All the government’s chickens have come home to roost in Fenton Street, Rotorua.

By
John Minto
-
132
2165

All the government’s chickens have come home to roost in Fenton Street, Rotorua.

TVNZ has reported what can only be described as a scandal of epic proportions. The shear scale of the social and economic disaster Labour has created for low-come tenants and families across Aotearoa has to be lived to be believed. But it has only to be seen by the middle class to know we are in the centre of a government policy disaster.

Anyone with the slightest sense of compassion can only be appalled at this unfolding disaster.

After FIVE YEARS of Labour:

  • Why has Labour allowed the state house waiting list to INCREASE FIVE FOLD (from 5,000 in late 2017 to over 26,000 in 2022) with no effective policy response?
  • Why does Labour still think it’s OK to produce just 1,100 net new state houses per year for a state house waiting list of over 26,000?
  • Why are the number of children living in grotty motels STILL INCREASING?
  • Why is the number of children living in cars STILL INCREASING?
  • Why are the number of children in tents STILL INCREASING?
  • Why is Labour still ONLY FUNDING 1600 new IRRS places (for state house and social housing providers combined) each year for the more than 26,000 families on the state house waiting list?
  • Why does Labour still think it’s OK to keep the proportion of state house at just 3.6% of total housing stock when it was 5.4% in 1990?
  • Why have Labour MPs not DEMANDED an industrial-scale state house building programme such as the first Labour government did in the 1930s? (Labour then built 3,500 state houses each year – equivalent to 10,000 today on a population basis)
  • Why has Labour’s TOTAL FOCUS been on housing for the children of the middle class while low-income tenants and families live in a kind of “rolling hell” in the likes of Fenton Street?

And perhaps most importantly, why have Labour MPs not DEMANDED the resignation of the hapless Housing Minister Megan Woods?

After FIVE YEARS of Labour we have gone from housing crisis to housing catastrophe (Salvation Army description) for those on low-incomes and the unbelievable awfulness of what’s happening in Fenton Street, Rotorua is the inevitable outcome.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

132 COMMENTS

  1. Covid meant temp visa workers left the country freeing up housing, covid meant backpacker workers left the country freeing up housing, covid meant overseas students left the country freeing up housing, once the border reopened there was an exodus of young people going on delayed OE freeing up housing, the goverment has built new housing and the private sector has had planning law changes where three or more houses can be built where there was previously only one, demand down significantly, supply up and yet there is still a housing crisis! If the market has failed the government needs to take urgent action. The right already claim Jacinda is a communist so is there any downside in government requisitioning ghost houses and beach houses and turning them into rentals for kids living in motels. Everyone acknowleges its a crisis so use a crisis response!

    • Joseph. Agree. “ Everyone acknowledges it’s a crisis, so use a crisis response. “ Agree. Right now it’s far too cold for children to be living in cars and tents or even garages, so open up some church and school halls, and if necessary have security guards on site. If Sepuloni is back from Europe yet, she could set this up in a day or so, or Kelvin Davis, Minister for Children, could consider speaking up and somebody might listen to him. Suddenly, Carmel Sepuloni’s determination to abolish the Children’s Commissioner, looks as if the protection of Oranga Tamariki is only part of the troubled scenario here.
      Hurimoana Dennis could be called in to advise government here, given his pragmatic track record.

      • The ruse is up.
        Why does anyone think the poorest hit the streets? All these years if being told there was no money, nothing could be done. And then covid. Suddenly there was money. The whole country shut down.

        And why? Because the middle class might be affected. Might die, might lose loved ones. The health system couldn’t ‘cope’ with the poor but no-one cared. But then we had a health crisis that affected people who ”mattered”. And money appeared, action, any action to save lives. It was already known that this was a particularly virulent flu with a similar death rate. But ‘real’ people might be hurt.

        It was always a question of who might be affected. Because of who mattered.

        We are all human and humans can be destroyed. We all hurt, suffer. For so long we have just maintained a ‘them’. Maintained in hell with a very high death rate. No jobs for them, inadequate or no housing. For ‘them’. Health? Don’t make me laugh. National screening programmes look good and the wealthy can access actual treatment.

