Exempting tenants from accountability has a parallel with another extreme policy, its deal with National to let developers ignore urban planning rules.
“At the heart of the problem is a government policy to “sustain tenancies” rather than turfing people out on to the street. It has resulted in just three Kāinga Ora evictions since the Labour Government came to power in September 2017.
Those who endure the consequences are going without sleep, suffering severe stress and mental anguish, with some seeking court-ordered restraining orders for protection, and others selling their homes to escape.
The policy has been panned by political opponents, who say it breaches the Government’s legal responsibilities as a landlord to ensure its state housing tenants are safe and free from being terrorised by other Kāinga Ora clients.
The policy also emboldens rotten apples and lets them off the hook, National claims.
The Tenancy Tribunal has ruled the no eviction stance is at odds with the state’s legal obligations, ordering Kāinga Ora to pay thousands of dollars to affected claimants.
There is now talk of a class action to hold the Government to account and there is no shortage of people keen to sign up.”
……………………………….
A good investigative reporter article, well worth the read. A classic case of Labour academic woolly wishful thinking that if you are just nicer to horrible people, they’ll be nice back.
Being intimidated and harassed by the tenants of a property also happens in private rentals. The cost of a private rental adds to the daily stress so people head for the bottle or drug. When off your face the ugly you is shown or waiting for the next fix as small stuff will set you off.
In a lot of cases it is the drugs, alcohol and homes that people grew up in with violence, physical , sexual and verbal abuse, alcohol and drugs.
One problem property affects the whole street. Those on the anti social property know that they can get away with a lot, often it is the people who they bring to the property which also increases the bad behaviour.
Semi detached rural properties are required, drug and alcohol rehab, education on what the boundaries of being a neighbour is. Counselling to understand the damage that occurred in the childhood home.
Yes. I think you’ve nailed the core problems & the solutions.
Do you see this Labour government doing these things, implementing these harm & harassment mitigations, & underlying problem solutions?
I’m afraid I don’t.
I actually think they’d be more likely to have occurred under Bill English / Whanau Ora & the targeted spending he envisaged for dealing with specific people & whanau who were identified as in most need of comprehensive state-funded help & deliver a return of less needed social spending on them in the future.
Saying such things here is not likely to be popular tho. ☹️
Yeah right Gezza National paid lip service setting up Whanau Ora to fail by under funding .
Labour has thrown a lot more money at Whanau Ora.
But with lack of stable housing intergenerational violence and neglect it is bound to fail. And as a former front line voluntary worker its pissing into the wind raking water uphill a former Social Worker told me over 40 years ago.
Nothing has changed in that time.
Social Workers don't last long in this failing system they get burned out very quickly compounding the problem.
It's not going to be fixed until direct intervention takes place.
That it is putting social workers into the families in a stable housing situation.The family Court's and child protection are not making any difference but have contributed to making it worse.
The Canterbury University research project of having live in Social Workers had a 72% success rate of turning dysfunctional, violent drugs including alcohol, gang families .It only took 6 months of intensive intervention,fixing communication,discipline,budgeting,getting rid of losers out of influencing families,keeping drugs including alcohol out. It cost $72,000 per intervention.That sounds like a lot ,but these families are million dollar plus welfare,crime.education failures that can cost multi millions.
It's time for this trial to be expanded into the community.
That's not happening any time soon so the band aid solutions continue and continue to fail.
So instead of building more houses we will be building more Prison's finishing schools for criminals to gain their PHD's in crime and failure.
Labour’s too good at “throwing money” into problem areas. It’s shite at getting value out of that hastily flung money in terms of improved outcomes, because its Ministers are so inexperienced they allow themselves to be confused, diverted & hamstrung by overwhelming departmental inertia.
Look at what they threw at Mental Health, just as one example. Results? No improvements at all, in fact Covid’s reportedly making the lack of mental health services deliver even worse MH statistics.
…getting rid of losers out of influencing families,keeping drugs including alcohol out.
Wonder how they did that? Do you know? When did this project actually start?
Evidence based, targeted funding to those most in need of the full range of support & remedial.
Because he called it Social Investment the woke & the stupid & the Opposition at the tiime sneered, derided, & shouted it down, not bothering to work out that it didn’t mean rewarding execs & shareholders of private companies providing contracted services.
It meant getting a social return on the investment of that targeted funding. Turning broken families & individuals around. Giving them better education – even if just basic literacy & numeracy, tools many still lack. Teaching them saleable, useful skills, creating more choices for them, more options for their future that included becoming increasingly more financially independent & better socially connected , more skilled, more secure in themselves as contributing members of the societies they live in.
At the moment, about 8400 inmates, including pre-trial, in a population of just over 5 million, 164 per 100,000. In 2035, predicted population 5.3 million.
Will that population in 2035 include more or fewer of the age which most often ends up in prison, as our population ages?
Does the target figure include pre-trial detainees? Are home detention figures included?
Return them to the same family, same community that produced them and then be surprised when they reoffend?
Exactly. Bill English’s Social Investment policy aimed to break that cycle by changing the famiily & background to which they were returning & (unsurprisingly) reoffending again because nothing which caused them to be anti-social & /or criminal offenders had changed.
Government works in silos when it comes to addressing the cause of difficult behaviour due to waiting times and not having the specialist support. The welfare of children is my priority as there are no bad kids just bad parenting.
The worst tenants require some sort of new tenancy conditions clearly stated which cover harassment, intimidation and unlawful use of the property. Tenancy education classes and refuge support services for the person who signed the lease as they could be being intimidated by the new partner and their mates. OT needs to step up and place children in a safe environment away from adults who are incapable of looking after their self.
