housing
Categories under housing
- No categories
Housing? A National mess
Written By: - Date published: 12:06 pm, December 15th, 2016 - 97 comments
3 stories from Checkpoint yesterday that add up to a picture of National’s response to housing: waste on unacceptable temporary housing; empty state houses where they’re needed most; and vilify anyone who dares complain.
The cusp of something “special” in Auckland
Written By: - Date published: 12:47 pm, December 13th, 2016 - 29 comments
Could be that the Auckland property market is turning downwards.
Meanwhile, the Housing Crisis
Written By: - Date published: 9:38 am, December 7th, 2016 - 18 comments
Bill English and Paula Bennett won’t be thinking about it this week, but Auckland’s Housing Crisis continues to get worse.
Press editorial on failed state house sell-off
Written By: - Date published: 1:09 pm, December 3rd, 2016 - 11 comments
It’s more than a “dreary lack of ambition”, it’s a deliberate plan to underfund / rundown the stock to “justify” selling off, so that the Nats can indeed “wash their hands” of their obligations.
Dire warnings of the bleeding obvious
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, December 1st, 2016 - 14 comments
Warnings from the government and the Reserve Bank that first home buyers are taking on too much debt. Prices are too high, wages are too low, interest rates are rising. These warnings are effectively telling the average first home buyer to give up.
Housing “affordability” blowout
Written By: - Date published: 11:31 am, November 29th, 2016 - 9 comments
Andrew Little was on RNZ this morning talking housing affordability. “The amount people are having to borrow for their first home has increased 43 percent in the last two years.”
New Parliament buildings
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, November 29th, 2016 - 24 comments
A couple of reactions to the $100m Parliament building plans.
National plans to sell Housing Corp home Key grew up in
Written By: - Date published: 8:30 am, November 25th, 2016 - 39 comments
John Key, the state house tenant turned good who has relied heavily on his humble upbringing is overseeing the sale of the state house he grew up in.
Sale of Key’s old house a powerful symbol
Written By: - Date published: 7:57 am, November 25th, 2016 - 11 comments
English admits that the government has done a poor job of maintaining state houses, and uses it as an excuse for privatisation – its by design. The attempted sale in Christchurch, incuding Key’s childhood home, is a powerful symbol of the way this government likes pulling up the ladder that they used behind them.
Nat state house selloff in tatters
Written By: - Date published: 7:18 am, November 23rd, 2016 - 24 comments
Another fail in National’s plan to sell off state houses is good news for those of us who believe that it is the government’s responsibility to take care of society’s most vulnerable.
Trump and the NZ housing bubble
Written By: - Date published: 7:26 am, November 16th, 2016 - 21 comments
The bright orange trigger for a sharp rise in mortgage interest rates may have just arrived. Our over-indebted home owners are highly vulnerable.
There is no housing crisis
Written By: - Date published: 8:41 am, November 8th, 2016 - 22 comments
Paula Bennett has announced a new spend of $300 million to address the non existing housing crisis. But the announcement appears to be little more than a refinancing of Housing Corp and an admission that the Government should have stopped taking Housing Corp dividends years ago.
Rheumatic fever – treat the cause
Written By: - Date published: 8:02 am, November 8th, 2016 - 14 comments
Millions of dollars are being poured into reducing rheumatic fever in NZ. However rates of the disease in Auckland are at least double the target level – and rising.
Meth and housing
Written By: - Date published: 7:56 am, October 27th, 2016 - 29 comments
Why has Housing NZ ignored repeated advice and misused meth tests to evict tenants? RNZ: “Drug Foundation executive director Ross Bell said Housing New Zealand had caused a huge amount of harm by knowingly misusing the guidelines.”
Tax-cuts or… Housing
Written By: - Date published: 8:36 am, October 21st, 2016 - 21 comments
The government is proud of their surplus, which at 0.7% of GDP isn’t quite as dramatic as the 9% of GDP deficit they had in 2011. But as soon as we have a surplus, National starts salivating over tax cuts. But may I continue on where I left off on other things that are far […]
One Billion Dollars
Written By: - Date published: 1:57 pm, October 18th, 2016 - 6 comments
Treasury papers just released show National’s Housing Infrastructure Fund to be everything you expected it to be: a quickly cobbled together headline.
