Comrades, we urgently need an issue to rally around and build upon the unexpected solidarity that the lockdown generated.
That issue must be Rent Rise Protests.
The excruciating explosion in house prices that Labour have fuelled with billions poured into corporate banks for property speculators over the last few months will cascade down into profit maximisation of housing as a commodity.
That means evil rent rises in an over heated market that is close to boiling point.
There is a moment of bloody snap back that needs to happen here.
Jacinda’s kindness means jack shit if people are thrown onto the streets because the unregulated, untaxed property speculation market has erupted AFTER her Government fed the machine AND ruled out a capital gains tax.
We are all terribly grateful to her for saving us from Covid, but the free market dynamics she is refusing point blank to challenge are threatening to throw a vast chunk of Kiwis onto the streets.
What’s the point of saving us from a virus if you can’t pay the rent?
The rent prices are being rapaciously pushed up by speculators using property to fund lavish lifestyles.
Fuck them.
If you are a renter, you should be incandescent with rage that this Government won’t modify the unregulated property speculation market!
It’s time to take to the streets.
It’s time to actually use our collective voice around an issue that impacts a huge swathe of New Zealand.
It’s time to demand Jacinda’s kindness means something.
The neoliberal NZ experiment has spawned a baby boomer subdivided middle class whose only illusion of wealth is the increasing property valuations generated by unfettered over seas buyers and slum lord property speculators.
Those forced to pay for their own education and their own retirement are finding it near impossible to enter a housing market dominated by those who haven’t.
We require new law cementing in long term tenancies with rent controls alongside mass public housing for renters and the promotion of ‘ethical landlords’, people who refuse to squeeze every last drop of money out of their tenants for needless greed.
Rent Rise Protests is the spark.
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you mean a Renter’s Party, Martyn… because James Shaw being incensed just doesn’t cut it…
I agree. Something needs to be done to raise the voices and plight of renters – especially those on the lowest incomes.
It is bloody obvious if rents keep rising above income levels, more and more people will drop out and into homelessness.
It’s disgraceful that this housing price inflation has been continuing for over a decade, and no government has done anything to stop it. They just keep talking about making it easier for first home buyers (meaning the children of the middle classes). “Labour” Party in name only – they’re too busy appeasing the well-off middle and upper classes.
I’m a boomer who has never owned a property, from choice. I always disagreed with the whole concept. I am doing OK, but I’ve seen some of the over-priced crap out there when looking for a new place to live. It’s beyond crazy that middle and upper classes are now buying up property in Otara for a million or so dollars.
We urgently need a massive state house building project to take the heat out of the house-price inflation, and to provide for those on the lowest incomes – for life. And state housing in areas close to necessary infrastructure, and not relegated to the least desirable areas of the country.
I agree with promoting the idea of ethical landlords. My current landlord used to raise the rent once a year slightly above rates rises. But so far I haven’t had a rent rise for 2 years. Fortunate given the difficult times.
But in my time, I’ve seen my share of greedy, unethical landlords renting unhealthy, leaky, insecure, over-priced properties.
Time to make some noise about improving the renting situation.
Hey if you’re in the mood to share, how and when did you decide to not own a house? Got any tips for people who also want to go that way?
My experiences worked in the times I was living in – and my choices have, been more individual, though I’ve long supported democratic socialism.
It’s got a lot tougher for many young people in many ways – not just for home ownership. The solution needs to be a government system and a change to housing for all, not for profits. Hence the need for a massive state housing build, and measures to take the heat out of the private housing market. Plus the need for measures to ensure less income & wealth inequality.
I thought that I didn’t want to own a property sometime in my teens or early 20s. I thought it was a big con to keep the population compliant – working to pay the mortgage etc.
But, also, back then, it was usually also very easy to find a flat to rent – with some mates. Actually, some flats were real dives, but I never wanted somewhere flash. And I had the middle class benefit of a solid (state) school education with UE, etc., middle class parents, and went on to mostly middle class jobs: and fortunate to be able bodied and in good health for the most part.
