Envirologue: Choose Wisely, Grasshopper: the Dilemma of James Shaw
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Housing. FFS we fucked up as something as basic as housing. That is not a sign of good national governance. H.C Labour let it go to a scandalist level because they were scared of the votes it would shed.
The feeling of wealth creation was a nice but artificial headline to their already fine economic performance.
National inherited a problem. They went, “zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”. They sleep well. Long term problems will be 2020’s problems, they will all be knighted.
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<too busy to rant!>
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Renting also causes incredibly instability for a family and increases the changing of many schools for any young ones, even one change of school can be a social nightmare for a kid.
Good stable school environments are a massive incentive to buy housing for a family, the gift of a stable society for your children is massive.
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Bart Janssen, in reply to
But looking at what actually happened, we are now in a situation where the government for the first time in NZ history is looking like passing a bill that could surely have been passed 100 years ago if there had ever been the political will to do so.
As Rob pointed out this IS a new problem.
100 years ago the problem wasn't the quality of housing it was having enough houses at all.
30 years ago most houses were either owned or rented from the government.
It is only recently that two things happened first is the governments sold off a lot of government owned housing stock to private landlords and second is housing prices jumped so rapidly people stopped even trying to own and switched to renting long term.
This IS a new problem.
BUT the problem was identified before the recent deaths. It was noted by DHBs and some media. It was the reason the housing WoF bill was introduced to parliament.
Now for me, at that point a responsible well-led government would have looked at the legislation and said shit we need to do something about this because sooner or later folks are going to die.
You don't need a poll to tell you that this is a good thing to do. You know damn well there are shitty landlords out there who need some kind of rule of law to make them clean up the shitholes they are renting.
You are claiming this as a victory for the power of polling and an example of just how wonderful it is to have a government respond to polls.
I (and others) are decrying this as an example of a government who won't do anything unless it looks like they will lose support ... regardless of the morality.
That is why I and other despise this PM and his reliance on polling to define for him what is right and wrong.
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
HOUSING - big problem for N.Z 2015. One of Maslows basic needs, social grounding.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
In the past it was much worse. I know elderly people who actually lived in houses with dirt floors when they were kids.
Young people of today, they won't believe yer....
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Actually living in a corridor is well documented in Fyodor Dostoevsky 's "Crime and Punishment." Renting off a room with a dryish roof is a common past of Europe.
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andin, in reply to
a dryish roof
OOh the future's looking rosy then!
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
It looks damp and wet.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
Actually living in a corridor is well documented in Fyodor Dostoevsky 's "Crime and Punishment."
Raskolnikov did 8 years in Siberia for a premeditated double murder. Liberal times.
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Jack Harrison, in reply to
Raskolnikov was fucked up. But he was a good guy. A young Joe Wylie in old Russia, totally fucking confused and terrified of his failings and the future of his only family, his ma and his sister. The guy couldn't handle his family dishonour.
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Joe Wylie, in reply to
A young Joe Wylie in old Russia,
While the confusion is flattering, I suspect you're thinking of Howard DeVoto:
"I`d`ve been Raskolnikov
but Mother Nature ripped me off" -
Kumara Republic, in reply to
It is only recently that two things happened first is the governments sold off a lot of government owned housing stock to private landlords and second is housing prices jumped so rapidly people stopped even trying to own and switched to renting long term.
This IS a new problem.
And now the "landed gentry" with their "housing apartheid" - as the un-socialistic Shamubeel Eaqub describes them in his own words - have become so powerful, that the only things guaranteed to dislodge them are a housing bubble burst or the outbreak of war. Prof Eaqub in the same clip also called for stronger renters' rights.
THE NATION: SUNDAY JUNE 7, 2015
My inner Machiavellian tells me there's a way to bring the bubble burst forward without the use of violent force: print enough counterfeit NZD to have the Reserve Bank governor reaching for his brown pants.
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BenWilson, in reply to
As Rob pointed out this IS a new problem.
I must have missed it, where did he do that?
100 years ago the problem wasn’t the quality of housing it was having enough houses at all.
Semantic games? But I'm meant to be the philosopher here. Unless people were actually on the street exposed to the elements, they were in some quality of shelter. The quality just happened to be, in many cases, extremely shit, and no government was going to legislate to force that quality up, because they'd be forcing people out of barns and onto the actual street. Which could be an outcome here. I doubt it, but I can understand that the solution is not axiomatic.
This IS a new problem.
It's been going on progressively my whole life, so no, it's not new. It's just come to a head.
Now for me, at that point a responsible well-led government would have looked at the legislation and said shit we need to do something about this because sooner or later folks are going to die.
No arguments there.
You don’t need a poll to tell you that this is a good thing to do. You know damn well there are shitty landlords out there who need some kind of rule of law to make them clean up the shitholes they are renting.
Nor there. I found it quite hard to understand in the mid 90s, when flatting, why it was that landlords could get away with renting out mould covered rooms that stank of raw sewerage, had flies in swarms, and had actual blood coming up out of the shower drain. 20 years have passed since then, nothing happened.
You are claiming this as a victory for the power of polling and an example of just how wonderful it is to have a government respond to polls.
Yes, that is correct. Now, something has happened. Yes, it could have happened when the bill was raised. Maybe if they'd taken a poll then, it would have. Instead we relied on the so-called expertise of our leaders to do exactly what Labour did before them - nothing. That's where the fail happened, NOT when they did actually respond to the poll.
That is why I and other despise this PM and his reliance on polling to define for him what is right and wrong.
I don't like John Key either, but not because he followed a poll. I wish he'd do more of it, with the polls that I care about. What I don't like is his own personal judgment as reflected by his interpretation of his mandate, under which he has actually done things against the polls. There was never any public will for charter schools, for instance. Selling off assets, something his presumable expertise weighed so heavily on, was unpopular. Selling the state houses wasn't as a result of opinion polls, it was all him and his ideological cronies with their taste for inside money wrapped up in fiscal prudence bullshit.
As for the definition of right and wrong, well, I don't think his own personal opinion is a better guide than the polls, do you?
See what I did there : )) Experts in value systems? I bet they are ‘a dime a dozen’.
Yes, they are. That's why I prefer the popular will as a more reliable (but certainly not infallable) guide to what values our government should promote. Because I genuinely don't think that there are moral experts. Not John Key. Not Helen Clark. Not Bart or any team of scientists. Not me. No one. As a society we come to the view that poor housing is unacceptable, and that we are rich enough that we can actually fix it. If Key responded to that, good on him, a pity he didn't do it sooner.
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andin, in reply to
If Key responded to that, good on him, a pity he didn’t do it sooner
And landlords can pass the cost onto renters. OFFS! So all the Cretin in Chief has to make sure of is the proles have just enough extra money for the upcoming rent increase
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Hebe, in reply to
BUT the problem was identified before the recent deaths. It was noted by DHBs and some media. It was the reason the housing WoF bill was introduced to parliament.
The long-standing Tenancy Protection Association in Christchurch, headed by Helen Gatonyi, has been asking successive governments for a rental WoF for over 20 years. http://www.tpa.org.nz/
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