I have seen it that once you provide a skip bin people clean up and this is self rewarding. Then provide a vegie box with quick growing plants, either the plants die or the person nurtures them. People need purpose.
I would add, it’s been 14 years now since I retired from the Public Service, so I don’t know if departmental Policy policy & Operational policy are still developed in the same way.
But we used to have to do a Strategic Risk Analysis (using a well-respected Risk Assessment Tool – the RAT) of all new policies, looking at what could go wrong across multiple areas identified as to be impacted by the proposed policy change. You had to identify what risk mitigation or elimination strategies would be employed were the foreseeable problems to arise after implementation.
I’d love to see the Risk Assessment for this “sustain tenancies” policy – if there ever was one.
The covid ruling of "no evictions during lock down' has contributed imo.
Plus housing all the homeless during and after lock down. With people 'home' all day and night, these problems are magnified. (Though some cases look like 'benign' neglect by the Minister not responding to cases .)
We have not since World War two had such problems of people having to accommodate others and/or stand lengthy separations. Stress and anxiety is at a very high level after 2 years of covid rules.
Covid has laid bare the inequities and their horrible outcomes. Many of those inequities began with Meth and lowered "job seeker" benefits plus cruel penalties, when people lost homes for very minor infringements. That pendulum has swung too far in some cases.
Those trying to find systems to work for such disparate individuals have a hard unrewarding task, as one leader said "some have meth as their main need and they are selfish with it." It would be unfair to say those same Public servants are not looking at outcomes, just they are trying to meet all needs and failing another group.
RATs are many in these covid times, and the PM commented "These are hard times to plan" . Now we have a new strain for the Government to worry about.
Treetop private landlords are less likely to take on problematic tenants as they can chose from the best of the best tenants (you know the one who have glowing references, no pets are scrub up well etc).
Social housing and motels are used to house people in extreme need, who likely wouldn't stand a chance in the private rental market.
I am not saying tenants in private rentals or even home owners can be shitty neighbors.
Kainga Ora numbers would be higher. I had across the street class A addicts who had a lot of guests, roaming dogs, screaming domestics. Neighbours on either side (shared main wall), were too scared to complain. The rent usually becomes too much so they get kicked out. Person who signed the lease was great with her kid for 18 months until the rent ballooned and due to desperation she took in a boarder. She got hooked on drugs and she lost the control of her home.
Why don't TV1 & TV3 have proper investigative journos looking at this kind of scenario that flows on directly from rent increases going so high they go beyond someone responsible's ability to pay.
In that one example you cite there, Treetop, the collateral damage of unintended / unforeseen consequences (aka blowback) is so immense that no ordinary person would ever have expected that outcome.
But you do. Why isn't Sunday, starring Miriama Kamo, covering this kind of nightmare – instead of many of the soft fluffy magazine-style snippets it features
When the wrong person gets in the door of a vulnerable mum she is at risk of being abused and manipulated and thinks the rent will be halved having a flat mate or a boarder's portion of the rent will pay the rent. A cycle of abuse starts, then Kainga Ora eventually find the mum an affordable rental but her self esteem is so low and the wrong type exploit her further.
To not see that outcome, the people not seeing it have not got the right people doing the blowback.
How do the government think a single mum can afford to pay $370 pw?
The answer to that one is that they aren’t living on the benefit or in a low-wage job so they have NFI of the stress and struggles of those who live from benefit paycheck to paycheck & have nothing left over when something breaks or they encounter a sudden unexpected financial burden.
Short answer: The university-educated policy wonks are all far too well paid & too distant from their “clients” to know or really care.
This is where a Minister with community connections, intelligence, & a bit of steel up their spine can make all the difference. Rejecting policy papers that don’t tackle the problems they should already be well versed in. Too many of them seem to just read departmental briefing papers.
They need to read relevant werking gruppe reports & also to get out & about & and find out for themselves what & where the problems are. Imo.
" Why isn't Sunday, starring Miriama Kamo, covering this kind of nightmare – instead of many of the soft fluffy magazine-style snippets it features"
From Sunday's blurb Kamo says; "Our journalists are the country’s finest. I’m proud to work alongside them and to be a part of bringing their stories to the nation. They are trusted practitioners who fearlessly hold power to account, who make change in the lives of New Zealanders, and who help shape our country’s narrative and identity.”
Exactly, gsays. It’s not really about in depth examinations of significant national & international current affairs, it’s about catering to the widest audience – hence the relatively short duration of multiple “stories”.
It’s not to say they don’t sometimes have items covering significant issues, particularly in Kiwiland, but they are nearly always too short, have an “angle” rather than a neutral presentation, & are too “once over lightly”.
TV journalism in Kiwiland is nowadays mostly of rubbish quality, compared to, say, the 70s, 80s, & 90s, maybe some parts of the 2000s. ☹️
The semi detached rural still leaves them with a connected neighbour.
I don't see any "good" solution – hiffing them from tenancies of last resort puts them on the street, with the kids, and that will make everyone more difficult to locate and help. Taking the kids away for being bad neighbours might be a bit much, too.
Putting them all together makes a slum, and that's before looking at different gang affiliations folks might have.
permaculture would say find the solutions at each site rather than trying to design generic ones that can be enforced from the top down.
Is the problem anti-social behaviour? Is it socio-economics? The effects of colonisation? Trauma? Patterns of thinking that are hard to change because of all the above plus drugs and alcohol and violence?
It comes down to loss of personal control or being controlled. The injustices of life, not being nurtured with love, economic pressure, violence, addictions and not having a purpose or the opportunity to reach your potential.
