Is Christopher Luxon a liar or deluded?

Will Luxon resign if rents don’t stop rising? No! What a crock of crap. What happened when Student allowance went up by 50.00 per week? https://www.stuff.co.nz/a/nz-news/350211394/pm-christopher-luxon-argues-renters-will-be-grateful-interest-deductibility?lid=m8nx4u1zsz2r&utm_source=newsletters&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=two_minutes_of_stuffLandlords almost universally lifted their rents when this happened. This is not a bash the Landlord post. Currently you can get 6.5% interest on fixed term, with first mortgage security on low risk investments. So Lets say I bought a rental for 800,000 k with a 400,000 deposit. That 400 k could earn me 26000.00 gross or 500.00 per week. If I wanted a 6.5%cash return on a 800,000.00 dollar home (1000.00 per week) I would need to be getting about 65000.00 per year in rent or 1250.00. I would be paying 2,606 per month over 60 years for the mortgage or interest only 2200.00. It is not the job of a commercial landlord to subsidise housing. The responsibility for the provision of affordable, safe, healthy housing lies at the feet of society via the State, the Church, NGOs or Charitable organisations. We as a society can afford to do this, we cannot afford the consequences of not doing so. We have seen these consequences From The mid 1970’s on, the initial instigators of this were in fact Labour and then National doubled down. This will only end when those who are most affected by this actually use their electoral power and vote in a Government that will deal with this. The biggest problem with Labour’s last term was squandering its electoral mandate on issues that actually would not have addressed the prime roots of poverty in our society and that is the cost of housing. This is not about higher wages or benefits it is about lower rents and an ability to buy property at an affordable price. Here endeth the lesson.

Transience a form of neglect?

 

As a Statutory Social Worker one of the tasks I had to complete was to determine whether I believed a child or young person was in need of care and protection,

Howling At The Moon

I am so glad I don’t live like blanket man did, that is the extreme end of homelessness, I am part of the vision of the national Governments property owning democracy,

The Buck Stops here…

I watched a lengthy interview of Paul Keating the other day.  It traversed his time in politics with Bob Hawke  Keating and Hawke are  both ex Prime Ministers of Australia, with Keating serving as Treasurer to Hawke.  The interview was candid and interesting, there was one thing that I found refreshing.

Australia had a recession, not as bad as New Zealand’s and the economic medicine that was prescribed was not as nasty as ours.  The neo-liberals did not reign supreme over there.  Some of this is due to the fact that there was a minerals boom in Australia that set a whole lot of other economic indicators in place, however they did have a recession.

In life and in politics it is very rare to hear people take responsibility for their actions, however it is both liberating and honourable to do so, all care and no responsibility seems to be the catch cry of many politicians and CEO’s. John Banks was on TV acclaiming his acquittal of electoral fraud charges as innocence, what a crock of the proverbial.  A man who cannot remember a helicopter ride to the mansion of Kim Dotcom is hardly reliable. The defence of accepting someone else doing the paper work is disingenuous and morally bankrupt.  More so because Banksie campaigns on morals and presents himself as above reproach.  Banks made a fatal mistake, he forgot the cardinal rule and that is the piper has to be paid.  When Mr Dotcom was languishing at the courtesy of her majesty on remand, he needed a kindness.  Banks ran like a scalded cat, the rest they say is history.  But enough of how he got into the situation it is how he got out of it.

I don’t like Banks or his politics, just to put it out there and I was not unpleased to see his grubby little arrangement become undone.  However if he had smply come out and said I stuffed up, I got it wrong, I should have checked it is not good enough, I would have supported him.  I would have had no choice because he would have been practicing what I preach. I would have supported him staying in Parliament and supported a discharge without conviction, because in doing so he would have been setting the right example.  In doing so he would have provided the best defence and shut up the critics baying for blood, and set the example.

Back to Keating, you see Paul Keating said that in the end, no matter the outside influences, the policies etc he was  Treasurer Minister of Finance when the recession struck and he was responsible. I don’t remember what he said at the time  and revisionist judgements are not the best but he said it was my responsibility it happened on my watch, end of the story.

Contrast this to our present day pollies, they will do anything to avoid taking responsibility.  The trouble with politics is that it is turned into a giant game of gotcha, which is driven by vested interests.  Health housing, welfare education, all the same.  We in New Zealand have tried to run with a budget approach to these things which are driven by the ideology of low tax and the neo-liberal mantra of privatisation and the nonsense of competition and market forces, which are euphemisms for corporatisation and the shifting of wealth from the bottom to the top.  We cannot have world class education and low taxes, the same with health and even housing but nobody wants to tell the truth because that is the equivalent of a bucket of cold sick for breakfast so what do we get.