        Of course the numbers of ‘them’ kept growing. It was a warning to everyone and a permanent scapegoat enabling spectacular national dysfunction and incompetence. Money seemingly going nowhere but no-one cared. Keep working and keep blaming ‘them’.

        These are real people. They hurt, suffer like real people do. But we stopped seeing them as people a long time ago. That’s how scapegoating works. The scapegoat wears all of the shame and disgrace and is consigned to the desert. Everyone else feels so much better, except for the lingering fear.

        Then covid

        • What+Now. There’s much truth in what you say, but to what extent the “ thems” feature in the consciousness, or even conscience of the
          “ haves”, is a moot point.

          And yet, when privileged Bill English wanted to introduce an overnight charge of $50 per “client” in public hospitals, which would have crippled some families, he got shut down, thank God. A sick infant, or chronically sick children of the poor, are enough worry for families to cope with without being penalised financially as well or to have to go into debt over.

          When privileged Bill English opposed abortion law reform, he may have been just as keen to protect doctors’ jobs, as unborn lives. His late brother-in-law, medical superintendent at Masterton Hospital stopped them being done there, forcing Wairarapa women to travel down to Wellington.He was replaced as med super, went to Tauranga as a GP I think, and died relatively young, and was an otherwise respected medical practitioner.

          There’s often unseen layers and agendas at play with politicians, but the last straw for me personally, has been this government’s abhorrent decision to dump the Commission for Children.

          Like others, I’ve assumed this was inept politicians and moronic public servants prioritising protecting themselves instead of the vulnerable children who they are meant to protect, but I now think they may be hitting out at the Children ‘s Commission as an establishment figure, and I prefer not to elaborate on that. Kia kaha.

    • Too incompetent to build houses no matter how much the Professional Managerial Class throw money, and “expertise” at it. So just steal other peoples property instead?

  3. An accurate analysis.

    Motels, once used by travelling salesman and holiday makers became a go to for National to get bad headlines off the front pages after John Campbell highlighted families living in cars because of their own made housing crisis.

    Enter Labour who heard the room, promising to fix housing only to…carry on where National left off, but worse!

    There’s no exit plan for Labour on this one, Jacinda laments their use or so she says but no one ever asks her, well what next then? Because if they did there would be silence.

    Labour have created a ghetto in Rotorua and they have no idea what to do next because they will NOT do anything to fix housing.

    Rotorua, once a tourist destination is now off the map, no one wants to travel there to stay, not at all, thanks to this government! It’s a billboard and indictment for Labour’s biggest failing, housing!

  4. Jacinda Ardern 2017: “We will eliminate homelessness within weeks of entering government”

    Despite that rather naïve promise, most if not all their policies have had the effect of reducing the supply of housing or making it more expensive.

    So a question to all you Labour supporters – is this government retarded or are they doing this for some bizarre Machiavellian reason?

    • where does that quote come from? no one is going to disagree with you that Labour are shit at building state housing, but putting lies into other peoples mouths is a bit low, don’t ya think?

      • She said it in the run up to that election and a flaccid media didn’t ask her how she intended to achieve it.

        This quote goes neatly with:

        “We’ll plant a billion trees”

        “We’ll be the most transparent government ever”

        “We’ll build 100,000 houses in 10 years and 15,000 affordable homes in three years”

        “We’ll cut immigration numbers by 30,000 per year”

        “Labour promises high-speed Auckland-Tauranga passenger train”

        “Labour promises light rail to Auckland Airport within a decade”

        “We will drop house prices” – Jacinda Ardern 2017

        This is the problem with the internet – nothing ever gets forgotten

        • Yes Andrew but plenty still won’t see the total ineptness of delivery by Jacinda Ardern and her Minister’s.
          Political blindness.

          • Oh dear, plenty see past your now very tiring rhetoric . You have your own blindness.
            One could say ineptness of delivery.
            You are entitled to your “view” however.