As I got older, I realised the extreme emphasis on home ownership was all a system to enrich those at the top of the property ladder, at the expense of those at the bottom – there’ll be always some who can’t afford to own.
Early on, I decided knowledge and learning (formal and informal education). was a better enabler of security in the future – something they can’t take that away from you. I have done a lot of part time Uni study over the years, while working; a bit of full time – dropping in and out of uni to study things I was interested in learning about, not for the qualifications.
I’ve travelled a little, seen something of the world – hitch hiked/backpacked. Always found enough work – though not usually very highly paid – public sector only. Lived in England and Aussie. And always lived fairlymodestly – never been into owning much stuff.
Haven’t been overseas for over a decade. I prefer getting to know places and people by living in other places, not via superficial mass tourism.
But, times have changed – it’s time governments stopped trying to prop up capitalism – it’s in its death throes and the wealthy are clinging on to as much as they can. The government and the kind of society we live in is the solution – not individual choices.
That’s hardcore. Were you part of a scene, like a beatnik or pre-punk whatever? How does an educated twenty-something in the early sixties decide the man is keeping everyone down with a mortgage? For NZ it seems like you’d have to be pretty sharp, and strong willed. How do you navigate a society that from all reports was more punitive and conservative than it is now, hold on to your own opposing ideals, and not get so marginalised you end up in jail? Was it an unusual perspective then? It’s out of the ordinary now, now i think of it.
It was more early 70s – and it was in keeping with hippy ideals – being anti-materialist, dropping out, etc.
But I have seen one generation after another, where many people are rad at uni, then succumb to the status quo pretty soon after.
I’ve never understood how that happens – human nature?
I guess it’s a minority in each generation who don’t, maybe? eg John Minto, Sue Bradford, et al.
Well it’s a good thing not everyone does, I know that much. Thanks for sharing.
It’s about now we need leadership from our government. We have none.
We need a “can-do” – thinking housing minister. We don’t, we have lawyer awaiting instruction, unbelievably more useless than the man she replaced.
We need a government to intervene because it is the only thing that can correct this fuck up. But we get a PM swanning about thinking playing Covid is all that matters. Yes, Covid focus groups really well but having the less well off struggling so badly is not acceptable.
Right now we need a PM and a leader who cares more about their people than their approval ratings. Sadly we have no such person.
All she is interested in doing is following Clark to a nice cushy UN position.
Once working overseas, she will give precisely zero fucks about those of us she left behind to wallow in the squalid mess she created.
I don’t know if she is evil through intent or evil through incompetence, but the effect is the same.
I won’t say I long for a return of Key, but he was certainly better in terms of the outcomes he achieved and compared to Clark Adern has been an unmitigated disaster.
Key achieved fuck all for “the people”.
He achieved an enormous amount for the corporates and banks, coincidentally where he works now.
Compared to Ardern, Key destroyed N.Z. and this is why N.Z. is in the state it’s in.
So who would be the target, one should be MBIE – Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment
MIB head office is at 15 Stout Street, Wellington 6011 – here would be good.
Or if you are not in Wellington. I say target local real estate firms like Baileys, Barfoot and Thompson, Ray White, etc..
But for the love of God people, start organizing.
So let’s get angry about the untaxed capital gains of multiple property owners. And let’s allow pensioners, who need to share a rental so they can afford somewhere to live, to keep their full pension.
So let’s tax the shit out of currently untaxed capital gains of multiple property owners. And let’s allow single pensioners to share a rental, so living is a bit more affordable, without having their pensions screwed.
Spot on,Martyn. I, for one, am sick and tired of being worried about the next rent increase and if I will have to move if it is too high. Some owners/property agents act like they are such professionals, but do little/no maintenance on their dilapidated properties (while charging exorbitant overpriced rents), making them one short step from being slumlords. I was a fan of Labour/Jacinda and voted for them. That worm has turned. I will give it to the Greens next time (even though they sold out for a few worthless trinkets this time round).