Semi detached rural is not suitable for children due to being unsafe. I needed to clarify semi detached rural. A property which has no neighbours too close.
The detached country home is what is suitable. Just like how some individual health services are more expensive due to the need. It is as much a health need as a housing need.
I would not just leave a person there without addressing the issues which put them there.
"Sustaining tenancies, but not if they were the neighbours of the politicians or bureacrats who came up with this policy (whoever they are) ……….
Its utter cruelty towards the decent tennants, all of whom will be social disadvantaged. What a way to treat these people. Shameful.
And those anti social tenants should be kicked out. They need to know the consequences of their actions…….The what about their children arguement doesn't really stack up either. What these people are modelling to their kids is I can be a real a….hole to other people and get away with it.
Its naive to think that people who induge in nasty anti social behaviour will suddently change if we show them "kindness". These people have deeply entrenched problems that there are absolutely no quck fixes to. Moreover I would bet that there are no signs of these people wanting to change "I have been a real b…d to my neighbors, and I realize I feel bad about that. I will get counselling".
Meanwhile they get away with terrorizing vulnerable people, making their life miserable.
Whoever is responsible for this policy lacks empathy
I'll be looking at signing up on behalf of my Parents … currently in the process of outlining their situation to Thorn Law, the law firm concerned.
Over the past two years, I’ve speculated here & elsewhere on social media that it’s a widespread situation as Kianga Ora appears to almost exclusively allocate social housing to deeply dysfunctional (read ruthlessly violent & anti-social) people with “complex needs”. I guessed that, like my Parents (90 & 91 yo), they’d be elderly enduring enormous suffering throughout the Country … and so it turns out …
great stuff Swordfish. I wish you all the very best with the legal action.
It is an absolute fucking scandal.
I think the reality is there is some people we can't help and a significant part of that is they don't want help. Not the whole picture. Your parents neighbour doesn't sound like he has kids, but if he did, that would be an unsafe environment for those kids.
I say evict this neirbour. Its not as if the house is going to stay empty because there are only 2 people on waiting list for a state house and neither of them in Whangarei. Would be interested to hear any updates.
Thanks for your moral support, Anker … really appreciate it.
He does indeed have kids … & they are pretty clearly turning into / aping their Parents … very sad to see. They were last seen around 10 weeks ago, there for just a couple of hours in the morning … from the moment they arrived just a constant stream of "Fucks" & "Fuck Offs" shouted outside & slamming front door repeatedly … exactly like both of their parents … really dysfunctional family. Can see quite clearly how it becomes intergenerational.
But a real shame … the son seems to be about 11, the daughter around 6 or 7.
God that is disturbing Swordfish (the kids). And those who say we have to keep these people there because of the kids, no, no, no.
If the Govt is serious about the problem of anti social people, then give them a state house, but with conditions. 2 or 3 at the most strikes and you are out. So clear expectations of how to treat the neigbourhood. No loud noise after 9pm, no abusive or threatening behaviour etc etc. And all the blahing on about what to do we these people. Well I don't care too much about them. I do about your parents and all the others who have put up with these sorts of neighbours. Perhaps if they don't behave they do get sent to a country complex with others of their ilk. It might be really bad for them, but its terrbile for decent tenants. These people can then get a get out of jail card with good behaviour………….I mean really its like basic parenting. If the kids don't behave, they get the "naughty seat".
I do believe there are some people who can't be rehabilitated. Someone mention sending in social workers, but I am not sure what they would do.
In solidarity Swordfish, I have just left a comment on The Daily Blog where Pat O'Dea has written a column "No more evictions"I suggestion he read your piece about your elderly parents and also challenged him to live in a State house for two weeks next to these anti social tenants (of course a challenge that is not possible, but I did hope he might put himself in the shoes of people whose lives are blighted by these tenants).
I also wished the tenants all the best with their legal action.
And yes of course these kids would be apeing their parents.
Social workers sent around to spell out the rules and offer a course on emotion regulation and respecting others. Totally up to the anti social people whether or not they take it, but they are out very quickly if their behaviour doesn't improve. Sad for their kids of course, but we can't solve every problem.
Had a quick read of O'Dea … typifies the Woke & their fellow travellers … pre-determined abstract theoretical views on good vs bad demographics, divorced from reality … & hence paternalistic romanticisation of entire social groups … for all the Intersectional talk of Lived Experience, there is, in fact, zero interest in judging each individual case on its merits through empirical observation [unless it adheres to the pre-determined precepts of Critical Theory] …
… well, apart from supplementing his abstract views of eternally innocent & virtuous social housing tenants across the board with an assumption that his own experience is typical / universal … it seems he's had just a couple of relatively minor noise, behaviour issues from social housing neighbours over the years … and apparently has decided that this must be not just the norm but in fact the universal experience.
Kids of the Prick nextdoor to my Parents have largely lived elsewhere with their mother ….. (many major borderline-violent confrontations between he [tenant] & her [estranged former partner] over the last 4 years, Parents often woken by them) ….. an extra source of stress … but kids were there around 30-40% of the time through 2018 / 19 … then hardly there at all in 2020, then on and off this year. They never settled at night … often screaming & stomping tantrums at 2am / 3am / 4 am a few metres away from my Parents on other side of non-soundproof dividing-wall … and often transported there in early hours of morning !!! (like I say deeply dysfunctional family) so were another source of stress & sleep deprivation.
Although he was largely OK with his kids, there were more than a few exceptions where he inflicted violent intimidation on one or both … usually through the early hours of the morning … my Parents worried for their safety.
One of the key reasons the daughter hated being there … often screaming to her mother {dropping her off] that she didn’t want to go in.