        • Also ” we’ll build a second Marsden-Auckland pipeline”

          She probably forgot saying it two minutes after mentioning it. Let’s face it, at least Muldoon achieved some of his promises

    • The hapless Megan Woods is yet another example of a Labour Government Minister being out of their league.
      She’s incompetent.

      • bob the last, woods is crap, labour are low quality but the nats don’t have anyone who can chew gum and walk at the same time….the fact that the standard of all pollies has dropped alarmingly is the issue not which party has the most no marks….
        to quote the estimable mr rotton
        ‘I don’t have any heros, they’re ALL useless.

    • They are too incompetent to be Machevellian. The Rotorua fiasco is idealogical. Maori truck driver sets up scheme to help homeless get housed and cleaned up off P and it works. So hes given money to expand his operation, to a point of unmanageability. Then TVNZ does a Sunday peice about mismanagement and doesnt even mention the necessity of the Security Guards is to keep the operation P Free.

      And the peice doesnt mention the solution Labour hasnt implemented. Why havent they?

      They are scared of the reaction of their current center right voters to so called ‘losers who havent worked a day in their life’ being given new houses at cheap rent, they are scarred of creating areas of intergenerational social problems like Porirua and Flaxmere, they are scared of mom & pop landlords seeing rent & house prices fall if there is no “pool of unhoused”, they are scared of the Andrew King dissing them all over the Hosking media, they in thrall to Treasury and Reserve bank telling them they cant use sovereign monetary power to create hundreds of thousand of statehomes and receive massive nontax income and have massive capital housing stock that can be borrowed against and they are scared that they cant find any MP and State Manager competent enough to oversea a large scale build of State Housing that wont be rorted by the private real estate and construction supply industries.

      But Andrew do we take from your comment you are now in favour of large scale statehouse building?

    • And john key said we will have a brighter future, did that men living in Motels or the back of our cars (originally a National party policy) backed up with 50cents an hour pay rises. I drive past the houses and land National sold privately daily and I use to live in the ghetto like cold, no carpet flea ridden state flat allocated to me.

  5. Strange when a post lays bare the actual stats and facts the usual leftie luvvies are missing posting their defence of St Jacinda and indeed ‘National were worse’ tropes?
    Why…..because National were NOT worse, I will admit National were not great when it came to housing and homelessness BUT ohhhh my what have you done Labour?? Or not done is a more pertinent question!
    John Campbell can now be truly seen as a left wing hack, where are his teary eyed reports out on the streets/in motels now….no need to answer, was rhetorical we all know now.

    • I’m right. Labour’s housing track record is abysmal, but National were generally worse at keeping people down. Countryboy sums it up pretty well as usual, but National’s bruising the psyche of have-nots, and demonising them, and lying about them, and acting against their interests, was more blatantly brutal.

      Take a look at that other slippery shortie, Bill English. Bill put the kibosh on Sue Moroney’s paid parental leave bill, and presented the wrong figures about it to Parliament. Bill actively campaigned against decriminalising abortion, forcing women to have unwanted children, dragging his well-heeled wife along to help him just as he did when he opposed the passing of legislation to enable assisted dying for persons wanting or needing control over their end times.

      Bill cut taxes for the rich, which would be ok, except that it left health and education for persons who don’t have the benefit of medical insurance schemes, or money for private school fees, grossly underfunded, and we’ve still not caught up in either of those two areas. Children’s education is suffering, the routine woes of the health service are third world.

      Bill’s desire for a low wage economy and bringing in exploitable off- shore workers is well documented, but his dubbing all of our young males workshy druggies was a downright lie, and bad.

      • Strange when you put those facts in front of rightie ruffians they can’t dispute them.

        ” Where is John Campbell now”?
        Certainly not in the role he was when holding the then PM to account. National had people living in cars and on.the streets and immediately after Campbell Live was mysteriously axed.

        Rotorua , Fenton st and motels are a sorry saga. The television footage also shows the motel units in appalling conditions. That cannot be blamed on either Labour or National before them when they were in power but the people themselves whom have a personal responsibility to keep the units clean.

        • Bert with respect that’s straw clutching in the extreme.
          We have more people living in cars now than under National?