I think rent controls are needed. The rent should be sufficient to cover the landlord’s outgoings, with the exception of mortgage payments, plus a small percentage, say 4 or 5 percent, added to those costs, to give him some profit. Mortgage payments are the landlord’s concern, not the tenant’s, and are not a true cost since they would be offset by the value of the property, which the landlord will own outright once the mortgage is discharged. Even the interest component of the mortgage is an acquisition cost of the landlord’s and is of no concern to the tenant.
I suspect rents are high because too many landlords are trying to recover, as part of the rent that they charge, mortgage payments on mortgages taken out on overpriced properties. Getting house prices down would certainly help, but that doesn’t invalidate the argument
You suspect rents are high because too many landlords are trying to recover, as part of the rent that they charge, mortgage payments on mortgages taken out on overpriced properties, right? WRONG!
Rents are high because of a thing called supply and demand. As for rents being sufficient to cover the landlords outgoings, rates, insurance, management fees, R and M (around 7-8K PA) plus 4 or 5 % profit , you are talking about a $400 per year profit for a landlord.
I suspect you have never been a landlord!
It’s true I have never been a landlord, and that I therefore am not completely au fait with circumstances in the rental market. But, as I said, the notion that too many landlords were trying to cover high mortgage costs is merely a suspicion on my part. What I was trying to get accross was that, if we were to introduce rent controls, then mortgage payments should not be a factor in determining rents to be paid.
Don’t sweat it bro. “gary” isn’t a landlord either. I really wonder what you’d have to be doing to make $400 a year as a landlord. Probably something like openly dumping toxic waste on a small deeply rural section near an already poisoned quarry, with apparently one aging hobo as a “tennant” who occupies only three days a year. $400 a year profit landlord? hahahaha good one.
Ethnic Jedi………what the fuck are you trying to say there…The point I was making was why would anyone be a landlord for $400 per year like mikesh was saying. there are people who wont get off the couch for $400 per week, I think you both need a reality check. Dammed sure I would waste my time doing it it.
$400p/a is trash
“Supply and Demand” is all very well, but one of the factors in high demand is too many landlords. many of whom shouldn’t be in business at all since their operation is unviable. They have to borrow too much and then find that mortgage costs gobble up all their profit. Suitably designed rent controls would weed such landlords out.
So on one hand you are saying that too many landlords can’t make money out of rentals and then on the other hand Martyn ins saying that all landlords are greedy cunts getting rich off the poor.
Which is it?
You guys need to have a focus group (ask Adern how to have one, its the only thing she is good at) and figure out which one it is.
No, definitely greedy cunts as you put it.
I rent a two storied, 4 bedroom, 3 car garage with multiple fruit trees. First went in 2012 at $360 a week, now in 2021 pay $360 a week. Brilliant landlords with integrity. Landlords have a choice to increase rents, it is not forced upon them.
Perhaps, instead of paying accommodation supplements, which only serve to sustain a pathological system, the government should place these properties in ‘statutory management’, charging affordable rents, and paying rates, insurance and maintenance out of the revenue thus obtained. They could leave the mortgage to the original land lord to sort out with his bank.
This, of course, is assuming the landlord is unwilling to lower his rents to the point where supplements are unnecessary.
A stupid solution to the problem.
This sort of insanity would kill the rental market, resulting in even fewer houses being built.
You need to leave your ivory tower where the world behaves how you want and have a walk in the real world where this shit just doesn’t fly.
Yes, there would be some disruption – that, of course, is the price of change. But the country would have the same number of houses, and so a new equilibrium would soon be reached.