Housing Corp is running out of money
Written By: - Date published: 11:42 am, October 13th, 2016 - 38 comments
Housing Corporation is forecast to run out of money by next February if urgent action is not taken.
The main risk to New Zealand according to John Key
Written By: - Date published: 9:15 am, October 6th, 2016 - 59 comments
John Key is pretty good at providing media commentary on what problems New Zealand faces. But is he any good at addressing those problems?
Phil Twyford: the Housing Crisis
Written By: - Date published: 8:00 am, October 5th, 2016 - 148 comments
Phil Twyford argues housing will be the defining challenge for the next Labour-led Government, and sets out Labour’s reform agenda.
Goff on foreign buyers; and Vote!
Written By: - Date published: 2:06 pm, October 3rd, 2016 - 5 comments
Ban them / tax them, but lets reduce demand. And make sure you get your vote in for local elections!
Stand Up for Housing: Protest today in Aotea Square
Written By: - Date published: 6:38 pm, September 23rd, 2016 - 45 comments
Young people, union members, and other Aucklanders will meet in Aotea Square today to make some noise about the devastating Auckland housing crisis. Stand Up Youth Union Movement and Unions Auckland are hosting the Monopoly-themed event, which will highlight the damaging effects of the crisis and call on local and central government to do a lot more to fix the housing market.
Paula Bennett improves supply of housing, or does she?
Written By: - Date published: 4:02 pm, September 19th, 2016 - 74 comments
National’s latest plan to do something about the housing crisis is to buy a Motel and kick families who stay there out on the street.
We’re Number 1!
Written By: - Date published: 1:30 pm, September 8th, 2016 - 16 comments
Already number 4 for housing unaffordability, we’re now number 1 for house price rises!
‘Living Rent’ and other UK stories
Written By: - Date published: 9:53 am, September 8th, 2016 - 4 comments
A Tory think tank proposes a massive house-building plan, with a ‘Living Rent’ to make it affordable; and Nick Clegg lifts the lid on the Tories in the last government.
#ParkUpForGovernment
Written By: - Date published: 8:24 am, September 7th, 2016 - 10 comments
Despite the large number of people with terrible stories about homelessness to the Labour/Greens/Maori Homelessness Inquiry, this Government of Housing Inaction still thinks the problem should be ignored and the Inquiry ‘not needed’.
Government seeking to remove property buy back rights under urgency
Written By: - Date published: 4:38 pm, September 6th, 2016 - 13 comments
Nick Smith has introduced a bill into Parliament which he wants to be passed under urgency without select committee oversight. The bill takes away the right of any prior owner of land taken under the Public Works Act to have housing land offered back to them. To do this under urgency is banana republic stuff.
The Million Dollar Minister
Written By: - Date published: 4:00 pm, September 6th, 2016 - 14 comments
No denying the housing crisis now, Nick.
Key: Crisis? What me worry?
Written By: - Date published: 8:10 am, August 30th, 2016 - 34 comments
John Key is defending his handling of Auckland’s housing crisis on the grounds that Auckland’s prices have only risen as much under him as they did under Labour.
So the prices that he said were a crisis in 2007, have risen by as much again, and thus… no problem?
Land banking – National gives up on housing crisis
Written By: - Date published: 7:02 am, August 29th, 2016 - 29 comments
As the average Auckland house price hits $1 Million, the Special Housing Areas fail, and Real Estate agents openly promote land banking, what does National do? Why, they give up, of course.
Toby Morris: TA’s Story
Written By: - Date published: 11:12 am, August 28th, 2016 - 10 comments
Illustrator and commentator Toby Morris has animated TA’s story: “What do you want most in the world,” John Campbell asks TA, who has been living in a van with her family since February. “A library.”