What we get is secondary taxation in the form of health insurance, ever rising school fees, and the commodification of basic housing just a tip of the iceberg.  Those who cannot are cast onto the heap essentially, this is a short sighted approach that is costing us all dearly financially and in real terms.  It is reflected in crime, abuse and many other negative social indicators, it is reflected in children living in poverty, short of food, clothes and above all else love and affection.  It starts in my opinion in a very basic place and the answers begin in solving that.  It is not solved by increasing benefits, more money spent on health and education the solution lies in housing, in my next blog I will explain why, as to Banks, Key, Little, Dot Com et al, learn to take responsibility and be accountable.

Paul

The Housing Crisis Continued.

One of the enduring and historical problems with the shortage of quality rental properties is how this affects different strata in society.  The law of supply and demand is pretty simple, when a resource is limited, competition to secure that resource means that the price will go up.   Invariably this means that those who earn less are those whom miss out on the resource, in this instance housing, duh nothing new here you say. Low income people have had it like this for many years.  Note carefully, low income does not equate being on a benefit, there are many people who are employed but live on a low income.

In the past this was not such a problem as there was a reasonable safety net provided by way of public housing, mainly provided by central government with a smaller amount provided by local government.  This was not perfect however there was also a lot of employer provided housing from local authorities, railways, electricity companies, police, schools, dairy industry and so forth.  Farms were smaller and offered accommodation for employees as well.  So what has happened to all of this?  Well neo-liberal economic politics essentially, some might say unintended consequences however these consequences were well signalled, further hardship was caused to beneficiaries by what was euphemistically called the mother of all budgets, see here for some effects of that http://tinyurl.com/motherofallpain.  There was other effects as well, many believed it caused further unemployment and also many small businesses failed or struggled.

The effects of this neo-liberal ideology caused a great deal of discontent with the National Party, they however retained power in the next election.  Some may argue that this is clearly democracy in action however two things occurred, the public voted to remove the first past the post electoral system  (FPP) and replaced it with MMP (mixed member proportional representation).  One of the reasons that the National Party remained in power is that the policy created winners and losers, and unfortunately the winners were people who were more likely to vote and who had political agency.  The end result was not democracy but tyranny, majority rules is not democratic.

This deliberate policy of selling off housing stock and not replacing it with new builds at the same rate created the conditions for a spiralling perfect storm, increasing demand for housing by population growth and decreasing availability.  Once the Auckland factor is added in there is no surprise that so many problems that have their root in the availability of housing are prevalent.  One school in Auckland had a reported 50% pupil turnover in a year, renters talk about 6 properties in a year, and the churn is incredible and costly.  The incidence of Rheumatic fever equals that in many parts of the developing world giving is third world rates of harm to children in vulnerable families. The effects on mental health are obvious as part of the whole neo-liberal policies sees mental health institutions closed down and many ex patients left to find their way in society with an ever shrinking pool of money to assist them.

The problem is that the struggle for people affected by these policies is often invisible.  I have had the opportunity to see into the kitchens and lounges of these people, 15 people living in a three bedroom house is not unknown. I have also unfortunately had personal experience in the rental market, having to live in substandard, un-insulated   cold, damp, mould prone housing due to the lack of affordable healthy housing. I am fortunate to be in my own house now that is relatively warm with reliable heating and a good degree of insulation.

I have laid out a brief synopsis of the issues around housing.  I will turn my attention to solutions in the near future.  In the meantime spare a thought for those who have to endure substandard housing as we venture towards winter, especially the vulnerable in our society, the children and the elderly.

Paul

The missing link.

 No not Rodney Hyde although that sloping forehead of his perhaps …. no really, successive governments have missed one of the essential things that contribute to a healthy society.

We have seen many changes over the time that I have been cognisant of society, from the mid 70’s to be precise, there has been a common theme and that has been a lack of permanence and a growth in what I call the throw away society, interestingly enough it corresponds with the time that McDonalds opened its first store in New Zealand.  Whilst there are many areas involved in our throw away society it is something more substantial than electronic goods or plastic fantastic two dollar shop rubbish.  I want to discuss housing.