Left a comment on O'Dea's Daily Blog post this morning … but hasn't been published yet (possibly never) … so I might as well stick it here … as you can see, I'm rapidly losing patience with these people:
You casually assume your situation – "isolated and infrequent" behaviour – is somehow the universal experience … you're wrong … and, like the blindingly dogmatic Middle / Upper-Middle Woke, your really quite callous core demand in this post (ludicrously dressed up as some sort of moral purity) represents a clear & present danger to innocent people, low income people & elderly people living next to these violent anti-socials … it's a form of narcissism = ostentatious moral posturing while simultaneously enabling elder abuse & supporting a kind of State-sanctioned domestic terror (both of which you seek to obfuscate because they don't fit into your pre-determined ideological dogma).
The way I'm feeling at the moment … I'd happily see you forced to live with my elderly Parents' nightmare … & have armed guards making sure you didn't leave for a year. Same goes for HNZ Senior Managers, certain Cabinet Ministers & the casually sadistic Woke enablers.
You / they need to be parachuted into social housing on the other side of a dividing-wall from all the relentless violent intimidation & extreme anti-social behaviour that results in severe sleep deprivation, constant high stress & all the dire health consequences that inevitably follow … you think you're one of the Good Guys but you've actually drifted into borderline-Sadist territory, prioritising your own prestige enhancement among your little cadre of clueless ideologues.
Let's be clear, people like you are the antithesis of the genuine Left.
If you want to create a Kiwi version of Britain's crumbling Red Wall then you're going the right way about it … you're doing your rhetorical little bit to destroy the lives of lifelong Labour / Alliance / Green voters.
Thanks Swordfish. I hope he publishes it, but he probably won't. At least he will have read it.
I have had a few comments to make on the post. The usual "well what would you do with these people". While I did make some suggestions, at one point I said "I'd evict them". That's all I said.
Somehow we think we have to solve these peoples unsolvable problems. One person suggested counselling and I almost said "you have to be f…g joking", but refrained.
I don't know of anyone in your parents situation, but it takes very little effort to empathize with the nightmare they and others are experiencing, how it could be fixed so easily and what an outrage it it is. I do feel very angry about it.
I am equally angry with Labour and Greens about the gender ideology bills, because I think gender ideology is just that an ideology and the party seems to be completely captured by it. You may not share my view of it and that is o.k.
As a member of the Labour Party (just)I am not sure what to do really
I am equally angry with Labour and Greens about the gender ideology bills
Yeah, of course one The Standard's former authors along with her Green MP boss have been central to these campaigns.
Queer Theory zealots, hopelessly immersed in all the esoteric fantasies of 1960s French Postmodernist dogma associated in particular with Derrida & Foucault [albeit acquiring these ideas second-hand … unlikely they've actually read any of this from the original sources]. They're much more likely to have been influenced by the more recent application (& quite often mangling) of these theories by Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick & others.
It's probably the most Year Zero of the various branches of Critical Theory in terms of its attempts to destroy all social norms & more generally the foundations of liberal democratic society. A kind of Permanent Cultural Revolution with all the never-ending social mayhem that that entails.
Anything associated with the normal, the commonplace, the majority, anything that is widely-accepted or can be categorized – in fact any sort of stability whatsoever – is deemed inherently "oppressive" & hence must be disrupted, subverted, dismantled. It's particularly keen, of course, on destroying social binaries … esp around biological sex, gender, sexuality. Hence their Blank Slatism fantasies & so on.
There's a rational middle-ground between Sex Essentialists & Queer Theory/Gender activists.
With Gender activists, & more generally Woke Critical Theory cultists, we're talking about inflexible dogmatists who've deluded themselves they're some sort of intellectual-cultural elite that exclusively possesses morality & wisdom … whereas in reality they've developed a highly dubious moral compass & have zero understanding of complex reality, not least because most appear relatively divorced from day-to-day society.
It's no surprise that this sort of elitist little cult, prioritising esoteric whims over cold hard material reality, attracts those from more financially privileged backgrounds … high decile single-sex schools have so much to answer for … they tend to create these Walking-Talking Horror Stories.
I am a left winger from way back, but gender ideology first drew my attention to cancel culture and the shut down of debate.
I am a second wave feminist and I know it is not possible to change your sex. I have enormous concerns about the affirmation only approach and the medical transition of children.
Its good to know of other people on the Standard who see what is really going on.
It must be absolute misery for your poor parents Swordfish. Such human excrement should be kept well away from civil society. We all know the issues of gangs and drugs and that your parents are suffering the end result of that is awful
The urban planning things seems a cheap way to try and solve the housing crisis. It has to potential to pit neighbours against neighbours and to create a shitty landscape from an archetectural point of view.
Solomon’s ancestors began the fight for justice long before him, but he has been instrumental in moving a settlement forward. For nearly 40 years, he has led the fight for reparation, first filing a claim on behalf of the imi (tribe) in 1988, which culminated in this week’s bill being passed.
Moriori had a pacifist philosophy which chief Nunuku-Whenua introduced to his people around the 16th century. The covenant of peace banned rank, violence and warfare. The imi lived undisturbed for many centuries until their first contact with European settlers in 1791, who arrived on the HMS Chatham, bringing with them diseases and the start of a new colonial era.
“In late 1835, about 900 people of two mainland Māori tribes sailed on a British ship to Rēkohu … the newcomers were welcomed and fed by Moriori in accordance with tikane Moriori (Moriori custom). Some Moriori wanted to resist the invaders, but the elders…urged the people to obey Nunuku’s law of peace … Upon returning to their villages they were attacked, and many were killed. Māori accounts put the number of Moriori killed in 1835–36 at about 300, or about one-sixth of the population. Those Moriori who survived the invasion were enslaved and forced to do manual labour,” the official account of Moriori history states.
