Shortlisted state house buyers dominated by profit
Profit-driven companies dominate the government’s shortlisted group of four potential buyers for 1500 state houses in Tauranga and Invercargill.
Hong Kong property billionaire Dr Henry Cheng Kar-Shun (owner of Pinnacle Group) has joined with John Laing Infrastructure Fund and Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions to line up for profits from state house tenants.
Local companies Morrison and Company and Programmed FM are also keen to grab rich pickings from government subsidies for state house tenants.
Even the not-for profits includes Trust House Limited which is making money from pokie machines in clubs and pubs. Buying state houses is another way to profit from vulnerable New Zealanders.
It’s very disappointing to see local iwi trusts (Ngā Pōtiki a Tamapahore Trust and Tapuika Iwi Authority Trust) providing political cover for these money-hungry corporates who will demand first call on tenant rents.
It is also deeply disappointing to see local groups IHC and Pact seriously damage their reputations in helping the government sell state housing and abandon the responsibility to provide quality, affordable homes for New Zealanders who need them.
New Zealand needs more state housing, not less. We are in the middle of a housing crisis for low and middle income New Zealanders and only the government has the resources and the capacity to provide the large number of quality, affordable housing so desperately needed.
People interested in fighting this biggest privatisation in New Zealand history will be meeting in Auckland on 16 April to plan the battle ahead – see the poster attached with this story.
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More state housing assets sold to the highest bidder. More political cover.
More lies from Key and National that he would not sell off more assets.
We are galloping along to become tenants in our own country and be subsidising from the tax payer purse the corporates (mostly offshore) to do this.
It’s so disgusting! Are people going to put up with this?
who would want them with their P smoking tenants?. As a tax payer I would prefer o company to own them rather than me.
I know this is a bit of an eye-opener for some people, but hold on to your Y-fronts, Dave. Not everyone in a state house is a P-smoking, wife-bashing, car-jacking benefit fraudster. Just thought I’d clear that up for you and Andrew. Don’t thank me; I consider it a public service.
Dave and Andrew – I note your only defense of National’s privatisation-by-stealth of State Houses is to exploit the prejudice that all State house tenants are P smokers.
It’s a riff of the all-solo-mums-breed-for cash, or the unemployed are unemployed by choice.
Your views aren’t rational or backed up by any evidence, but that’s not the point is it?
Your prejudice is the only justification you can rely on to support National’s privatisation policy.
As such, your justification is based on parroted cliches, and not much more.
Because really, you can’t justifiy National’s policy at all.
Natzis need the cash to pay the interest on the $117 Billion Debt they have run up since they were elected in 2008?
Welcome to the casino called ‘John Key’s New Zealand’.
Yes, nothing is safe anymore, even if it is nailed to the ground.
I am shaking my head in disbelief every morning, when I wake up and face the country and people around me. Is this for real? Have they voted for these ruthless robbers and criminal sell-out artists we have in government?
Yes, just over half the voters voted for National and their support parties.
And Paula Bennett, a former solo parent that lived off the benefit and got a cheap housing loan from the government, she is now the front salesperson to sell the homes to greedy “investors”, who consider their clientele nothing but pawns to earn more money from.
Others are mercenaries who have no soul as they sold that own identity long ago.
We have in Auckland one of the cities in the world with the least affordable homes. The average price is over 700 thousand. Going price for much of central and near central Auckland is now a million or more per home.
I am flabbergasted that nobody dares addressing the demand side, and also the overseas buyers, instead they simply say it is a given that Auckland’s population will grow to about 2.5 million in the next three to four decades.
Speculation is rampant, and the government only fiddled with some changes around the edges of the problem.
All Labour comes up is with a housing plan that may suit the middle class and those that have well paying jobs and can save.
Who does seriously believe that private foreign or local investors and buyers of Housing NZ homes will offer affordable homes under the market conditions we have now?
We are sold lies, lies and more lies, and in the end nothing will be solved, yes there may be some more social housing, but it will rather look like multi level blocks of units and apartments that are tiny and will have little space for storage and for living. I can already see the ghettos of the future being built.
Living in a decent size home with a bit of garden will become the privilege of the rich. Go to some places overseas and see how such larger, denser cities look like. Yes some may be doing a reasonable job, e.g. some cities in Europe, but in many other places there are endless social and environmental problems that will come with what this government plans.
But same as with the benefit system itself, National does not want people rely on the social security system, they want to throw people off benefits and drive them out of state houses, as they rather see them go out and slave for slave wages and poor conditions, as casual, part time or underpaid full time workers.
Go and save and buy your own will be the motto, do not expect any social housing paid for by the taxpayer.
Welcome to New Zealand 2016, where we are all just a commodity, or a liability, mere numbers, that have to be squeezed into some balance sheet for actuarial purposes.
Civil Disobedience is the future of this issue. What other creative ideas are there? I mean things that haven’t been done before.