Posts by Russell Brown
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Hard News: Crowded houses, in reply to izogi,
It just seems so stupid that people eligible for social housing are being instructed to borrow money for paying what’s apparently the full commercial rate to stay at motels, before becoming liable to pay it back at their own expense, which by definition of being eligible for social housing, they already can’t afford.
The rate quoted on Checkpoint – $1330pw – is bizarrely high. Would a motel like that earn nearly $200 a night on casual rentals? I can't imagine it. And the fact that they're contracted to W&I to provide these units on a consistent basis surely means the negotiated cost should be far lower. Can anyone explain this?
But of course, the major problem is that this unreasonable cost is passed 100% to people in the worst possible position to pay it or carry it as a debt. No wonder the minister refused to come and discuss it on Checkpoint – especially given that on Monday John Key held out this exact same emergency provision as an example of how much the government was doing to help its citizens.
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A tweet from Max Rashbrooke today:
20,000 fewer state houses (per capita) than in 1991. 34,000 ppl in severe housing deprivation who need c.20,000 homes. You do the maths.
Response from Grant Robertson:
and they are more difficult build/obtain than sell. Nats sold 13,000 odd in 90s, we built/obtained 10,000ish in next nine yrs
Max estimates that the current work will get us to about where we were in 2008 by 2018. So that's something.
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Hard News: Crowded houses, in reply to llew40,
You may well be right, and it may have been the same house, but, media editorial bias or interests aside, surely its the job of the Labour Party support/comms team to ensure that any media photo ops match the pitch they have given?.
Yes, I agree and sort of said that in the post.
But the willingness of other journalists to accept the the word of someone whose name they didn't even get that there was nothing to see here and the house wasn't overcrowded was a bit odd.
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Hard News: Crowded houses, in reply to Tinakori,
As always, an excellent rule for a journalist is to apply the same standards you might apply to the utterances of a politician to your sources when they come bearing gifts. That applies especially if the gift is a wonderful story.
1. A journalist visits the household and speaks to its occupants, along with an MP who's been there before.
2. Other journalists dismiss the story after not entering the property and speaking only to a man who says he's the owner and he's just doing some renovations. They don't even get his name and seem confused about whether it's the same house.
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Newstalk ZB mouth Larry Williams' column on the Herald website is insane.
He says:
1. We shouldn't build public housing and we should sell off what we have.
2. The accommodation supplement is awesome and solves all our problems.
3. We should build lots more public housing estates.
4. The accommodation supplement is out of control and a big problem.
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Last night show on-demand here
And also the bonus audience Q&A session.
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Good Hayden Donnell column on the Nick Smith vs Mike Lee stoush over the Herne Bay SHA.
Conclusion: Lee's a sellout and Smith is a raging hypocrite.
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In The Guardian. -
Stuff and the Herald have made great play of a flubbed Andrew Little press conference yesterday outside a house that turned out not to be overcrowded with 17 occupants. But I’m confused.
Is this the same house John Campbell and Labour MP Jenny Salesa talk about visiting (but don’t shown on camera at the request of the occupants) in the video above? If it is, did the reporters talk to anyone other than the man who said he was the owner and there was nothing to see there?
Update: Stuff’s reporter Maria Slade has confirmed via Twitter that she thinks the house is the same one.
Maybe arranging a press stand-up in front of a house whose occupants hadn’t wished to talk wasn’t a great idea, but I’m not convinced the place was just being renovated, given that Campbell seems to have seen something else.
Edit: Barry Soper has a mocking story on the Herald website too. It’s also based on the say-so of one man who said he was the owner and gave a very different account of the household’s circumstances to what Campbell and Salesa say they witnessed. Salesa seems to have previously visited the household.
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I've deleted two unfunny and inappropriate comments.
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