Nick Smith commits to raising average wage to $250,000
Written By: - Date published: 10:55 am, August 27th, 2016 - 37 comments
Great news everyone! On The Nation this morning Nick Smith committed to raising average NZ wage to $250,000!
- Seismic echoes reveal a mysterious ‘donut’ inside Earth’s core
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Hrvoje Tkalčić, Professor, Head of Geophysics, Director of Warramunga Array, Australian National University Rost9 / Shutterstock About 2,890 kilometres beneath our feet lies a gigantic ball of liquid metal: our planet’s core. Scientists like me use the seismic waves created by ...7 days ago - Parliament’s environment watchdog slams government’s climate plan: ‘A massive gamb...
The government says it is on track to meet climate targets, but that is 'based on optimistic assumptions', Simon Upton says. ...1 week ago - Flash fiction: The end of the beginning, by Jenna Heller
It was new ice. Solid at the edges. Thin in the middle. Nicholas slid around the perimeter in his snow boots. Venturing in a little bit, and in a little more. “It’s fine,” he called out. Then hurried back to put his skates on, tightening and double-knotting the laces. “It’s ...1 week ago - The Secret Diary of .. party leaders on the Test Match
Christopher LuxonCan the ABs beat the Boks in South Africa on Sunday?Okay well this is one question that I am happy to answer and I will give it to you straight from the hip with no shillying nor any shallying for that matter because it’s an important issue and like ...1 week ago
- London’s calling, but fewer Kiwis are picking up
When Ruth Jackson went to London in 1989, she found work as a PA to a professor of psychiatry at a teaching hospital. It wasn’t in her field, but it still gave her skills she could take home – including how to use a computer.Hugo Stewart – who spoke to ...1 week ago
- The Weekend: An attempt to create an etiquette guide for New Zealand
Madeleine Chapman introduces a new Spinoff series on etiquette. I love rules. In such an enduring and intense way that I am now actually trying to love them less. To me, rules provide necessary parameters within which I can live my life however I like. No matter the situation, if ...1 week ago - ‘You can keep your track pants on’: The scene that haunts Leon Wadham
The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power star conquers one interview series to rule them all. Before his role in The Rings of Power, the closest Leon Wadham came to Middle Earth was when he was a student in Wellington, and the Hobbit himself showed up to a ...1 week ago
- ‘A determinedly single woman and a fiercely singular artist’: The paintings of A Lois White
A new book called Modern Women: Flight of Time, edited by Julia Waite, is a survey of the women artists who have shaped the development of modern art in Aotearoa. In this excerpt, Stuart McKenzie talks about his obsession with A Lois White. When I moved to Wellington in 1988 ...1 week ago
- Podcast: Does accounting hold the key to climate action?
Plenty of companies are making a lot of noise about sustainability efforts, but is it all just talk? This week on When the Facts Change, Bernard Hickey looks into a little-known but crucial area of climate change reporting that might hold the key to keeping companies accountable for their climate ...1 week ago
- The Spinoff Essay: Remembering Norman Kirk, New Zealand’s great internationalist
Fifty years ago today, prime minister Norman Kirk died unexpectedly. Anti-apartheid activist Trevor Richards considers his legacy. The Spinoff Essay showcases the best essayists in Aotearoa, on topics big and small. Made possible by the generous support of our members. Saturday, 31 August 1974. I had been out at a party ...1 week ago
- ‘The most glorious arrangement of all time’: Revulva’s perfect weekend playlist
