The soaring price of renting is driving the rise of inflation in this country – with latest figures from Stats NZ showing rents are up 4.8 per cent on average while annual inflation is at 3.3 per cent.
“The everyday struggle for renters is worse than ever, and we are paying through the roof to live in houses that make us sick,” says the Green Party’s Housing Spokesperson Tamatha Paul.
“Successive governments have allowed the rental market to tilt further and further in favour of landlords – until this imbalance is addressed, many renters will remain locked in poverty.
“Rapid rent increases are the biggest driver of inflation, and the Government appears indifferent to how this affects the most vulnerable households during a cost of living crisis.
“Many rental homes are cold and damp, mould is all too common, and landlords often do the bare minimum when installing heating. To make things worse, the Government announced yesterday that it plans to roll back standards designed to increase insulation in new builds.
“People are forced to make an impossible choice between what they can afford, and living in a warm, safe and dry home. Many resort to cutting essentials like food and heating to afford their rent.
“What’s more, renters are afraid to ask landlords or property managers to fix problems like mould, leaks or the lack of fire alarms for fear they’ll be kicked out or have their rent hiked.
“The Government has given $2.9 billion in tax cuts to landlords, and has bent over backwards to their interests, entrenching the power imbalance that leads to families living in unhealthy homes.
“This is why the Greens are calling for rent controls which will limit the amount that landlords can increase rent and how often they can do this. We also need a Rental Warrant of Fitness to ensure quality, and for the Government to commit to building more public housing to make sure that we have enough affordable homes for everyone.
“Housing is a human right. Everyone deserves a warm, affordable and healthy home,” says Tamatha Paul.
The cost of acquiring a Rental Warrant of Fitness will further drive up rents as that cost will be passed on.
Two other things that are also driving up rents are soaring rates and insurance costs. Yet, you never talk about addressing them.
Why is that?
As for heating, once again, we see there is nothing from you about addressing the high cost of power.
Therefore, time for you to start addressing the actual cause behind the problems.
Are you up to doing the mahi on that?
The electric power price hikes are even more of a worry than rates and insurance for three reasons. First because they are anti-competitive. Second because the electricity cartel was able to walk all over the last Labour government and coerce it into repealing price regulation for the industry. Third because of the blatant dishonesty of the industry and government, which with stupefying gall and arrant hypocrisy has been trying to tell us that the abolition of the low user plans are intended to benefit the poor, because, they argue, the poor consume more electricity than the rich. That is self-evidently fatuous nonsense. Let’s be clear. Labour’s voting base may have electric vehicles, heated spa pools and electric patio heaters but the poor do not. And get this. 59% of us were on low user plans. These are people who are frugal users of electricity either because they are cash-strapped or because they have a sense of social and environmental responsibility. They are now being punished by a government and an industry which wants to punish the frugal users and to increase demand for electricity among the remaining 41% so that prices can be hiked even further. No ordinary electricity consumer will win in the long run, or even in the relatively short run. This is the consequence of a corrupt government clearing the way for a corrupt industry.
The reason why the left “never talk about addressing” the impact of insurance and electricity charges on the lives of ordinary New Zealanders is simply because in these two areas the left and the right, the state and private capital, collude in the exploitation.
In insurance the state runs the Earthquake Commission which provides cover against damage from earthquake, tsunami, landslip, volcanic eruption and hydrothermal activity but only to or through insurance companies. Private citizens are not able to access that cover, and if they cannot afford cover against all risks through a private insurer then they are left high and dry, exposed to natural disaster hazards. The role of the state here is not to protect the citizen, but to protect the insurance companies. So naturally the left have little to say about it.
The electricity situation is even more egregious. Domestic electricity supply is a murky conspiracy between the state and private capital in which the state and private capital divvy up the profits of super-exploitation on a fifty-fifty basis, and structure the charging systems so that the poor pay a higher unit price for electricity than the rich. The wealthier you are, and the more electricity you are able to consume, the less you pay. This whole system sits within a murky legal environment saturated with official disinformation, obscurantism, mendacity and customer coercion. So again, no surprise that the left has nothing much to say about it.
Never-ending increases in the cost of rates, insurance and electricity charges is having a big negative impact on the lives of ordinary New Zealanders.
And if the current left don’t want to even speak about this let alone address it, then we all better start looking for a party that does.
Genesis Energy reports: “The government owns 51% of power companies like us, Meridian and Mercury, due to this we are phasing out of the Low User Plan” implying that the government (in the first instance a Labour government, now the National led coalition government) is forcing Genesis to phase out the Low User Plan which made electric power affordable for poor families.
Genesis is telling us that the New Zealand government is using its 51% shareholding to deliver a sharp slap in the face to low income households, and is insisting that government is entirely responsible. Important to note that this was a Labour government initiative, and the National led coalition government is only following Labour’s lead – as it would.
Important to note that this was a Labour government initiative, and the National led coalition government is only following Labour’s lead – as it would. In fact there is a cosy relationship between the government as shareholder, the government as regulator, the private shareholders and the management of the electricity retailers all conspiring together against ordinary New Zealand households.
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