        • Bert I haven’t seen the television motel footage, but the times I’ve stayed in them in New Zealand for longish periods in between house shifts, the cleaners came in daily, upgraded towels and soaps, vacuumed etc. This is in the owners’ interests also, keeping an eye on the place. Our motels used to be good compared to eg USA ones, but as many of them are now owned and run by immigrants from countries with very different housing traditions and boundary traditions, it looks as if that whole environment has changed. If people are being placed in dumps, keeping them in a reasonable state themselves could be a challenge.

          • Sadly covid and I stand to be corrected the government contracts with motels are not normal motel bookings I believe it is supported accommodation which requires personal responsibility.

    • Is it anything to do with Campbell losing his job at the behest of John Key?

      Campbell has done a number of stories on the state of homeless people while Labour have been power. Stop making up rubbish

    • For yoiur information Campbell wrote a blistering critique of Labour.

      I don’t know anyone who thinks that Labour is on the left.

      We need to move on from thinking and acting at voting time as:

      will we have Labour
      or
      will we have National.

      I certainly haven’t voted for either of them for years and years, only a cigarette paper between.

  6. Why does the Prime Minister always want to look helpless when asked about the situation?

    Is she hoping for the viewers’ sympathy?
    Is she exploiting our reluctance to tell her to her face she’s hopeless?

    • Because she knows there is no plan B. It’s stuff them into motels and forget.

      And because at a building rate of a bit over 1100 per year, Jacinda knows it will take 23 plus years at this rate to solve 2022’s housing problem!l

    • It may be more that most people are not happy with this, but would be really really unhappy with the changes required to end the housing of these people in motels.

      Like over-riding local authorities, the RMA and NIMBYs to build the emergency housing.

      • Ada. Stop making specious excuses for the government Aggie, we’ve got a fair amount of available land, and referring to homeless persons stuck in motels as “ these people”, may suggest an attitude problem in your cosy dell.

        • I think Ada has a valid point Applewood. You say there is lots of land but are you suggesting people are parked somewhere in the middle of nowhere? Lots of jobs in the middle of nowhere….not.

          • Rotorua has 11% unemployment, Why is the government dropping people into Motels here from elsewhere and what jobs does the government think these homeless people will find?

        • So it’s my attitude that is the problem?
          Would you prefer me to say “those people”?

          It would have taken a long time to list all the categories of people in emergency housing.

      • In Rotorua they just took seven reserves, all in low income / working class areas to build that desperately needed housing.
        I mean, obviously poor people don’t need outdoor areas accessible by foot/bike. that is for the nice polite rich areas, right.
        Now if we were to have another lockdown with police checking drivers to see that they don’t go out of their 5 km zone, where would those poor people go for recreation? Oh, yeah, that is right. Nowhere. cause poor.
        Never mind that our town centres pretty much anywhere in this country could be razed totally and rebuild with housing and shops and make into nice livable cities. But i guess, taking small reserves from poor neighborhoods is easier.

    • Or enough people look at National and conclude there is no difference. I mean there is a difference of course. Labour pretend to care but don’t solve it. National kind of pretend to care in opposition, but will openly say it’s all the individual’s fault when in power.

  8. @ JM. You ask;
    “…Why has Labour …” etc etc.
    The answer is simple but it’d take five years and three books to explain why the answer is simple.
    Labour, like national, act, green, @ maori, nz first etc are neoliberal and neoliberalism is fascist communism wearing a tawdry frock and high heels. Neoliberalism is a camouflage tent within which tactically polite, self legitimising criminals lurk.
    Our masters are the likes of fletcher challenge who’ve just held ( are they still holding..? ) AO/NZ’s building business to ransom and for no other reason that I can see than for spite.
    Then there’s michael fay and david richwhite of the BNZ scam touched upon by the wine box inquiry.
    alan gibbs. “One of New Zealand wealthiest – and most outspoken – businessmen, Gibbs is known to most as a merchant banker who made his fortune after the economic reforms of the 1980s, and went on to fund the ACT Party.”
    The above, and others, all have their hand up labour and operate labour’s motions and movements while we desperately try to believe the unbelievable, that Labour, like hideous national are a straight up affair who do their best by us.

