Twelve fun facts about National’s failed housing policies for Parmjeet Parmar to consider
National’s List MP, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, has launched a scathing attack on Housing NZ on social media and in a story in the NZ Herald;
National’s List MP, Dr Parmjeet Parmar, has launched a scathing attack on Housing NZ on social media and in a story in the NZ Herald;
A certain amount of callousness; disdain; and outright hatred must replace compassion, egalitarianism, and a sense of community cohesion if the neo-liberal version of “society” is to operate successfully.
When National’s Simon Bridges, fronted up on Radio NZ on 5 June, he apparently apologised for his role in the unjust evictions of 300 state house tenants for meth-testing results that have been shown by Chief Science Advisor, Sir Peter Gluckman, as bogus.
Bridges said;
“I’m sorry that the advice we got was wrong and has made this situation what it is.”
Except – it’s not an apology for the wrongful evictions at all. It’s a lamentation that “the advice we got was wrong”.
Soon after criticising the Coalition for “hiding debt in SOEs” – a capital offense that National was guilty of in 2009, and which contributed to bankrupting Solid Energy by 2015 – National Party’s finance spokesperson, Amy Adams, was at it again.
Now is the time of the year when we send in requests to that mysterious red-garbed being at the north pole for ‘goodies’ of one sort or another. This is my belated wish-list of gifts. But not gifts for myself. These are gifts for the whole of New Zealand…
National’s “grand plans” for 220 new social and transitional places remains woefully short of the 1,138 houses that National sold off to IHC’s Accessible Properties at the end of March. It is also unclear what is meant by ” transitional places”. Are these actual houses? Or motel units, à la Auckland-style;
Two recent media stories, on two utterly disparate issues, were clear examples of how tax-payer funded media “spin doctors” were guiding government ministers to respond to questions in a certain way.
On 20 August 2007, National’s new leader, John Key, made a stirring speech to the Auckland branch of the New Zealand Contractors Federation. In it, he lambasted the then-Clark-led Labour government;
Upper Hutt, NZ, 4 June – Residents in a State housing community in Upper Hutt are continuing to mobilise to strengthen opposition to planned sell-off of Housing NZ vacant land, and planned further demolition of so-called “un-safe, earthquake-prone” State houses.
In none of the Minister’s correspondence was he able to provide specifics as to where State houses were in the “wrong place”. The ‘best’ he could do was list five regions; Auckland East & South; Auckland North West & Central; South Island, Central North Island, and Lower North Island.