National were in a bad space at the last election but I think many of you sold your vote too cheaply . Labour promised little and that is what is being delivered. Most commentators on this blog say the state and private market both need to get the RMA sorted out and start building houses for rent and as 1st homes BUT MBIE say they predict a 43% decline in building in 2021 and 22 . What do they know we do not
What they know is that the economy has been severely wounded and property developers that would normally deliver these houses are not in position to do so in the se numbers.
I have the solution – regulate the shit out of landlords, to the point that their only option is to raise rent.
To counter the private market increase promise to build 100 000 new homes. Call it something cool, like ‘kiwi build’. The people will love the idea and probably vote it in.
Lol check out the average rent price in Brisbane and then compare it to the average rental price in Tokoroa.
The whole property market is so divorced from reality it makes the mad hatter seem sane.
Someone should pull out the Blairite’s comments pre-2017 regarding the housing market and compare it to her comments now.
When the shoe is on the other foot…….
Ffs,sick of all the two faced wank that has being going on for decades. Wake me up when there is the sniff of some real progress. Either NZ cares about this shit or it does not. The latter I suspect.
Absobloodylutely!!! I’ve spent my first year back in NZ getting more and more disgusted at what amounts to a “national lite” government actually assisting people out onto the streets as a result of the support they have given John Keys main support base… This is NOT what the labour party used to stand for! It was bad enough that the news media, alongside the utterly self interested, traitorous and insanely greedy throwbacks to the glory day of colonialism.. Now our own party is playing along with the insanity! As I was working as a traveling blues man before getting trapped here, I have had to rely on government assistance to get by, as working my craft has been too dangerous for me (I’m asthmatic).. I find it utterly bizarre that the Australian government, riddled with religious fanatics that actually believe people on benefits are “unworthy” still made what the “labour” govt here look like Ebenezer Scrooge on one of his really bad days… This is shameful in the extreme… And now they blithely restart the upward spiral that they must know will lead to more hardship, waste, suicides, crime, etc… I would be berating my local mp, if it wasn’t for the fact that I know I would be wasting my time talking to some upper management twit who has never had to struggle just to eat, or even gives a toss whether any of us live or die, it seems… We may as well just bring John Key back and give him the green light to finish the job he started… The fan is close, and we need to be the shit that hits it!!
Maybe instead of voting for people who say the right things and have a nice smile. We could all look past the stardust and vote in people who are actually achievers, not just political wonks. Let’s start boting for delivery not rhetoric please. It’s all good wanking on about Covid, but when everything else from elective surgeries, to inequality and hardship is worsening, it’s time to wake the hell up!
Merry Xmas you all. Enjoy the greatest gift of them all – Jacinda.
She will go down in history as the least transformative and least effective PM ever.
She and her govt are one giant PR stunt.
I think no one can compare with John Key when it comes to bullshit.
But your point is perfectly valid. The Adern government is all Public Relations (neuro-linguistic programming)-“Let’s do this,” and Let’s keep moving,” and very little substance.
Jacinda is maintaining a longstanding tradition of spin, ineffectiveness and looting the till, which has prevailed since the time of Kirk’s untimely death.
We step down (or rather fall down) another notch in 2021. Indeed, from what I have been reading about the US, and bearing in mind NZ’s close association with the US, we could well fall several notches in 2021, ‘vaccine or no ‘vaccine’.
.
Preying in a church the biggest stunt of all, alongside walking a young Maori girl at McGehan Close…
“Pat, a 68-year-old retired painter and decorator, remembers the day Key and a clot of media touched down. Key was there to sort-of apologise for having underclass-shamed a street that had allegedly been left to rot under Helen Clark’s uncaring Labour government, and which was a hotbed of crime. Key doubled down on the stunt by taking a local Maori girl, Aroha Ireland, up to the Waitangi Day celebrations a few days later.
“It was just a sensational visit,” says Pat. “He made a great show of taking a little girl up north, and we never saw him again. It was just a load of publicity bullshit.”