Phoebe Johnson of the nu-wave, nu-jazz ensemble Revulva shares her perfect weekend playlist. “Sassy, satirical, and a bit unhinged”: that’s how Revulva (yes, as in vagina) front woman Phoebe Johnson describes the ensemble’s latest release, ‘Beep Beep’. “The music video especially, is like an uncanny home video tape you’d find ...1 week ago
- Anne Salmond: What’s the matter with the Treaty Principles Bill
Comment: A mature, thoughtful conversation about Te Tiriti o Waitangi would be timely, but the Act party should not lead it. At the last election, it was the only party to propose a referendum on this subject, and 91.6 percent of the electorate did not support them. It had no ...1 week ago
- China spat threatens Pacific calm
Comment: After a burst of morning rain on Friday, the clouds lifted and the sun shone in Nuku’alofa for the final day of the Pacific Islands Forum summit.The weather was in some respects a fitting metaphor for the week as a whole.Mere days out from the annual leaders’ meeting, there ...1 week ago
- Boilover in schools’ netball
Howick College have made school history by winning Auckland schools netball’s top grade for the first time, defeating reigning champs Avondale in a tight final.Howick and Avondale had dominated the Premier 1 grade, which is sponsored by Shakespeare Orthodontics, this season – both racking up 10 wins and fighting out ...1 week ago
- US urges NZ to invest more in armed forces for policing Pacific
The US and Australia have encouraged New Zealand to invest more in its arm forces, especially in patrolling and policing the wide waters of the Pacific. US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell talked with Prime Minister Christopher Luxon on the sides of the Pacific Islands Forum in Tonga this ...1 week ago
- Politics with Michelle Grattan: Reserve Bank’s Andrew Hauser says don’t read too much for Austra...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Michelle Grattan, Professorial Fellow, University of Canberra Inflation remains top of mind as the Reserve Bank of Australia continues to keep interest rates on hold at a time when the United States Federal Reserve signals that it will start cutting rates. ...1 week ago
- Technology has helped para athletes compete for decades. But it can also create an unfair advantage
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By John Cairney, Professor and Head of Human Movement and Nutrition Sciences; Director, The Queensland Centre for Olympic and Paralympic Studies, The University of Queensland The Paralympic Games, now a major global event, has a history rooted in rehabilitation. The first official ...1 week ago
- What is eastern equine encephalitis? Two mosquito researchers explain what’s behind the latest out...
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Cameron Webb, Clinical Associate Professor and Principal Hospital Scientist, University of Sydney Blue jays are an important host of eastern equine encephalitis virus in the United States. Mathew Schwartz/Unsplash Health authorities in the United States are issuing warnings and closing public parks ...1 week ago
- The Paralympics can be an economic boon for host cities – and leave a unique legacy
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Kirsten Holmes, Professor, School of Management and Marketing, Curtin University The mega-event glow continues in Paris, with the 2024 Summer Paralympic Games now well underway. Some 4,400 athletes will take to the world stage to compete across 22 different sports. The ...1 week ago
- PM Christopher Luxon visits Tongan communities to showcase investments
Prime Minister Christopher Luxon has spent time with communities in Tonga after the 53rd Pacific Islands Forum wrapped up. ...1 week ago
- US conservative Candace Owens is set to tour Australia. Can the government stop her?
