In a week when the government has announced hundreds of millions to compensate farmers, many of whom are exceptionally wealthy, for something which appears to be no fault of the government, Housing Minister Phil Twyford is refusing to compensate state house tenants for what amounted to state-sanctioned abuse of vulnerable families by Housing New Zealand.
The Talley Brothers are the embodiment of the old saying that “Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiest of men for the nastiest of motives will somehow work for the benefit of all”
All young New Zealanders starting out in life should give these particularly vile New Zealanders a wide berth.
When will the senior leadership of WINZ, who inculcated a toxic culture of blame and shame at all levels of the organisation on behalf of the previous National government, be required to resign?
It’s been a tough couple of weeks for Christchurch city councillors hearing submissions on the council’s long-term plan. A vast range of community groups and individuals, fronted by positive, passionate people concerned for Christchurch’s wellbeing, have presented funding wish lists both great and small. However, there is a finite amount of money and hard decisions need to be made.
“Transformation” is a politically expedient and specifically misleading term. Labour knows the expectations are high and by describing it as the first of three budgets which will “transform” New Zealand, Labour is offering future hope from a government which has no intention of any transformation outside the rigid confines of neo-liberalism.
Pampering landlords has been a consistent feature of New Zealand economic policy by successive governments. Leaving housing to the market has meant plenty of quality homes and good choices for higher-income tenants and families but the reverse for everyone on modest and low incomes. Today’s housing crisis means impossibly high rents and steadily reducing quality for private-sector tenants.
It is stupid of the government to spend tens of millions on motel accommodation for homeless families when we have 33,000 empty homes in Auckland.
Yes – I know most readers of the Daily Blog are very cynical about the Tax Working Group. I share the cynicism. The TWG is stacked 8 to 2 with people who have spent most of their lives earning huge money to advise corporate New Zealand how to avoid tax. I blogged about it here.
But we have to build an alternative tax framework and you can help get your thoughts together on this through preparing a brief submission THIS WEEKEND.
The Christchurch Progressive Network has written to Housing Minister Phil Twyford urging the government to consider implementing an Empty Homes Tax similar to the tax recently introduced in Vancouver, Canada.
Our lives have been hijacked by billionaires.
They cream off the wealth we create and leave us and our families struggling.
Most of us work longer hours for poor pay in insecure jobs. We have less money, less choices and face lives of increasing struggle. Most of our children will never own a home and face bleaker life chances than us today.