    • NZ First is not for neoliberalism. You might not like the answers Winston has proposed for economic problems/crises in NZ, but they are NOT neoliberal solutions.

  9. Why? The author pleads has the government done nothing? Because it would be electoral disaster – NZer’s are very good at being empathetic and respond to other peoples crisis with compassionate words and opinion pieces. etc.
    Come any where near elevated house prices with an economically, interventionist policy, however, and you will be out of government before the next election.
    I also believe there is a moralistic streak in voters that requires cruelty to the poor – I don’t know where it comes from but it exists in all Western democracies.
    If you go against this cruel streak or fail to play into it you will lose large swathes of voters. It’s easy to blame the government but I also think we as a society and culture have massive shortcomings when it comes to our collective view of the poor.

  11. On target again, John Minto — but how to fix the crisis? This current government obviously won’t do it. Much more concerned with JA’s world image and slogan of “be kind.” Much more concerned with costless window dressing — throw in a few more Maori phrases — that do nothing to solve real world problems, either immediate or long term.

    • Stop blaming Maori we weren’t homeless nor did we have any diseases if you want to blame anyone blame the people who have had all the power for 182 years and it hasn’t been Maori.

      • I’m not blaming Maori, and sorry if my wording gave you that impression. I am blaming this current Labour led govt, which has taken the approach of window dressing rather than tackling fundamental problems.

  12. There is no reason that Labour can’t and couldn’t have fixed this. They are throwing around billions of OUR dollars at poorly scoped projects with no accountability. JA and GR are like 5 year-olds with their hands in the lolly jar. With big smarmy grins on their sticky faces.
    Notice that not ONE single MP is putting their hand up and saying anything about this…Megan Woods being the oracle of non-housing in NZ. All MPs have firmly zipped lips, cowed to the party line.
    The simple answer is they don’t care, don’t give a shit, eyes wide closed are not gonna do a thing about this. So what are we gonna do? C’mon us.
    How about a protest in Fenton Street to show some support for these families? The kids deserve a chance at life in a stable home.
    How about the protest demands some financials from our biggest pillagers, the Aussie Big Four?
    How about we get some real leadership in this country? I would even take Winston and Shane at this point. In fact the more I contemplate it the better I like it.

  13. Notice how the Professional Managerial class cant build houses but they have no difficulties getting a glitzy reno on their HQs?

  14. Where does our money go then, hmmmmmmm?
    Those beastly homeless sure do know how to cost billionaires hundreds of dollars.
    I posted this to:
    Russell Brand.
    https://youtu.be/YQE6sWFy0lM
    In Aotearoa / New Zealand where only about fifty thousand people who earn our primary industry money yet there are 5.2 million of us and we now have nine multi billionaires and none of them, as far as I know, earned their money exclusively from farming their lands. Our farmers? Suicides, stratospheric costs, forced to intensify their farming practices by using chemical fertilisers, hated by the MSM, loathed by city people, driven into social isolation
    then preyed upon by banksters. All that, just so multi billionaires can become ever more billionairy.
    Once, during The Wine Box inquiry* Hong Kong bankers described AO/NZ, and I paraphrase, as being a dirty little country. * Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winebox_Inquiry
    Winston Peters, a lawyer and leader of the political farce party called NZ First, came out yapping up the wrong tree, in the wrong forest, on the wrong country, on the wrong planet, in the wrong Galaxy and in the wrong Universe for the wrong reasons and found nothing before he yapped himself out to become a politician on $ix Figure$ plu$ entitlement$ and expen$e$. Funny that.

    • I fully agree with what you say about farmers and how they have been treated. But I’m not sure of the reason for your attack on Peters and NZ First.

    • I think it needs to be noted that Winston was last a lawyer (and not a particularly outstanding one) in 1978

      That’s nearly 45 years ago

  16. Before we close down those filthy unfit motel dumps homeless people are living in Fenton Street Rotorua we need to make sure we have an alternative where these people and their children can live. Some of the people have many issues no need to mention them but many ended up in these places for a reason its the children I feel sorry for. I also think this is what happens when you sell too many state houses and who is responsible for reducing the state housing stock and now we have this big mess. Unfortunately everyone, no matter what needs somewhere to live.