Source: The Conversation (Au and NZ) – By Danielle Ireland-Piper, Associate Professor, ANU National Security College, Australian National University Shutterstock American conservative author and influencer Candace Owens has amassed millions of followers on YouTube and X for her controversial views. These include suggesting the Holocaust was “ethnic cleansing that ...1 week ago
- The Week in Politics: No quick fix for the energy crisis
Analysis - Government seeks solutions to the energy crisis, the media sees through Luxon's assault on councils, and the question is asked: "Where's Chippy?" ...1 week ago
- Deadline extended for Stats NZ’s investigation into misuse of census data claims
Stats NZ's investigation into whether census data was misused during the election campaign has been extended, with no new deadline. ...1 week ago
- Pacific leaders emphasise ‘solidarity’ in challenging time
The Pacific Islands Forum has emphasised solidarity in the face of the many challenges confronting the region, with climate change affecting nearly every area of discussion. ...1 week ago
- The Friday Poem: ‘Mr Explorer Douglas’ by David Eggleton
A new poem by David Eggleton. Mr Explorer Douglas Bird cries soar from shore to shore You compass islands to hear surf roll. Above iron pot’s steam, ranges writhe. Blank spaces on charts mark this place. My watch chain dangles time away. I take bearings from raptors on the wing. ...1 week ago
- The Unity Books bestseller chart for the week ending August 30
The only published and available best-selling indie book chart in New Zealand is the top 10 sales list recorded every week at Unity Books’ stores in High St, Auckland, and Willis St, Wellington. AUCKLAND 1 There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Viking Press, $37) A magnificent time-and-place-spanning epic ...1 week ago
- Kiingi Tuheitia’s death leaves a massive void at a critical moment
The loss of Māori king will be felt particularly keenly this year, and much like Tuheitia’s own selection, his successor is not easy to predict. It seems somewhat fitting that a thunderstorm rolled across Aotearoa yesterday, as Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII lay in Waikato Hospital, surrounded by family. ...1 week ago
- The reign of Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII
In a profound loss for te ao Māori and Aotearoa, Kīngi Tūheitia Pōtatau Te Wherowhero VII has passed away at the age of 69. His death marks the end of an era for the Kīngitanga, a movement that has been a cornerstone of Māori unity and cultural identity for over ...1 week ago
- Watch live: Christopher Luxon speaks from Tonga after death of Kiingi Tuheitia
The Prime Minister, currently at Pacific Islands Forum, is set to speak to reporters. ...1 week ago
- Kiingi Tuheitia: Reaction from New Zealand political leaders to death of Māori king
Tributes have been paid by political leaders following the death of the Māori King, Kiingi Tuheitia, aged 69. ...1 week ago
- Local Government Minister ‘committed’ to removing iwi representation from Canterbury Reg...
Minister Simeon Brown said he was disappointed by the regional council's refusal. ...1 week ago
- Moe mai ra: Tributes flow for Kiingi Tūheitia
Following news of Kiingi Tūheitia’s death overnight, figures from the political and Māori world have paid their respects to the venerable monarch. Māoridom is in mourning with the news that Kiingi Tūheitia has died at age 69, following heart surgery. After 18 years on the throne, Tūheitia’s unexpected death comes ...1 week ago
- Hundreds likely sleeping in cars, garages after leaving emergency housing – advocate
The government doesn't know where they've gone - but an advocate says it's likely nowhere good. ...1 week ago
- Unclear whether allowing patched gang members to attend council meeting broke law – chair
Patched Mongrel Mob members performed a haka in regional council chambers to celebrate a decision to keep Māori wards. ...1 week ago
- Political editors panel: Kiingi Tuheitia, Shane Jones and Darleen Tana
Jo Moir and Jenna Lynch talk through the political week, which ended on the sombre note of the Māori King's death. ...1 week ago
- Why Shortland Street’s first fat storyline is such a big deal
Joanna McLeod has been campaigning for years for our beloved soap to include a fat character. This week, it delivered. Last week, something extraordinary happened on Shortland Street. Selina, the show’s first fat main character, used her lived experience of fat phobia and weight stigma within the health system to ...1 week ago
- ‘Great sadness’: Kiingi Tūheitia dies at the age of 69
Political leaders from across the spectrum have led tributes to Kiingi Tūheitia, who has passed away following heart surgery. Māori King Tūheitia has died overnight at the age of 69. It comes just days after Koroneihana, commemorations to celebrate Tūheitia’s coronation. A statement issued by the office of the Kīingitanga ...1 week ago
- A mayor’s decision whether to flood his own city
Hutt City’s Campbell Barry says this week’s storms highlighted the importance of costly managed retreat: ‘I thought to myself, is today going to be the day?’ The post A mayor’s decision whether to flood his own city appeared first on Newsroom. ...1 week ago
- Live updates: Māori King Kiingi Tuheitia dies
Mourning has begun after the death of Kiingi Tuheitia Pootatau Te Wherowhero VII at the age of 69. ...1 week ago
- New primary school English curriculum to focus on grammar, punctuation
Poetry, spelling patterns and handwriting lessons are on the cards for primary-aged children. ...1 week ago
Recent Comments