Imi?? I thought it was a typo but no, it's state-sanctioned terminology. Moriori language must transpose imi for iwi. See section 2 here:
An excellent succinct summary of our history! Note how the settler govt exercised native admin via recognising slavery as the traditional Maori prerogative. Such de facto creation of third-class citizenry seems quite innovative (section 3).
Particularly noteworthy are the consequences delineated in Section 5. Ownership produced by conquest as state policy integrated pakeha & maori trad political practice.
I see no evidence that the treaty signed by this govt includes an apology from the two offensive Taranaki tribes to the Moriori for that 1830s genocide. Put that alongside the apparent failure of the Waikato tribes to apologise for their earlier genocide in Taranaki, and various other maori genocides around the country in different eras. I suppose it's technically possible that apologies have been made without any subsequent media reportage to inform us of such occurrences. More likely, nobody feels apologies for genocide are necessary, since genocide is traditional.
Moriori ought to be honoured for pioneering peaceful coexistence in Aotearoa, long before Te Whiti got the idea. I doubt I'll live to see that, but rectifying historical injustice does actually need to be done properly. Tokenism is insufficient.
Yes, that’s something that has intrigued me. The Crown has – rightly – acknowledged its outrageous, oppressive, suppressive behaviours toward “rebellious” resisters & innocent Māori & offered it unreserved apologies in Treaty Settlements.
But I never see or hear anything about Māori warring on & enslaving other iwi/nations, & driving some iwi completely out of their traditional nga rohe, as occurred in – and following – the Nga Puhi-inspired Musket Wars.
One sees occasional multi-iwi disputes arising over settlement claims where more than one hapu or iwi claims for recompense for the same parcel of land. But I don’t know, where these claims are the result of iwi taua invasions & land stealing, whether the affected iwi sort out any muru/utu/compensation & expression & acceptance of apologies between themselves post the official Crown Settlement.
I agree, Dennis and Gezza. I have heard Maori accept the 'Right of Conquest' for pre Treaty of Waitangi events, but it seems that apologies and compensation apply only to post-treaty things.
This does seem a bit dodgy on pure moral grounds. Letter of the law rather than spirit of the law?
Wakatū owners are descendants of the chiefs and families of these hapū that belong to four tribes, Ngāti Koata, Ngāti Rārua, Ngāti Tama and Te Ātiawa. Our ancestors travelled from Kāwhia and North Taranaki to conquer the region (Te Tau Ihu) between 1828 and 1834.
What is not mentioned is that they slaughtered all the peoples already living there. Just a decade before the ToW.
But according to the wookies – only white people are capable of wrong.
I don't have any objection to telling the whole of NZ's history. Unless we can come to terms with our past and repudiate it's errors we will remain entangled with it's ghosts.
But the moment you see that history being selectively re-written, you know some other agenda is in play.
Just to clarify – I regard the invasion of the Waikato and Parihaka, etc, as despicable breaches of the Treaty, and agree with belated (if inadequate) compensation for the descendants of those wronged.
But I am a teacher of language, and I struggle to accept the wording which pretends that pre-treaty Maori never committed any offences themselves, and that offences happened only after the treaty was signed.
I also struggle to understand why sometimes in the late stages of the NZ wars in the South of the North Island there were as many Kupapa as British colonial troops repressing the local tribes.
To me there seems to be an obvious imbalance in terminology.
Ah yes – you touch on another verboten topic – that almost always alongside British colonial troops were Maori from other iwi playing an often vital role in crushing their own former enemies.
Yep, if you want truly brutal genocidal violence … you'd need to head back to the Musket Wars .. three decades of horrendous massacres, at least 20k dead (vs about 2k in the New Zealand Wars), tens of thousands enslaved, some really brutal torture, cannibalism, massive upheaval, iwi massacred, others permanently driven from their nga rohe.
Bears zero relationship to the Woke's highly paternalistic 'Noble Savage' Romanticisation of pre-1840 Māori as some kind of peace-loving flower-power San Francisco Hippies.
The brutal inter-tribal warfare that dare not speak its name among polite Woke society.
And, no, that doesn’t remotely justify what happened after 1840 … but it’s important to highlight the bullshit double standards, the sheer hypocrisy & the Peter Pan fantasy world that sits right at the heart of Critical Theory / ID Politics and its on-going application in New Zealand.
Good to see that graph. It provides the basis for class analysis of investors. Let's pretend there are still leftists who can do that. As a non-leftist, I'll provide this simulation to help them:
Class A: 10,254 own more than 50 dwellings
Class B: 11,944 own between 21 & 50
Class C: 96,107 own between 6 & 20
Class D: 264,366 own between 3 & 5 dwellings
Class E: 223,051 own 1 or 2 dwellings
So we immediately see that the legendary mum and dad investors are a minority of the investor class as a whole, ranked only 5th in the hierarchy. The five sub-classes are accompanied by business owners as capitalist vested interests in Aotearoa, and it would probably be pc to include iwi too.
Dennis, you might want to look at the figures referenced by Blazer again.
My reading of the graph in Blazer's reference is that 10, 254 houses are owned by owners of more than 50 houses (about 205 or fewer owners that works out as). Another 11944 owned by owners of 20-50 houses which makes between 239 and 597 owners.
According to you, investor owned houses would total between 2.3 and 4.6 million houses when there are 1.8 dwellings in NZ according to the census.
