English reckons the collapse of NZ’s housing is “a good problem to have”

36 comments on “English reckons the collapse of NZ’s housing is “a good problem to have” ”

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1. One Anonymous Bloke 1

   3 March 2017 at 8:13 am

   He makes it sound as though he didn’t collapse it deliberately. The market ate my houses. I left them on the bus!
2. Robert Guyton 2

   3 March 2017 at 8:17 am

   When the National Party MP’s bottoms are firmly sat on the other side of the House, Bill will declare Opposition to be “a goodproblem to have”.
3. Neil 3

   3 March 2017 at 8:32 am

   The title of this article should’ve read ” Bill English trials new idiot drug, doctors declare it major success”
4. The decrypter 4

   3 March 2017 at 8:34 am

   Judith will have the “good/problem”. Bill will be farming and shearing, based in the dipton house and renting out the ex double dipping Wellington house to immigrants No problems at all
5. saveNZ 5

   3 March 2017 at 8:36 am

   From the herald this morning on the international student criteria – something like 180,000 international students on low level courses are flooding in. They need houses to live in. The question is, it does not sound like they are coming for the quality of our courses in level 5 cookery but their automatic eligibility for residency as skilled migrants

   “The advice, obtained by the Herald under the Official Information Act, said former international students made up 27 per cent of all skilled migrants in 2006 but this had risen to 43 per cent in 2015 and was likely to reach 48 per cent by 2020.

   Most were automatically eligible for residency as skilled migrants. Even a former student with a Level 5 qualification (the lowest level) would get the required 140 points if he or she had stayed on a post-study work visa, had a job offer and was under 30.

   Other more valuable applicants were likely to miss out. “For instance, a 50-year-old Chief Technology Officer recruited from offshore with a job offer for $120,000 and 25 years of industry experience, who holds a diploma qualification, would only be eligible for 135 points.”

   Bear in mind the top five occupations for the skilled migrants last year.

   Chef
   Registered Nurse (Aged Care)
   Retail Manager (General)
   Cafe or Restaurant Manager
   ICT Customer Support Officer
   Those five occupations alone made up 25 per cent of the skilled migration approvals. And skilled migrant approvals made up only around 60 per cent of the total residence approvals – others, presumably, were not even reaching that standard.”

   In same cases the private institutes themselves sound like a financial scam!

   The $1.2m firm which owes ANZ $70m
   http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11810700
   • grumpy 5.1

     3 March 2017 at 10:40 am

     what?
     someone is a skilled migrant if they are a retail manager or cafe manager?
     These days you’re lucky if you get above minimum wage for those positions judging by the listings on trade me.
   • Waz 5.2

     3 March 2017 at 8:07 pm

     They raised the points threshold to 160 and there has been a large drop in student numbers. It’s odd the Herald didn’t report the numbers.

     The drop does show that immigration is the primary goal of a lot of the students. I wonder how many of them realise that there is a one in five chance of getting in. I wonder how many of those one in five rig the game.

     It beggars belief that the government didn’t understand the dynamic they created with the new system.

     I firmly believe that any benefit we get from overseas students being able to work is far outweighed by the loss of opportunities to permanent NZ residents, and the strain and extra cost they put on infrastructure.

     We had fairly high overseas student numbers before they were allowed to work. Any drop in numbers would mostly affect the shonky private sector, and mostly filter out people whose primary goal was immigration.
6. Reality 6

   3 March 2017 at 8:38 am

   The PM is NZ’s very own Marie Antionette. Has no empathy at all for people needing housing. Is dismissive to people needing jobs saying they are hopeless and fail drug tests. He sure is not a “people” person.
   • rhinocrates 6.1

     3 March 2017 at 11:15 am

     Nonsense. Just put yourself in his shoes. As a poor, struggling state beneficiary with far more children than we are advised to have, he was forced – against his will – to double-dip benefits just to pay the rent!
7. Sanctuary 7

   3 March 2017 at 8:46 am

   I hesitate to raise this, but I hear said housing is now the number one issue for New Zealanders, yet National’s support apparently stands unaffected according to the polls. This does not square with my anecdotal evidence, where i have seen a number of Key-voting Nats move to the undecided column. I note yesterday that twenty percent of New Zealanders now do not have a landline, and that

   “…The younger generation was leading the technological revolution, the survey found, with about half of millennials saying they didn’t have a landline connection, compared to only one in 10 baby boomers…”

   So 50% of the under 55’s don’t have a landline, and probably half of those who do have one either never use it or never answer it if it rings unless they know they going to be called, such is the epidemic of direct dial marketing.

