Heatley to resign (again) over eviction debacle?

Written By: - Date published: 10:04 am, September 2nd, 2011 - 17 comments
Categories: housing, scoundrels - Tags: , , ,

National promised to get tough ‘undeserving’ state house tenants. (always someone to get tough on when maintaining the privileges of the elite) The first targets were 3 women and their kids, judged guilty by association with their partners who were charged with burglary (the charges were dropped). 2 years and $1m wasted and the government has given up.

2 years of needless distress for these 3 families. $1 million, enough to buy three state houses, wasted on legal fees and security guards (no-one ever accused these women of being dangerous or criminals, so why the guards?).

But the bigger question is ‘what was the government’s optimal outcome here?’ 3 women and their young kids booted out of their homes, smeared in the media and struggling to find accommodation elsewhere? If they were such a threat where they were living, wouldn’t they have been just as bad wherever they washed up? If the government had got its way, this would have been an expensive exercise in pushing what they consider a problem from one place to another. They wanted to be seen to be acting, even though they wouldn’t really change anything. As it is, they just succeeded in wasting a million dollars.

Ironically, many of the state houses in Farmer Cres are being demolished, supposedly to be replaced with better houses, including the homes of two of the families in question. So, after all this work, two of them will be forced to move anyway, and it won’t cost a million dollars in legal fees and security guards.

I seem to remember John Key promising higher standards of accountability. Surely a minister wasting a million dollars of our money on a political stunt and coming out of it with an embarrassing defeat dealt to him by some ‘underclass’ mums is a sackable offence.

– Dean

17 comments on “Heatley to resign (again) over eviction debacle? ”

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  1. mickysavage 1
    2 September 2011 at 10:23 am

    But Dean you do not understand the political dog whistle benefit in harassing poor women, especially solo mums.
     
    Just ask Tarsha Fuller.  Dare to stand up and they will bring the full force of the state down on you.
     
    They are allowed to be bullies on our money.
     
    I agree that Heatley should go, as should Bennett.  But we will need an election to achieve this.
     

    • aerobubble 1.1
      2 September 2011 at 10:41 am

      I thought the habits of their partners forced Housing NZ into evicting them, and
      so they are now partnerless due to the government??? Their conditions changed,
      right.

  2. Psycho Milt 2
    2 September 2011 at 10:29 am

    (always someone to get tough on when maintaining the privileges of the elite)

    Uh, yeah, right. You know, somehow, when I’m imaging just what the “privileges of the elite” might consist of, “being able to live in a run-down state house in Farmer Cres without Mongrel Mob members coming round to intimidate you” doesn’t really rate a place on the list.

    • prism 2.1
      2 September 2011 at 12:08 pm

      Nice that someone thinks about the other people living in this area of Housing NZ homes. Those who aren’t living in houses owned by central or local government often seem to consider that those who do don’t deserve the same pleasant, secure and private living standards that they want for themselves.

  3. queenstfarmer 3
    2 September 2011 at 10:31 am

    It is bizzare, it is a debacle. Heatley got some ‘splainin’ to do

  4. Psycho Milt 4
    2 September 2011 at 10:31 am

    But as to Heatley, yeah, absolutely – the guy’s dept just flushed a huge amount of money down the legal toilet and having won the case, decided to give up anyway. Either pursuing the court case was wrong, or deciding not to evict them after all was wrong – either way, he should be looking for a sword to fall on.

  5. millsy 5
    2 September 2011 at 10:40 am

    I dont get this…HNZC are kicking these ladies out then they have decided not to, then they are going to kick them out anyway because their houses are being demolished (and replaced by grass lawns — this is a scandal in itself, especially with slum lords set to make a comeback).

    No winners here….

  6. Tiger Mountain 6
    2 September 2011 at 10:41 am

    Robyn Winther, Huia Tamaka and Billy Taylor hung in there against the combined resources of the state. Heatly looks like a dick not to have prevailed. Hasta la bye bye Phil.

    Housing NZ said… “These termination notices came about because of severe and unacceptable antisocial behaviour by men associated with the tenants’ properties towards other people in the community”. If only that causation could be applied to tory landlords, bankers, corporates and capitalist swine generally.

    • aerobubble 6.1
      2 September 2011 at 10:56 am

      Indeed. Or the we can chuck them out now and they won’t be able to reapply for a year.
      What? Did Key grow a backbone around his cold dead heart? He would not survive the
      media scrum that descends on him, having photos of their kids begging on the street
      for a year for the money for accomadation. And why? because their mums friends
      are jerks.

      Sure there is a serious issue about the right to dignity of neighbors of gang members
      ‘family and friends’. But that surely is a gang problem. If there is a noise problem
      you find the source of the noise and don’t blame those effected. Sure if the gang
      members were living there and causing strife then evict them, if they visit there
      put exclusion orders on them for the property (and road if not there for good
      reason), and at a last resort seize their cars so they can’t use them to get to that
      street and those homes.

      Its just so pecular for a governing party to hate proportionality in all its forms.

  7. thejackal 7
    2 September 2011 at 11:39 am

    This sort of shit makes me ashamed to be a New Zealander. Heatley should be gone before lunchtime.

  8. tc 8
    2 September 2011 at 12:29 pm

    And this is a minister too talented to be left out after his spending indecretions copped a demotion according to the chief of the trading room.
    What are the less talented ones getting up to I wonder, no don’t tell me pulling wings off flys, troughing in bellamys, employing quality people to explain to them what a calculator is etc

  9. Treetop 9
    2 September 2011 at 2:47 pm

    All Heatley has done is:
    1) Reduced the housing stock
    2) Increased anxiety (application criteria) for those who cannot afford to rent privately
    3) Has plans to cram people into inferior size dwellings with minimal outside space

    Last night on Prime at 8.30 pm there was a programme called Filthy Cities. Immigrants in New York in the 1880s were dying because of scratching lice excrement into the skin caused by over crowded dwellings and filth on the streets which caused cholera and typhoid, (those responsible for removing street waste ripped off 200 million). Over crowding was due to landlords hiking rent as there was a demand for housing.

    The death toll improved when the filth on the streets was removed and over crowding was reduced.

    It is too much to hope that Heatley saw this programme. He would then see how he has failed as being the housing minister.

    • tc 9.1
      2 September 2011 at 7:33 pm

      Heatley is considered talented because he can follow a script, not his but more of that hollow men magic, all of the above is on that script. Even if he saw that program he’s not in any position to actually make a decision…….this is a purely ideologically driven govt with zero compassion and elves and sprites who can follow orders.

      • mik e 9.1.1
        2 September 2011 at 7:44 pm

        While they were in opposition they complained endlessly about the labour govt not doing enough to deal to bad bastards this is saying you can get away with any thing you like if yiyou are a gang member the gangs will be voting national come November. the ones not in jail.

    • millsy 9.2
      3 September 2011 at 12:01 am

      Ahh the slum lord. One of the by-products of free market capitalism…

      Too bad we are so suffocatingly PC these days that we call them ‘mum and dad property investors saving for their retirement’…

      • aerobubble 9.2.1
        3 September 2011 at 2:05 pm

        Far right – change everything by doing away with it without consideration – revolution.
        Right wing – keep pottering along conservatism.

        That’s all there is, Zombie Rovian Double speak is all about creating rage and
        making the far right out to be the saviors.

        Its not going to change, the people who listen to the MSM dogma, who buy
        into it, who make it, who peddle it, all have to much to lose.

        Its the same old story, the business goes belly up so people who still trust the
        ideology (out of loyalty) will put their hands in their pockets.

        Since after all politics since Thatcher has been one big cult.

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