Read correctly, there are some 625,000 houses owned by investors and that leaves some 1.2 million owned by the occupant. The census says that 64% of NZ homes are owned by their occupants.
McFlock, I read p 34. How do we reconcile the two figures? One based on census figures of more than just 2018 btw and one based on your reference? Genuinely at a loss here……
Okay, I did take another look. Perhaps different interpretations of the graph are produced by the non-equivalence of investors & humans that Valocity used? When dwellings are co-owned the maths gets too murky for me!
Regardless, those five classes of ownership are wealth-generated, right? So the differential analysis does produce accurate relativity between classes.
The graph titled "Homes owned by investors by portfolio size" referred to the number of homes owned by investors who owned certain numbers of properties. For example, 10254 houses owned by investors each owning at least 50 houses, so at most 200 investors.
I don't doubt that mum and dad investors are over emphasised. The article states,"The analysis, which cross-referenced names on roughly 1.7 million publicly available property titles, shows investors with up to two properties only own just over a third of investment properties."
The study referenced by Blazer also said, as McFlock also stated from another source,"Investors are shown to now own more properties than either first home buyers or single homeowners.
Although the difference is slight – a difference of 15,638 homes – it’s a reversal of 2015 when first home buyers owned 78,086 more properties than investors."
Does anybody really think that the parliamentarians will change anything? Really?
We wonder why families can't get a roof over their head, drug addicts, aggressive renters of Kāinga Ora properties are not moved on? I doubt that our leaders will give them a roof over their heads.
It would take some extraordinary guts to end this, almost hero status really.
We are governed by the same type of people as the elite that earns 70 x a workers income and find they are under paid. Meanwhile all that rort is financed via debt (shall I mention 16 Billion dollars?). Good luck to us then.
Yep… and you would think that hundreds of thousands of the disenfranchised and homeless would be out on the streets protesting the obscene inequities portrayed by that data linked to by Blazer in 3 above rather than protesting so called freedom restrictions by public health orders or against government's timid efforts to combat climate change or cleaning up rivers. (not implying that the same cohort of people are involved of course)
After the barrage of business people and National and Act attacking MIQ, and wanting to be rid of it, they may have been wanting its demise prematurely. Covid Omicron taking off round the world in the last two days sounds very serious and hopefully Jacinda and her advisers will continue to be very cautious about further relaxation of the borders.
Jim Bolger's appearance on Q&A harks back to a time when National was mostly made up of people who were decent citizens to say the least. Looking back over the last few years to the sleazy, unlikable types National took on board, it would be hoped they can select better candidates and party members. No Mervs or Michelles.
Agree. Children's bodies are being mutilated by an experiemental treatment that countries such as Sweedon and Finland are rolling back. 22,000 de-transitioners and counting.
Brief outline of my Parents' experience (though it doesn't even remotely encapsulate the full enormity … it's a multifacted nightmare that goes beyond the prolonged violent intimidation):
I'm believer that spelling matters and in this case the spelling of Te Reo matters. Is there a way that you can do a global correct to Kainga Ora all the way through?
Also somewhere there is 'entires' that perhaps is 'entries?
Sounds as though some suggestions for Kainga Ora would not go amiss.
Perhaps KO needs to sell the other side of this duplex unit where one side is in private ownership. Use the funds to invest in another building for social housing.
They could also look to see if there are other instances of one in private/one still in public ownership that are causing problems and work out a plan to sell these as well.
It is called managing the portfolio. I am sure that a private landlord who found that one of their units were becoming a mecca for troublemakers because of whatever they would be cashing in and reinvesting in another place.
Your parents' neighbouring tenant sounds as if there are mental health issues (perhaps drug or alcohol induced) that seem to be running rampant and not being dealt with. Nobody should be expected to put up with this.
Have you seen where massive forest clearance has been going on in brazil for mining gold , the same brazil were going to by our credits from supposedly!!!
Yes and this area this area is referred to the lungs of earth and along with man made deforestation we had also forest fires doing their bit.🤯 I could say that their are too many vested interests and applying arbitrage to achieve a financial gain with no tangible benefit to the environment or climate. Just juggling the numbers !!!
Those links really speak to a complex picture – while Brazil may be at one stage of deforestation – other nations are seeing increases in forest cover. Overall the total is not changing all that much.
I respect worldindata but if you have a close look at some of those forest cover stats they look very dodgy. Almost all the Eastern European stats show huge increases in native forest cover. I really can't believe that Malaysia's has increased either. Haven't any way of verifying the figures unfortunately.
Good skeptical thinking there ! What I think is happening – and this comes from other sources I don't have the time to track back down at the moment – is that in Eastern Europe at least there has been a substantial reduction in farming. Especially as populations age and agriculture becomes more land efficient – the unused farms revert back to forest reasonably quickly.
I can't speak precisely to Malaysia, but it's actually a very developed and rapidly urbanising society – again as people escape poverty and move off the land – it reverts to forest as at least one possibility. This doesn't gainsay the horrible practise of palm oil plantations – but that's another issue.
That link to the deforestation story is really quite interesting and well worth some time reading. Brazil is indeed a mess and the erosion of the Amazon should be resisted – but the bigger picture isn't hopeless either.
Just got back from 6 months in WA to our spot in Moreton Bay QLD. We're renting a tiny little unit about 15min drive from downtown Brisbane. But out the back is a 200 acre wilderness that's teeming with wildlife. So we just went for a walk and in a 2hr period we spotted:
Multitudes of ducks, herons, bitterns, water dragons, sea eagles, spoonbills, white herons, a flock of pelicans, and one snake.
The only downside is that if you sit down to enjoy a view, you immediately become the subject of a tug-of-war between ants size of small mice and mosquitos you could mistake for dragon-flies.