   One wonders who the pollsters are talking to, if the only people with landlines are the landlords…
   • Draco T Bastard 7.1

     3 March 2017 at 8:59 am

     The pollsters do call cell phones as well.

     Of course then there’s the problem of who’s going to answer the questions.
   • AB 7.2

     3 March 2017 at 10:23 am

     I wish you were right but I fear we will be deluding ourselves by going down this line again. In 2014 the polls weren’t that far off the final result.
8. tc 8

   3 March 2017 at 8:47 am

   Shades of paul keatings ill advised ‘recession we had to have’ comments which cost him dearly.

   Step right up oposition and take the rhetoric gushing forth from the double dipper, sharpen and polish it. Then skewer him to fry his pompous mendacious ass with the reflection off his own words.

   Its almost as if hes supplying great material for this use deliberately.
   • Brutus Iscariot 8.1

     3 March 2017 at 9:00 am

     Ironically a fall in house prices to affordable levels would cause “a recession we have to have”.
   • Draco T Bastard 8.2

     3 March 2017 at 9:03 am

     He probably is. If National are expecting the economy to crash because of their actions if they’re not in power they can blame Labour.
9. marty mars 9

   3 March 2017 at 8:51 am

   english is losing it – I’m not saying he had it – but even if he had a little bit of it – that it has now gone – has he been drug tested recently because he wouldn’t get the job to clean the cleaners shoes who clean the cars the destitute are living in. He is GONE.
   • AsleepWhileWalking 9.1

     3 March 2017 at 10:10 am

     I blame the glyphosate.
   • Rosemary McDonald 9.2

     3 March 2017 at 10:25 am

     “…english is losing it – I’m not saying he had it – but even if he had a little bit of it –”

     He always had it…always was the power and the brains… hiding behind the Predecessor’s inane, superficial and rather stupid performances.

     English has been building up to this for years…he has a plan, an agenda…the best the Opposition (if that term can be ascribed to the Labour/Green/NZF benches) is to try and limit the damage…

     Given that we have an accelerating housing crisis…surely the very first line of attack is to severely restrict immigration…but no…
     • marty mars 9.2.1

       3 March 2017 at 10:41 am

       nah english is a dumbarse who can do a little maths, maybe. As evidenced last time he had the tiller – the shitgnatship is heading for the rocks
   • AB 9.3

     3 March 2017 at 10:31 am

     Sadly he’s not gone if the majority of the people who actually vote are doing OK out of this mess. There are winners and losers in this situation and if the losers don’t participate in the democratic system you just get more of the same.

     And it seems to me that people’s voting behaviour is less and less influenced by a concern for how others are getting on, or by a belief that the whole community has to function properly. Everything is designed to individuate us.

     These two things – falling participation and atomisation – need serious thinking to overcome.
     • marty mars 9.3.1

       3 March 2017 at 10:46 am

       yes I agree with the idea that they want to atomise/compartmentalise people – but rivers, water are wide across all of this country and also, even though the housing crisis appears to be in auckland – it is affecting every community imo.

       We have to keep the message simple and repeat it often.

       We want clean water!!!

       We want housing for people!!!

       We want everyone to pay their share of tax!!!

       Young people are not druggies!!!

       and so on.
10. esoteric pineapples 10

    3 March 2017 at 8:58 am

    “Record house prices and a lack of affordable accommodation is a “good problem” to have, in Mr English’s view, because it shows there is “strong demand” – not just for houses, but the New Zealand way of life.”

    The things we once took for granted in New Zealand now have a price on them. If you can’t afford it you can’t have it.

    Plus this is part of a trend under National (and pushed by Mike Hosking) that all good things about New Zealand from the pleasant climate to the beaches are all thanks to National.
11. Carolyn_nth 11

    3 March 2017 at 9:11 am

    Bill English said on TV 1 News last night:

    The truth is the traditional state housing model has failed the country, and a whole lotta people, and that’s why we’re fixing it.

    That certainly raised my ire – and still does as I transcribed the words. Need to take a deep breath in the face of obvious lying alt-facts.

    That old right wing MO: run down a public service, then claim it isn’t working and privatise it. In this case it’s (allegedly) replacing state housing with “social housing”. But even the social housing is being done with heels dragging.

    The blatant, smiling Bling, disregard for human lives is staggering. Callous. Morally-challenged PM.

