John Minto

These are the people who have to go. They presided over an out of control Housing New Zealand Corporation with brutal, punitive policies towards the most vulnerable of people.

Last week I received this message from a former employee at Housing New Zealand Corporation.

Housing Minister Phil Twyford is right to lay the blame squarely with the former National government and in particular with its Housing Minister Paula Bennett. Her attempts to distance herself from this debacle are in tatters after this Mediawatch report in the weekend.

Bennett is revealed as the loathsome liar she is.

“Housing New Zealand’s chief executive Andrew McKenzie refused to be interviewed again today.

He has never given RNZ an interview on his agency’s meth testing policy and his communications manager said he never will.”

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.