Watching that scene, I remember that day well now, mary. It was an amazingly relaxing & fulfilling day. One of the best I’ve had just being at one with the natural world in my backyard, so to speak.
Being calm, moving very little, talking gently to the birds, waterbirds & eels.
Quite magic.
The Creator, whoever they were or are, did a fantastic job of creation.
The endless loop. The inevitable flaw in the Christian 8 Muslim apologetics debates. They argue that their Abrahamic God has to exist because everything in the universe has to have had an ultimate cause. To which the atheist response, naturally, is "So who or what caused God?" To which the apologists reply: "God is outside the universe" (or "God is both outside & inside the universe"). "He always was & always will be."
These things are easy to say but actually rather difficult to get your head around, so I don't bother. Our universe just looks designed to me. With layer upon layer of complexity. I suspect it had one or more designers. That's all.
I suppose we should be grateful that we avoided the nu xi land variants down under.
With the multiple mutations of the spike protein naming the variant after the letter most suitable for a transformer character was apt. But surely they are now at risk of running out of letters.
Richard Harman, editor of the Politik website and former "Chief TVNZ Political Correspondent", told Jim Mora & listeners this morning how Judith Collins made history:
"She's the first major New Zealand political party leader to have a successful vote of no confidence passed in them, certainly since the Second World War and I would think stretching back before that."
So we ought to give her credit for this remarkable success. Put it on the cv, Jude! Maybe Swordfish will relish the research challenge of establishing how far back the actual precedent lies – presuming there even is one. If not, she really has made history!
TL;DR: The six key events to watch in Aotearoa-NZ’s political economy in the week to June 3 include:PM Christopher Luxon is expected to hold his weekly post-cabinet news conference at 4:00pm today.Parliament’s Environment Select Committee resumes hearing submissions on the Fast-track Approvals Bill from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm today.Auckland ...
Tomorrow the AT board meet again and I’ve taken a look through the items on their public agenda to see what’s interesting. It’s also the first meeting for two recently appointed directors, former director at Ritchies Transport, Andrew Ritchie and former mayor of Hamilton, Julie Hardaker. The public session starts ...
The Government is looking again at changing fringe benefit tax rules to make it harder to claim a personally-used double-cab ute as a company vehicle. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Having repealed the previous Government’s ‘ute tax’ last year, the new Government is looking at removing a defacto tax ...
Hi,I pitched a documentary to a big streamer last week and they said “no thanks” which is a bummer, because we’d worked on the concept for ages and I think it would have been a compelling watch. But I would say that because I was the one pitching it, right?As ...
A listing of 34 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 19, 2024 thru Sat, May 25, 2024. Story of the week This week's typiclal compendium of stories we'd rather were plot devices in science ficition novels but instead ...
This National government has been aggressively anti-environment, and is currently ramming through its corrupt Muldoonist "fast-track" legislation to give three ministers dictatorial powers over what gets built and where. But that's not the only thing they're doing. On Thursday they introduced a Resource Management (Freshwater and Other Matters) Amendment Bill, ...
Whenever politicians dole out taxpayer funding to groups or individuals, they must do so in a wholly transparent way with due process to ensure conflicts of interest don’t occur and that the country receives value for money. Unfortunately, it’s not clear that this has occurred in the announcement this week ...
Last night began earlier than usual. In bed by 6:30pm, asleep an hour later. Sometimes I do sleep odd hours, writing late and/or getting up very early - complemented with the occasional siesta, but I’m usually up a bit later than that on a Saturday night. Last night I was ...
Early in the COVID-19 days, the Boris Johnson government pressed a Big Red Button marked: act immediately, never mind about the paperwork.Their problem was: not having enough PPE gear for all the hospital and emergency staff. Their solution was to expedite things and get them the gear ASAP.This, along with ...
Up until 1989, you could attend a New Zealand University, and never need to pay a cent for your education. That then changed, of course. The sadists of the Fourth Labour Government introduced substantial fees for study, never having had to pay a cent for their own education. The even ...
Ele Ludemann writes – Minister for Children Karen Chhour is putting children first: Hon KAREN CHHOUR: I move, That the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill be now read a first time. I nominate the Social Services and Community Committee to consider the bill.It’s a privilege ...
David Farrar writes – Newshub reports: Applause and cheers erupted in the House on Wednesday afternoon as Children’s Minister Karen Chhour condemned Te Pāti Māori’s insults about her upbringing. Chhour, who grew up in state care, is repealing section 7AA of the Oranga Tamariki Act – sparking uproar from ...
I could corrupt youIt would be uglyThey could sedate youBut what good would drugs be?Good Morning all,Today there’s a guest newsletter from Gerard Otto (G). By which I mean I read his post this morning and he has kindly allowed me to share it with you.If you don’t already I ...
Is the solution to any of the serious, long term issues we all have to face as a nation, because many governments of all stripes we can probably all admit if we’re deeply truthful with ourselves haven’t done near enough work at the very times they should have, to basically ...
The 2018 Social Security Act suggests that Labour may have retreated to the minimalist (neo-liberal) welfare state which has developed out of the Richardson-Shipley ‘redesign’. One wonders what Michael Joseph Savage, Peter Fraser and Walter Nash would have thought of the Social Security Act passed by the Ardern Labour Government ...
MPs are supposed to serve the public interest, not their own self-interest. And according to the New Zealand Parliament’s website, democracy and integrity are tarnished whenever politicians seek to enrich themselves or the people they are connected with. For this reason, the Parliament has a “Register of Pecuniary Interests” in ...
