Where are the journalists to tackle Prime Ministerial BS on state housing?
Deception and political spin crossed new boundaries this week with the Prime Minister, under pressure to explain the housing catastrophe in Rotorua, making the absurd statement:
“Our long-term plan is to get them into sustainable, long-term safe housing. It’s why for instance we’ve worked so hard to now have built 10 percent of all the state houses in New Zealand.”
Meaningless, ludicrous and irrelevant.
Why was she not challenged by journalists on this preposterous statement?
The government has been demolishing state houses almost as fast as it builds them so that the net increase in state houses over the last five years stands at a piddling 1,100 per year for a waiting list of 26,664. The waiting list has increased five-fold since Labour came to power in 2017.
Labour is taking us backwards on state housing at a spectacular rate.
And neither is it the fault of the previous National government. Labour has kept the policy settings for state house building the same as applied under National – right down to maintaining the same tough criteria to enable a low-income tenant or family to get on the waiting list.
The awful reason Labour is demolishing state houses and selling the land is to provide funding for Kainga Ora. The government doesn’t want to borrow to build, which any sensible government would, so it is forcing Kainga Ora to sell land and properties to do this. It’s the largest privatisation of state assets by Labour since the 1980s.
Where are the journalists to put some simple questions to the Prime Minister?
- Why has Labour allowed the state house waiting list to INCREASE FIVE FOLD (from 5,000 in late 2017 to over 26,000 in 2022) with no effective policy response?
- Why does Labour still think it’s OK to produce just 1,100 net new state houses per year for a state house waiting list of over 26,000? (When Labour came to power there were 63,209 state houses which has increased to just 68,765 by June this year)
- Why are the number of children living in grotty motels STILL INCREASING?
- Why is the number of children living in cars STILL INCREASING?
- Why are the number of children in tents STILL INCREASING?
- Why is Labour still ONLY FUNDING 1600 new IRRS places (for state house and social housing providers combined) each year for the more than 26,000 families on the state house waiting list?
- Why does Labour still think it’s OK to keep the proportion of state house at just 3.6% of total housing stock when it was 5.4% in 1990?
- Why has Labour not instigated an industrial-scale state house building programme such as the first Labour government did in the 1930s? (Labour then built 3,500 state houses each year – equivalent to 10,000 today on a population basis)
- Why is the government planning to sell 55 to 60% of crown land in Auckland to private property developers when we have a housing catastrophe for low-income New Zealanders?
Where are the journalists to expose this Prime Ministerial BS?
Dear oh dear oh dear Prime Minister. You must think we are stupid!
Our long term plans are…blah, blah, blah. Vintage Jacinda Ardern, the routine disingenuous aspirational caca but as always, entirely non committal, open ended, can’t be nailed down, vacant. Spin is it called?
It’s the equivalent of saying “when I win lotto”!
The rest of her deflection is premium horse shit!
Very true. And there’s no need to borrow the money from enemy Australian banks- the Reserve Bank can just issue it out. We can, in fact, pay for our own people.
Well said. John Key resigned as PM to take up a role with his Masters, ANZ. The current PM is no different – but no doubt she will also be given an Honours title, and a cushy job…
Where are all the journalists?
As of this morning, fawning over the Queen.
The government probably decided to use the motels because of the lockdowns and lack of tourists.
It’s past time to move on – by getting involved in the private market now its going downward
1. rent some from landlords at market rates and charge income related rents to tenants
2. buy some for later building intensification (even if just a factory built subdivision at the back) and rent out – this helps to maintain the level of building activity*** in a downward market.
3. buy and build a granny flat*** and on-sell (to families with parents).
Otherwise make it easier for mobile homes to be located on sections (either for children of parents or parents of children).
These area all quick interventions to make a difference – and without impacting on urban planning (public transport spines and focusing development where the supporting infrastructure is, unlike the proposed intensification wherever free for all).
There are so many ways that the government could be doing the right thing, and aren’t. Let’s not forget the original purpose of the ‘granny flat’… to provide some of the benefits that come from the system of family organization that occurs everywhere outside west of the Hajnal line. Multiple generations able to support each other with child- and elder care.
We could be subsidize granny flats for granny. Even subsidize house expansions for intergenerational living, and force relaxed zoning laws on such changes. Those things would make sense. Instead, it’s all dictatorial changes to zoning laws to benefit property developers, possibly the least deserving class in the entire country.
It’s time the Labour party faithful acknowledged the sad truth that their party isn’t lead by socialists. It’s lead by sociopaths.
The MSM are bought and paid for by Labour, especially TVNZ news, Radio NZ and Stuff. Our country is going backwards in every metric and yet Ardern is able to get away with it all. It’s disgusting!
An acquaintance rented a sub standard house to people who accepted the place as it was because the rent was low and he did not enforce a bond. After telling the tenants he was thinking of selling the tenants decided to complain that the conditions were sub standard. The owner was then visited by two men in suits, not demanding that the place be brought up to standard but offering on behalf of the government to pay for the upgrade if he would retain the house as a rental. Go figure !
Just as Chris Trotter explained in his post ‘the bad guys are winning’; the current Labour government hates the poor. Let that sink in for a moment and think about it.
This is a university educated, middle class government whose friends are in academia and the civil service. Nice polite people who live in leafy suburbs, who visit art galleries and attend the theatre. None of whom have ever done a day of manual work outside. They bear no relation to Labour governments of the previous century.
They need the votes of the poor, so they pretend to care. They’d never admit it even to themselves, but they actually WANT the poor to remain malnourished and uneducated because if they gained aspirations of rising into the middle class, they might vote for another party.
Agree John, the PMC needs to look past its own naval and understand that they are the problem not the solution. I despise them and their callous virtuosity.
I am an eight time Labour voter but this Labour Government are a disgrace. The housing situation is a shambles and all they have done is make things worse. Jacinda Ardern is a fake. She didn’t come in to politics to address poverty! How do I know? Her actions since Labour have had a majority. I’m starting to think Bill English was more genuine than Ardern re poverty, equal opportunity etc.
Local body elections draw nigh; consider the candidates on their form- do they support vanity projects and drive audi quattros or are they concerned with protecting the people from investors and speculators? Do they have boots on the ground and genuine cv’s or are they affiliated with the raiding class and their pr machines?
Do they have the capacity to asses what really works for the community as a whole or do they pass off their attendance at an evangelical-type muster of the lost and hungry as being ‘one of the people’ (but with a fatter share portfolio)? Because Rome burns while Nero plays the fiddle.