‘Sleeping in my car next to a $15m house’ – Life in Queenstown’s housing crisis
The tourists are back in bigger numbers than ever but behind the beauty, boutiques and big business, hardworking Kiwis live in cars and tents. Sunday’s Conor Whitten meets the faces of Queenstown’s housing crisis – with good jobs, good incomes and nowhere to call home.
Every. Single. Year. it’s the same bloody story.
Queenstown is so expensive and elite that it can’t house the workers those elite require and that even in Queenstown, the entire town is reliant on the low wage economy!
If Queenstown – rich, snobby, elite Queenstown can’t build houses for their crucial workforce, doesn’t that highlight how warped the market has become?
If Queenstown – rich, snobby, elite Queenstown is reliant on the low wage economy, doesn’t it highlight the addiction throughout the country?
If Queenstown – rich, snobby, elite Queenstown is endlessly trapped in this cycle, what hope for the rest of the country?
Queenstown has become a symbol of just how weak our social infrastructure reliant on free market myths has become.
Meanwhile, 24 717 people languish on the social housing waiting list and 600 000 Kiwis use Food Banks every single month.
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Is it too much effort Castro to write more than one trolling sentence?
NZ birth rate, apart from Māori and Pacific, is below replacement level at around 1.6%. This phenomenon is present in much of the “developed” world–Japan, Europe and other countries are seeing population drops and lack of working age people. So…codgers want aged carers, everyone wants medical care, service workers and fibre installers…migrant labour imported from more populous areas is what happens.
Particularly after the Rogernomics and Ruthanasia assaults on the NZ working class which sacked thousands and never retrained them which is why we have a permanent underclass.
International capital and finance capital roam around the globe with gay abandon, but there are tight restrictions on the movement of labour and displaced working class people. Internationalism is the answer–co-operation between the worlds workers.
Queenstown puts it all stark relief, precarious workers sleeping in cars to serve their betters a morning long black or clean their crappers.
There are plenty of famous photos of slums next to mansions. The rich live their glorious lives in their glorious surroundings while just over the way is the other side of the story.
Apparently Queenstown has sister city status with Aspen, Colorado. Maybe to give them a relevant base for some of their development needs Queenstown could also hook up with Mumbai.
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