The demonstration needs to be held in front of the Reserve Bank. The only thing is Adrian Orr is so divorced from reality he will probably think all the renter plebs have come to thank him for his brilliant “property price rise, wealth effect, trickle down ideology”.
Really a co-ordinated worldwide demonstration should be held to let the (CCCB), crooked consortium of Central Banks know the people have had it with their ponzi scheme monetary policy.
Alternatively a demonstration, (peaceful of course), could be in the PM’s street. A few quick photo’s sent to the Guardian, NY Post, Vogue etc should do the trick. It seems the most likely way to get any action is an embarrassing reality check in front of the world press.
State housing and councils need to go back to basics and stop making the rest of the county give grandiose projects and individual private companies more profits as they use the housing crisis to make more money.
The rest of the country has to use citizens rates and taxes not on schools and hospitals but to put in infrastructure because developers and landowners are trying to build in places that don’t have the infrastructure for their own private profits.
Lord Sleepyhead – back to the lord owning the village.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/sleepyhead-estate-waikato-regional-council-under-fire-for-anti-business-opposition-to-plan/724MO6INP6AEEQM22QLBQIWUBI/
Fletchers – build so many houses for Ihumatau… oh nope didn’t. Buying rural land to land bank and demand zoning changes instead of buying land that is already zoned for intensive housing and actually building houses quickly.
Fletcher plans huge new housing development in Kumeu, West Auckland, (but surprise, surprise, not zoned for intensive housing like neighbouring land).
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/fletcher-plans-huge-new-housing-development-in-kumeu-west-auckland-but-residents-up-in-arms/FROJPAX3BDOWYRZ2BH5QQICHY4/
Around Auckland it does not look like affordable housing is being built, but speculative houses with few transport links in sprawling land.
Most cheap housing is coming off old Housing NZ building the houses not Kiwibuild or grandiose efforts.
You say our cause well Martyn, The Standard is controlled by people who are still pissed at the lack of opportunity prior to 1984!
Oold Chris can speak back and forth.
Don’t let any of that bother you, Corbyn and Sanders were and are right. Just them in the political sphere. Happy Christmas, grand chap.
Neoliberal governments around the world – including this one- represent business (which includes landlords), not society. In fact, these governments don’t believe society exists (quote, Margaret Thatcher). Remember, they believe in small government, minimal intervention, and letting the ‘invisible hand’ of the free market prevail. Despite the public displays of human emotion, Jacinda sings from the neoliberal song sheet.
Protesting in large numbers in main streets is the only way to effect change- and use social media to get the numbers.
Maybe instead of punitive measures against landlords which drive them out of the market or necessitate rent increases, how about…NOT.
I just informed our tenant that their rent would be rising from $500 to $570 (1st increase in three years) which still represents lower than market rates because they have been with us for about 8 years.
We could no longer hold back the increases as Labour have piled costs such as heating, compliance costs, etc which we simply can’t absorb any longer.
Whilst I am sure some landlords are the problem, they pale in comparison to the problems that Labour have foist upon renters.
To imagine that heaping compliance costs upon landlords would not result in rent increases is the sort of infantile thinking that has been the hall mark of Adern et al.
Likewise infantile is the thinking that protests and rent controls will achieve anything.
Everywhere rent controls have been tried, they have caused the opposite effect to that desired.
They drive landlords out of the market, fewer houses are built and the proles get screwed.
So good on you Martyn you moron.
I’m sure the proles will thank you just like they will Adern.
Their rent will be cheap cos they will have nowhere to rent.
It is Labour that is fucking things up but renters who are feeling the pain.
The Labour Party cannot be blamed for your poor investment decisions. Perhaps you should have fixed the heating etc. when you first purchased the property.
I think that is Jay’s point, he is selling and so is a huge amount of landlords fed up with what is going on in NZ housing and being the fake news of the housing shortages.