    • In the meantime just stop bringing people to Rotorua to discard them in the rundown Motels owned by Tiny Dean or worse even the government.
      Secondly accept that one town that has no more business – as tourism in Rotorua is now dead and tourism is the only game in town – can’t afford to house the homeless and jobless, cause no homes no jobs. In essence these people are expected to be long term homeless and unemployed.
      Thirdly, hire social workers and please task Sue Bradford with hiring these social workers as that way they might actually be decent Social workers and not just academic woke social justice/gender woo woo warriors.
      Fourth, create jobs.
      Fifth, create jobs.
      Sixth, create jobs.
      But L will not do that. They will lie and say only Rotorua whanau is warehoused in Rotorua, there are jobs plenty, there is no criming going on, no drug dealing, no prostituting of human bodies, no bashing of the vulnerable etc etc etc.
      No matter what everyone needs to live somewhere? Have you considered that living under a bridge might be safer?

      • Jobs are available thanks to Labour.
        You still haven’t offered an alternative other than under bridges. Definitely a National supporter.

    • building homes for 1st time buyers (the sons and daughters of the middle class) is pointless it’s just throwing logs on the fire…..state houses now is the unacceptable answer and it always was.

  17. If the government had acted at the start of covid and built purpose built places for the two weeks isolation the money gathered would have financed them and now they are redundant they could have been used to house the homeless while waiting for a state house . The tenant would be on a good behavior watch and poor behavior would lengthenjoy their stay .
    Re Woods it is a worry that in a poll I saw her and Hipkins were classified as the top performing ministers.

    • Did you not read about the shortage of building materials (timber, steel, gib) due to covid? I would have liked the government to do better but a comparison with the National government over state housing numbers would be useful before rushing to judgment.

  19. Getting a bit tired of the hysterical, reactive “criticism” of the state house “replacement” drive that the current government has been forced, for the second time now, to undertake as a result of the corrupt, and venal depletion in favor of their speculator sponsors, and the overseas nationals that John Keys “government” put out the welcome mat for…
    I feel the need to point out that the current “labour” government is just a very much lighter shade of blue than the feral exploiters the news media would have running NZ into the ground again.. Which is to say that they actually have a shred of social conscience…
    So, who was it that sold off huge amounts of the framing timber that we need so urgently now, to overseas buyers? Who was it that had large areas of state forest cut down to make way for milk powder production for the temporary Chinese market.. ( If you think they haven’t been developing their own dairy industry, with help from NZ, then you have no concept of historical reality)? Who was it that opened the floodgates to wealthy property investors that NZers were never going to be able to compete with, that have proved to be nothing more than land bankers? And considering the tens of thousands of houses that were sold off to overseas interests in the nineties, to be partially replaced under the Clarke govt, only to have those replacements sold to the same speculators.. Then we must consider the fact that as a very small country, ( three little islands out in the middle of nowhere), and where those new houses must go.. We know that spreading new suburbs further and further out from the main industrial/commercial areas is counterproductive on several levels, but, with the full connivance of the “news media”, nimbyism is the driving force behind public opinion as to what land can be utilised for much needed housing… Are we ready to embark on a raft of fraudulent activities in order to clear out “valuable” land for the tory sponsors to speculate with? Does anyone on this thread even remember what was being done to us by those methods? Or have we gone backwards to standing on our hind legs to salute our “superiors” in Whitehall?
    In short, stop the self serving whining and get involved in fixing this urgent issue… Or is NZ now too far gone down the drain, and no longer has the intellectual base to even see the realities we face, let alone have rational opinions on anything important to our survival as a society?

    • No, politics demands blood. National want votes, votes, votes, not solutions. The evidence is they have not offered any solutions. At least bratwurst has suggested living under bridges but Nact have already tried that.

