Housing New Zealand Corporation – these are the people who have to go!
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.
Political analysis and commentary shaping the progressive debate in Aotearoa New Zealand, focused on power, policy, and accountability.
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.
This situation has reached crisis point – the prisons are overwhelmed by people who have mental illness, addictions to alcohol and drugs, and/ or both. 90% of the prison population has one or other, and 20% both. The number of people in prisons has gone up nearly 500% over 30 years, driven primarily by the surge in the use of illegal substances.
Last week I received this message from a former employee at Housing New Zealand Corporation.
Better off people can simply save less in other funds if they are forced to contribute more, while the poor just get poorer. On retirement, low income workers may get little advantage from their forced saving as they will need a top-up to get just to the level of NZ Super.
Every country, including New Zealand, that supported the original plan to surrender Palestine and its people to the ambitions of Zionist ideology, has a responsibility for their security and the restoration of UN-recognised Palestinian human rights.
This weekend it is likely that you will see workers at Burger King, Wendy’s and Event Cinemas taking action to bring an end to their status as part of minimum wage industries as well as to protect or establish margins for skill and service.
STUPIDITY ON STILTS. How else should the decision-making on Waikeria Prison be characterised. From practically every perspective, the Labour-led government’s determination not to proceed with the construction of a new 3,000-bed “mega-prison” was flawed. Most particularly (and most worryingly) it demonstrated the Cabinet’s inability to think politically. When your business is politics-at-the-highest-level, that’s a very serious flaw indeed.
The Mycoplasma bovis crisis confronting New Zealand is a story that will be dissected and commented on for decades to come.
This was not simply a matter of a bacteria infecting cattle. This was a story on many levels; of flouted rules; a significant inadequacy of the “free market”; critical under-funding by National (no surprises there); and the best silver-lining that farmers could possibly hope for…
ABOUT THE TIME the second of Britain’s battle cruisers exploded, Vice-Admiral Beatty famously remarked: “There seems to be something wrong with our bloody ships today.” Trying to make sense of the political passivity of New Zealanders in the twenty-first century, I am often minded of Beatty’s words at the Battle of Jutland. Throughout the vicious class warfare of the past 35 years there does, indeed, seem to be something “wrong” with the progressive movement’s bloody ships!
Playing politics with social issues is nothing new. National has perfected the art with it’s “tough on crime” rhetoric. It has also demonised solo-mothers; the unemployed; young people, and Housing NZ tenants with it’s meth-testing/contamination moral-panic.
Now National has added housing to it’s list.