When I rented I hated one of our landlords too , but I could distinguish between policy and my personal situation which is that you are better off in most cases renting privately than being in emergency housing.
Or renters need to work out where the state houses went and why so many newcomers are living in them, bought them and made a killing off selling them. (Thatcher policy).
Friends of mine arrived in NZ, got a state house in Mission Bay, but were on an income in the six figures within a short period of time and did not have to give up th state house. Have zero idea how they got the state house. They were also able to buy the house. They left NZ after getting NZ citizenship within a decade and leaving their elderly parents living in NZ in the state house.
Landlords getting out? Good. More houses available for first home buyers. And, who knows, perhaps prices will start falling.
How dare he rent a warm insulated home? Fed up with having to spend money on your rental that SHOULD BE healthy. As for your friends in a state home and didn’t have to give it up, this sums up the greedy pricks of society. They didn’t have to give it up but the could have!
You’re exactly right Jay: Who’d have thought that fiddling with the tenancy laws to favour tenants would alter the risk/reward equation for landlords! It’s like as if one caused the other! LOL
This is the same government that increased fuel taxes and then investigated the fuel companies for fuel price increases. The same government that shut down all the supermarkets competitors during the lockdowns and is now investigating the supermarkets for food price inflation.
Let me guess – next they’ll announce a ‘working group’ to find out why unemployment rises when they increase the minimum wage.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad.
Are you even sentient?
My point is that in order to maintain my investment at the level it was pre-Key, I have had to squeeze my tenants for an extra $70 per week that I would really rather had not.
They have been with us for about 8 years through the birth of their two children and at times we have allowed them to skip a week or two rent (such as during lockdown) in order to make sure their is food on their table.
The rent increase is set at $70 because that’s what they told me they can manage despite the fact that the rent they currently pay is about $150 below what I could rent it for to someone else.
As for your delusional rant about heating, we live in a house with little insulation and single glazing with no heat pump.
They live in a modern well insulated house with double glazing and soon to be a heat pump.
So before you open your hillbilly trap again, have a good hard think (if that is something you are capable of).
The problem isn’t a shortage of houses per se. The problem is empty, unoccupied “investments” bought up by corporations. They must be because seriously, even with a good secure job, (getting even rarer), who the fuck else could or would service a million dollar mortgage for a shitbox en masse? If we want change these empty houses need to be occupied en masse. Civil, non-violent disobedience.
When you ask 1 million people to settle into NZ in 10 years, many of whom are income less (but very wealthy, aka financial traders, retirees or money launderers) or on a low income and need welfare top ups almost immediately, and government don’t plan and work out how to pay for the billions and billions for the 500,000 new houses, hundreds of thousands of new pensions needed, new hospitals, schools, waste water, drinking water, sewerage, jails (planned for those), justice, police, transport, then guess what you get a clusterfuck!
More people is not just more money for a country – look at the UK a country NZ likes to emulate – another clusterfuck disintegrating, on the back of an expanded EU and giving the worlds affluent from Russia, Middle East and anywhere else, UK citizenship combined with a Thatcher approach to selling state housing and then getting the rich to develop their countries housing!
What do you get, empty luxury apartments https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/25/sadiq-khan-condemns-foreign-investors-london-homes-gold-bricks-housing-policy and Glenfell Tower Fire https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grenfell_Tower_fire.
You also can’t afford to house your defence force https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/apr/25/mod-privatise-military-housing-disaster-guy-hands and expect other countries who don’t seem to like you (Hong Kong/Opium wars) to run your nuke infrastructure for you. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/china-nuclear-plant-uk-refused-give-security-details-authorities-a7979526.html
What could possibly go wrong??? Sarcasm.
Now the right wingers/ woke/ media and politicians are pretending that the previous decade was not the main problem with immigration and massive Rogernomics policies disguised as housing policies (surprisingly the fail to work) and many of the problems facing government around the world are demand driven problems.
