Go hard, go early

Anecdotal evidence from my involvement in facebook and other groups suggests that children is the US with global development delays get very good access to early intervention therapies. Sometimes daily speech, physical and occupation therapy visits.

This can be compared to the NZ system which promises a lot but the visits can be fairly infrequent and in the case of speech therapy, almost non-existent, due to a lack of resources (ie money, hence less therapists to go around). The emphasis instead seems to be on teaching the parents how to provide therapy to their own kids.

As stated, this is only my experience my own child and learning from other parents with special needs kids.

Rugby is played on artificial turf in NZ - see the College Rifles "Synthetic Grass" pitch, and the St Peter's 'Cage'.

I am with Ben - I grew up near Chamberlain and played my earliest rounds of golf there (I won't say I learnt to play golf there, given the numbers I shoot) and it is comforting to know there is a public course that you can access without having to be a member. In that respect, I would be sad to see it go. However, private courses also offer this provided you attend at certain times of the day. I also know the greenskeeper and he is a great guy. I am not sure how he manages to keep the greens given they are played on all day by (mainly) a bunch of hackers.

As Mark has alluded, this seems more like a general "she'll be right" problem rather than a landlord problem. It wouldn't have been any less tragic if it was a home owner who did this to their own family property.

If you look at Energy Safety's statement, they encourage all property owners to ensure gas installations are safe, not just landlords.

It is amazing to me the number of houses that are sold with additions that have not obtained building consent, or have bad DIY jobs. But people seem to buy them notwithstanding

A tenant who cannot afford a rental that’s not dangerous to their health is screwed

I think this comment demonstrates one of the flaws of the WOF proposal. Compliance costs for landlords (which will be higher the greater the standards set by the WOF) could drive rents up beyond the affordability of the very tenants who the WOF process is trying to protect. It also takes away an element of choice - when I started out flatting I was prepared to put up with a dingy flat with no insulation in exchange for more beer money.

I am in a similar position to some of the previous posters, owning a rental largely through circumstances than any deliberate investment strategy. For the amounts likely to be involved in the event of a arrears or damages dispute, I don't see a judicial remedy as a realistic option. I just hope for decent tenants, and look after them when I have them.

My understanding (I can't recall the link to this) is that is it actually a lot cheaper and more efficient to grow tomatoes in some of the African countries where the immigrant labour is coming from, rather than growing the tomatoes in Italy. The bizarre effect of the EU subsidies is that these countries now import Italian tomatoes rather than grow their own

Herb scissors. These will change your life!

Perhaps it was because boasting about a lack of arrogance is a tad arrogant in itself?

Was just going to post the same thing myself Bruce.

Now the whole of the UK is subjected to Murray-isms. His "NZers are not traditionally known as an arrogant race" drew guffaws around my local pub.