  21. Firstly John Minto is correct. Good article. The housing situation in Rotorua is much worse now than it was when the Nats were in Gvt. Labour should enable the private sector to look after first home buyers and renters or just do nothing for them and concentrate on the homeless and those on state house waiting lists. Building lots of state houses was the obvious solution but unlike Micky Savage’s Labour the current lot are useless. ‘Trevor” quite like your idea re isolation accomodation. [as an aside I’ve spent a fair bit of time living in Rotorua including in Whaka and Ford Block but this town that once had some rough bits used to have a nice down town. Now it is mainly horrible! Part of the blame stems from the restructuring in the 1980’s, more is the effect of meth/gangs but Labour policy failure is part of the mix]

  23. Firstly, let me say that my wife and I live an the very heart of the emergency accomadation area in Rotorua, in fact we back on to one of the motels involved. What was once a guiet street is now patrolled by private security operators, regular drive throughs by police with frequent calls to brawls and domestic violence at all hours.
    Most of the issues emenate from accomadation operators operating outside the msd controlled units and some are so bad I wouldnt bury a dead rat in their garden. Many of these operators are of overseas origin and dont give a shit either for those staying or the loc
    ale in which they are situated.
    Now, we can blame this govt., or we can be realistic and come to terms with the fact that there is no quick solution. Successive govts.have all done their bit to bring us to where we are at now.
    It began with the rogernomic neolberal policies introduced in the 1980s. It was enthusiastically embraced by National with the mother of all budgets, the ECA the requrement for HNZ to return a profit, the privatisation of essential services etc,etc. Then the key years with uncontrolled immigration further reducing housing stock. Shall I go on?
    This situation has been a long time coming and, I believe has been wilfully ignored by successive governments such that now no po.itical party has any idea how to rectify it
    My wife and I are now are now the token honkies in our area and all we can do is welcome our new neighbours as best we can cos it aint going to change soon

    • You’re right, plenty of blood on the hands of previous governments but Labour cannot pretend they didn’t know. Firmly fixed in opposition with plenty of time in their hands, they knew the situation alright! They campaigned on fixing it but then chose the status quo option instead. Why was that?

      They have fiddled while Rome burned, so typical of the Ardern governments timidity, take the well trodden do nothing middle road, the one that meant building far too few state houses whilst inflaming an already toxic housing market simultaneously. Never for a moment thinking how hiding people in motels who were victims of our poisoned housing market was ever going to be a lasting solution.

      But here’s a plan. Pull all stops out and build state houses, thousands per year. But they won’t!

    • Shipping homeless people into Rotorua so they werent lying in the streets of dying of covid and also saving some tourist motel operators from bankruptcy was a win win win for all concerned. Now some real leadership is called for someone competent enough to implement scaled up state house building. Jacinda can say “Lets do this” but who is she leading with enough ‘can do’ to do it?

  24. From Bryce Edwards tonight, some sobering stats

    202 state houses demolished. 193 built. That’s abysmal and worse, a long way off this mythical 1100 additional new state houses.

    $900, 000 per day for motels. Or $328,500,000 per year. Up from 90,000 per day under National.

    Gone from 200 motels on MSD’s books in 2017 to 1200!!!

    5 years of Labour and NOTHING to show for their so called care of the vulnerable.

    These lying incompetent pricks deserve to be on the street after the next election!

  25. Because we run an ‘open economy’….hot money will always buy up this countries resources…and off shore profits.
    It’s all done in the best..possible..taste.

  26. God, you’re a joy, John.

    It’s a disgusting performance. Labour are the focus group folk — there are other f words.

    I, as from the mid eighties, want to drive to drive these friends of the rich in sheep’s clothing into the sea.

  27. There r plenty of homes being built in the private sector. Immigration is almost nonexistent. The problem is lack of desire to rent to “undesirable”.

    Landlord are cautious as difficult to get rid of problem tenants, the ones who excessively damage property, don’t pay rent on time, are unsocial who create problem for other tenants etc. Hence, risky tenants end up becoming govts problem.

    • Benny. Yep. Ideally government could – but can’t – aim at everybody owning their own abode and therefore being less likely to trash it – p-addicts trashing themselves out need to be addressed more realistically.