    PS: and Bling has the gaul to refer to people looking for somewhere to live as “cusumers”! ie in the vid:

    The ultimate accountability is meeting the needs of the consumers.

    No! The homeless are citizens and residents (basically humans) whose basic needs are not being met.
12. mikesh 12

    3 March 2017 at 9:24 am

    Every cloud, I suppose, has a silver lining, but a cloud is still a cloud.
13. Richard Christie 13

    3 March 2017 at 10:22 am

    and famine is good because it is evidence of a strong demand for food.
14. AB 14

    3 March 2017 at 10:51 am

    Generally speaking, problems provide opportunities for some people and are a disaster for others.

    If you are on the winning side of that equation then it’s a ‘good problem’ to have. Many National voters ARE on the winning side of the housing mess and Bill has therefore predictably failed to take a “whole society” view of things. This lack of vision and moral compass really makes him unfit to be a Prime Minister – or in fact in charge of anything where you have any responsibility for the welfare of people.

    And in business when you genuinely have a ‘good problem’ such as stresses and strains gearing up to meet customer demand because you have a good product, you always try your hardest to hit a ‘good problem’ with a good solution. You don’t slack off and look the other way.
15. Anno1701 15

    3 March 2017 at 12:10 pm

    No Houses ?

    Let them live in Mansions then !
    • Muttonbird 15.1

      3 March 2017 at 8:37 pm

      https://republicanfaithchat.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/mittletthemfly.jpg?w=600
16. AsleepWhileWalking 16

    3 March 2017 at 2:34 pm

    Apparently about 40% steal stuff. At least that’s how I read this, but mebee they meant 60% steal stuff??

    No mention in this article that wealthy people also steal stuff like bath robes, etc. Rock stars are known for wrecking rooms. The bias against the poor in this country continues festering : (

    http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/90013961/auckland-moteliers-speak-out-about-what-its-like-providing-housing-for-the-homeless
17. Philgwellington Wellington 17

    3 March 2017 at 2:58 pm

    For some odd reason the MSM appear to be giving the current pm some flack on various fronts, especially housing. The gloss on the organic material from the previous pm seems to be wearing thin. You can only swim in ecoli for so long Bill.
    • NewsFlash 17.1

      3 March 2017 at 4:07 pm

      Maybe we should force the pollies responsible for these contaminated waterways to have a dip, pardon the pun.
18. NewsFlash 18

    3 March 2017 at 4:00 pm

    English’s answer is temporary housing, it would appear he has no idea of the definition of “temporary”.

    Put a homeless family into a home for a few weeks, then move them out, so they can move another homeless family in, but wait, where did the first family go?

    English: Oh, I hadn’t thought about that………….

    At least, judging by the latest Colmar Brunton Poll, ordinary Kiwi’s are concerned about housing, by making it the most important issue going into the election (27%), plenty of mileage here for the savvy parties with similar concerns.
    • Red 18.1

      3 March 2017 at 8:24 pm

      Concern does not mean vote for labour, contrary Roy Morgan indicated 26pc have any faith in labours plans
19. greg 19

    3 March 2017 at 9:08 pm

    herald reported today record house hold debt
    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11810732
    this does not end well the house that bill built has weak foundations
    • millsy 19.1

      4 March 2017 at 1:03 am

      That is why the economy is growing. We are all putting it on the plastic. Wage growth is barely enough to cover costs, so that is where loosening up on access to credit comes in. Neo-liberalism is built on easy access to loans, etc.
20. JustMe 20

    4 March 2017 at 8:34 am

    Today this thought crossed my mind. We have as temporary PM a MP who has gained the legacy of being called the Double Dipping MP for Dipton. He hasn’t blamed himself for double dipping. In fact he would probably view such things as blaming himself or his government that he is an MP of as being totally alien. Instead he eagerly blames anyone and everyone who doesn’t have enough money to donate to say the NZ National Party. He has even demeaned himself to a lower level by blaming the environment for the housing crisis. He probably never associates let alone shakes hands with the great unwashed i.e ordinary NZers unless there are votes needed. Like with the previous pm of NZ English has absolute contempt and dislike for NZers. The previous National pm of NZ claimed there is no housing crisis in NZ. But then did Key ever sleep in the streets, in a vehicle, in a garage especially during a NZ winter? When a pm of NZ like Bill English claims something is a ‘good problem to have…’ then it shows how out of touch with reality he is.

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