NZ managed to build houses, harvest crops and have an incredible standard of living, decent welfare, with all the lazy Kiwis (sarcasm) in the past!
NZ had similar taxes before the Rogernomics and Thatcher led policy and no problem with council zoning. There were loads of houses for people to rent and live in! Now we inequality and massive pollution around our beaches and water ways.
The additional 1 million more people who came to NZ in the last decade seem surprisingly lazy apparently judging by the continued hysterical faux worker shortages in the media and government thinkers (or maybe the reasonably well paid but hard jobs that are now just poorly paid hard jobs and getting worse).
But the legacy of lazy immigration off the back of one student/work visa that can bring an entire family to liv e in NZ, is that there are not enough of the houses in those areas, not to mention our educational standards are dropping, kids bodies not being found in uni halls for 6 weeks. (Private) Money, money, money is more important than education in NZ.
Wake up call folks! Since when did Hawkes Bay have a rental and housing shortage!
It ain’t just immigration, all the accomodation that the woke watchers deem not good enough – they are not renovated to the woke standard enough to rent out and the massive costs of upgrades do not justify the rents unless the rents massively increase which in places like Hawkes Bay don’t really justify it…. what does a landlord do, sell up! What does a developer do, hold them empty as they are tear downs, while they decide what to do with their massive property portfolio managed by bean counters to maximise profits.
Meanwhile, inexplicably being homeless, living in a shelter with just a room and shared facilities or a family in a 1 room motel for $1000+ p/w is perfectly fine by the woke and government and increasing as a way for NZ families to grow up in!
Personally prefer this life, now deemed illegal. https://www.nzonscreen.com/title/this-way-of-life-2009
P>S in this documentary the family become homeless due the our laws that allowed the family to be evicted by their own relative – there is a lack of fairness/justice in NZ law and how the courts are calling it and police are policing it. Funny enough, don’t think police found out who burn’t down their house to be sold and redeveloped for the horticultural industry!
You make some good points, although it is not the last decade that has caused the problem.
I remember quite clearly the mass immigration that kicked off spiralling house prices occuring in the early 90s also.
With regards to the woke brigade, yes they would seemingly prefer people are homeless rather than live in “sub standard” housing. Apparently it is “kind” to see 3 families in well insulated, well heated homes even if another 2 families are prevented from renting a house with poor insulation and heating.
This is despite the fact that the largest landlord of so called sub standard housing is the government itself.
Genius!
Absolutely right Save NZ.
Change won’t come unless the government is forced to do so because the vast majority demand it. Fuck occupy Wall Street/ Aotea Square. Everyone gathered to protest in one place will be always be shut down and moved on. They’re sitting ducks so to speak.
If the homeless, young, disenfranchised and cash-strapped occupy these empty homes, en masse, it’s gonna be a logistical nightmare trying to police and enforce THAT protest because first they’ve got to actually find the protesters. Get moved on? Be polite to the officer (he/she is just doing their job), go peacefully, fine – just go to another empty one, obviously making absolutely sure it’s empty – and so on and so on.
Passive resistance is the only way. The second people become violent we lose, they win.
Someone who just comes to NZ on a visa, and is not a citizen, is now treated like a NZ citizen…. including getting flights and taxpayer paid quarantine and housing in NZ that is prioritised to those coming into NZ not existing Kiwis.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/123832702/woman-finally-returns-to-nz-after-a-near-yearlong-battle-to-get-home
Meanwhile those who are born in NZ with family in NZ can’t get back into NZ as the flights and quarantine is full of people who are citizens of other people’s countries and they can’t afford to fight out the many other citizens of other countries Nationals who expect to get to NZ in their place.
Meanwhile more people who live in NZ are homeless as our housing prioritises other national’s citizens to live here and get jobs in NZ and the promised new houses which can never keep up with demand, are in the ‘never, never’.
Flow on effects with rates and insurance around the corner to better reflect the new values. Painful.
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