    • The real estate companies run an unofficial black list of tenants they won’t rent to, because of unpaid rents, damage to property or gang affiliations.
      The naïve landlord who isn’t aware of the game being played is at risk of getting his investment smashed up.

    • oh benny the poor put upon landlords my heart bleeds for them

      NZ gives landlords more power than most developed countries and still they cry and wet their panties at the slightest hint of regulation.

  28. Look, I’m going to say something harsh but it needs to be said.

    Both Labour and National have presided over a demographic disaster for the last few decades. Both have incentivized, through social programs, a feckless underclass to reproduce at an alarming rate. If you followed the program closely you’ll see solo women with 6,7,8 or more kids and no income other than welfare and probably no education either. How did that happen? Who are the fathers?

    We simply cannot continue down this path because it leads to societal destruction. These kids grow up to be tomorrows ram raiders, gang members, prison inmates and solo mums. The poor little blighters have no chance in life.

    If we’re to tackle this problem we need a mechanism to limit the fecundity of these women for their own good and for the good of society. At two kids I would offer a cash bonus to ‘at risk women’ (as defined by MSD) to get their tubes tied and link that to a tailored adult education program. All voluntary, so nobody’s human rights have been trampled on, but make the cash bonus a good chunk of money that is hard to refuse and make it clear there’s no additional welfare after 2.

    That’s my thinking. If you have a better one, add a comment.

  29. John, the issue is that Rotorua is nothing more but hte canary in the mine, the bird died about a year ago, but hey, someone finally found the carcass and reported on it.
    This issue is repeated in other places, lets all spare a thought of pity for the new homeless of Nelson, you know the climate refugees/homeless, as they are now looking forward to years in Motel accom or moving away from their homes/jobs/family etc.
    L does not give a shit. L will do nothing to change anything. L is ideologically not able to change anything. L is N but in red.

  31. Before anyone sharpens the knives and goes after Andrew let me say he is right. Because our problems of solo parents who have multiple children they cannot support simply didn’t exist before we started to pay them per child produced.
    Where are the fathers? Well we used to see them standing behind a woman at the ATMs on benefit day but not so much these days now we are digitised. Although I have seen the odd one at the supermarket checkout waiting for the cash payout.
    I can’t see an issue if all SW dependant mothers were offered sterilisation. Is free contraception even available for them?
    The writing was on the wall 30 years ago when we started with gang problems and it was perfectly obvious it would only get worse and here we are. Keep doing the same thing and get the same result. Total idiocy.
    Anyone got a better idea than Andrew’s by the way?

  32. And john key said we will have a brighter future, did that men living in Motels or the back of our cars (originally a National party policy) backed up with 50cents an hour pay rises. I drive past the houses and land National sold privately daily and I use to live in the ghetto like cold, no carpet flea ridden state flat allocated to me.

  33. And john key said we will have a brighter future, did that men living in Motels or the back of our cars (originally a National party policy) backed up with 50cents an hour pay rises. I drive past the houses and land National sold privately daily and I use to live in the ghetto like cold, no carpet flea ridden state flat allocated to me.

  34. Keep talking for us, John.

    Straight truth rather than endless politicking of most other longtime Leftists, veering back and forth. Or, a lack of communication skills like Bryan whatshisname from Waikato Uni. Stupendous, 40 years of nonsense for the short-term self-interest of the rich only left Corbyn in Britain and Sanders in America and not half a crap in NZ.

    Sanders is permanently innocent, like Rob Reich. The most deceiving things about them. None of us who are right don’t understand the saline sea.

  35. Keep talking for us, John.

    Straight truth rather than endless politicking of most other longtime Leftists, veering back and forth. Or, a lack of communication skills like Bryan whatshisname from Waikato Uni. Stupendous, 40 years of nonsense for the short-term self-interest of the rich only left Corbyn in Britain and Sanders in America and not half a crap in NZ.

    Sanders is permanently’ innocent’, like Rob Reich. The most deceiving things about them. None of us who are right don’t understand the saline sea.

Comments are closed.