choosing mind. And at their leisure

      This is not a plan, this is a tangled ugly mess that will takes years and fail miserably this deal with the crisis.

      Or the government, were they serious about this crisis, would skip the layers of middlemen and the oblivion of profit to the private sector and set up an organisation to do it themselves.

      Relying on the private sector has failed spectacularly so far Grant but fuck it, keep hitting your against a brick wall. You’re getting good at it.

    • My heart goes out to kiwis struggling for shelter in this insane environment.Yes I weep whenever I am in the big smoke and see native born NZer’s begging on the street while Chinese shoppers scurry by. WTF?? However I am so very, very pleased the public are now getting a clear view of Robertson’s feet of clay! He has no philosophy. He has no ideas. He has no answers. He has no hands on skills. Been nowhere done nothing effing useless career pollie Suck it up this is what you voted for!

  9. Don’t worry if Dhaka can be the economic ‘miracle’ that the woke like Shamubeel Eaqub want with unlimited immigration and everybody renting, and the religious right want for cheap labour and massive consumption in NZ, Dhaka sounds like their type of expansion, going from a few million population 50 years ago to 40 million today, on the back of 400,000 per year immigration, NZ can do it too! https://croakingcassandra.com/2018/03/31/work-visa-numbers-soar/

    The making of a megacity: how Dhaka transformed in 50 years of Bangladesh
    https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/mar/26/the-making-of-a-megacity-how-dhaka-transformed-in-50-years-of-bangladesh

  10. If the government had any intention of protecting renters they would have introduced rent caps as part of their housing policy. The fact that they didn’t – knowing full well what landlords will do – tells you everything you need to know.

  11. Martyn, looking at your headline here…do you expect ACT or Collins to sit back and nod along: ‘Yeah, brilliant solution, they nailed it, that’ll work.” Ok then, I say:”Yeah, brilliant solution, they nailed it, that’ll work.”
    And please stop labelling every investor a filthy scumlord! Most of us are looking after ourselves so we don’t have to be dependent on your ‘beloved state’ come retirement – in fact we were encouraged to do so many years ago and are merely playing by the rules.

    • The ol’ retirement excuse is getting so very thin. It’s about making lots of money here and now. It’s about greed. Next you’ll be saying it’s about your heart felt generosity to give back to society.

      And we taxpayers have to pick up the tab whilst investors claim their taxes back on numerous areas of their investment homes. I concluded some time ago investors actually live off real taxpayers.

      So don’t knock the beloved state, investors are some of the biggest benny’s of it by far.

      • investors are some of the biggest benny’s

        “Investors” is not the best word to describe the wider group who behave in that way.

        While serious do-er uppers and renovators are genuine investors, many in the present market are simply gamblers on that market, house-flippers, speculators, profiteers and exploiters of any loopholes they can find in the system.

    • Landlords in NZ currently receive over $3 billion a year through rental subsidies from all the other people in NZ that pay tax on their income and business earnings and this figure is likely to increase significantly over the next few years. Landlords will also receive their pensions – like everyone else – when they turn 65 paid to them by the working and taxpaying members of society. Your welcome.
      Nothing wrong with being an investor but housing is the only investment, I can think, of the that receives billions in state funding every year while evading contributions to state income at every opportunity. Once again – your welcome, just don’t feel hurt when you’re called out for what you are – an economic parasitic leach (not as a person necessarily). And I say that as someone who owns property so I’m not speaking from the politics of envy – just stating economic reality.

    • and check out what he has to say on immigration – very eye opening. Busts the myths we’re sold by neoliberal scum that immigration is soooo great for improving NZ skills etc. The opposite is true – it’s decreasing our skills and productivity i.e. making us poorer, while causing wage deflation and infrastructure crises like housing shortages.

      We cannot go back to the old norms once Covid abates – we have to put a stop to this stupid unnecessary immigration ponzi scheme.

  12. Encouraging more people to invest in new builds is really working out for home ownership…. NOT!
    Spoiler this first home owner paid $300k for his apartment and now owes $400k+ in repairs and he can’t live in it!

    ‘Whacked’ with huge costs: $16.3m estimated to fix defective Auckland apartments
    https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/whacked-with-huge-costs-163m-estimated-to-fix-defective-auckland-apartments/IZPBJLVZDTFZU5ZQOEPIBP7BKY/

    Seiler said he thought everything was fine when he bought his unit.

    “When I purchased, I had a building report done and it came back all clear, no issues. I was young, a first-home buyer and was thrilled to finally get onto the property ladder,” he said.

    By 2019, owners got the bad news that the multi-level property would require remediation.

    “Over the course of 2020, the assessment was done to understand the costs involved with what was needed and, late last year, we were told that the building would require approximately $16m spent on it to repair it.

    “From a report I received last week, $400,000 [will be due] for each owner,” he said.

    “From the feel I get from others, not many can afford the huge costs. We also have to come to terms that we have lost a huge amount of money, which we still owe the banks.”

    Repairs are expected to take longer than a year.

    “Where are people are expected to live? I don’t understand why this cost has been thrown at owners, as I would think any logical buyer would have done their due diligence. I and others are on the understanding that our individual apartments were fine,” he said.

    Seiler said insurance won’t cover the building because it is defective. He investigated trying to sell but was informed about “misrepresentation” which he said had been completely unintentional.”

  13. https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2021/03/megan-woods-to-correct-the-record-after-misleading-parliament-over-3-8-billion-housing-acceleration-fund.html

    If this is accurate and I stand to be corrected if it isn’t, Labour have been blindsided by housing.

    The announcement last week sounded rushed and incomplete but a 3 billion dollar add on to the policy was contained in a single A4 paper. That’s it?

    Labours leadership did not see housing as an issue. It was obvious with the PM’s comments late last year which said as much.

    This is not policy nor is it going to fix a thing to sort out housing because there is no real plan to make it work. The rot will continue to set in unabated. And this crisis is not going away Labour!

  14. ” demand the Greens step in and call for rent freezes and permanent tenancies ”
    The Greens are powerless to do diddly squat thanks to our FPP- MMP parliament the Social Democrats get to delay doing anything meaningful until post 2023.
    There is none of the outrage of injustice that we once fought against just moaning and well meaning blogs.
    Our outrage has been subdued thanks to the materialistic , financial fix we are all bribed with.

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