By now, most of you will have heard about the FLICC taxonomy of science denial techniques and how you can train your skills in detecting them with the Cranky Uncle game. If you like to quickly check how good you are at this already, answer the 12 quiz questions in the ...
Buzz from the Beehive The hacks of the Parliamentary Press Gallery have been able to chip into a rich vein of material on the government’s official website over the past 24 hours. Among the nuggets is the speech by Regional Development Minister Shane Jones and a press statement to announce ...
When Labour was in power, they wasted time, political capital, and scarce policy resources on trying to extend the parliamentary term to four years, in an effort to make themselves less accountable to us. It was unlikely to fly, the idea having previously lost tworeferendums by huge margins - ...
David Farrar writes – The Herald reports: When Whanau Ora chief executive John Tamihere was asked what his expectations for the Budget next Thursday were, he said: “All hope is lost.” Last year Whānau Ora was allocated $163.1 million in the Budget to last for the next four years ...
Nick Hanne writes – There’s a common malady suffered by bureaucracies the world over. They wish to save us from ourselves. Sadly, NZ officials are no less prone to exhibiting symptoms of this occupational condition.Observe, for instance, the reaction from certain public figures to the news ...
Peter Dunne writes – As the city of Tauranga prepares to elect a new Mayor and Council after three and a half years being run by government-appointed Commissioners, the case for replacing the Wellington City Council with Commissioners strengthens. The Wellington City Council has been dysfunctional for years, ...
This will be s short post. It stems from observations I made elsewhere about what might be characterised as some macro and micro aspects of contemporary collective violence events. Here goes. The conflicts between Israel and Palestine and France and … Continue reading → ...
It may be a relic of a previous era of egalitarianism, but many of us like to think that, in general, most New Zealanders are as honest as the day is long. We’re good like that, and smart as. If we’re not punching above our weight on the world stage, ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Why aren’t politicians taking more action on the housing affordability crisis? The answer might lie in the latest “Register of Pecuniary Interests.” This register contains details of the various financial interests of parliamentarians. It shows that politicians own real estate in significant numbers. The ...
I built a time machine to see you againTo hear your phone callYour voice down the hallThe way we were back thenWe were dancing in the rainOur feet on the pavementYou said I was your second headI knew exactly what you meantIn the country of the blind, or so they ...
Why aren’t politicians taking more action on the housing affordability crisis? The answer might lie in the latest “Register of Pecuniary Interests.” This register contains details of the various financial interests of parliamentarians. It shows that politicians own real estate in significant numbers. The register published on Tuesday contains a ...
Microsoft’s transparency about its failure to meet its own net-zero goals is creditable, but the response to that failure is worrying. It is offering up a set of false solutions, heavily buttressed by baseless optimism. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: Here’s the top six news items of note in ...
Another Friday, another Rāmere Roundup! Here are a few things that caught our eye this week. This Week in Greater Auckland On Monday, our new writer Connor Sharp roared into print with a future-focused take on the proposed Auckland Future Fund, and what it could invest in. On ...
Still Waiting: Māori land remains in the hands of Non-Māori. The broken promises of the Treaty remain broken. The mana of the tangata whenua languishes under racist neglect. The right to wear the huia feather remains as elusive as ever. Perhaps these three transformations are beyond the power of a ...
Posters opposing the proposed Fast-Track Approvals legislation were pasted around Wellington last week. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: One of the architects of the RMA and a former National Cabinet Minister, Simon Upton, has criticised the Government’s Fast-Track Approvals bill as potentially disastrous for the environment, arguing just 1% ...
There was less sharing of the joy this week than at the Chinese New Year celebrations in February. China’s ambassador to NZ (2nd from right above) has toldLuxon that relations between China and New Zealand are now at a ‘critical juncture’ Photo: Getty / Xinhua News AgencyTL;DR: The podcast ...
The importance of New Zealand’s relationship with China was surely demonstrated yesterday with the surprise arrival in the capital of top Chinese foreign policy official Liu Jianchao. The trip was apparently organized a week ago but kept secret. Liu is the Minister of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) International Liaison ...
With a crushing 20-plus point lead in the opinion polls, all the signs are that Labour leader Keir Starmer will be the PM after the general election on 4 July, called by Conservative incumbent Rishi Sunak yesterday. The stars are aligned for Starmer. Rival progressives are in abeyance: the Liberal-Democrat ...
We returned last week from England to London. Two different worlds. A quarter of an hour before dropping off our car, we came to a complete stop on the M25. Just moments before, there had been six lanes of hurtling cars and lorries. Now, everything was at a standstill as ...
Buzz from the Beehive A triumvirate of ministers – holding the Agriculture, Environment and RMA Reform portfolios – has announced the introduction of legislation “to slash the tangle of red and green tape throttling development in key sectors”, such as farming, mining and other primary industries. The exact name of ...
The Social Services and Community Committee has called for submissions on the Oranga Tamariki (Repeal of Section 7AA) Amendment Bill. Submissions are due by Wednesday, 3 July 2024, and can be made at the link above. And if you're wondering what to say: section 7AA was enacted because Oranga Tamariki ...
Michael Reddell writes – The Reserve Bank doesn’t do independent fiscal forecasts so there is no news in the fiscal numbers in today’s Monetary Policy Statement themselves. The last official Treasury forecasts don’t take account of whatever the government is planning in next week’s Budget, and as the Bank notes ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – We know the old saying, “Never trust a politician”, and the Charter School debate is a good example of it. Charter Schools receive public funding, yet “are exempt from most statutory requirements of traditional public schools, including mandates around .. human capital management .. curriculum ...
How Do We Silence Them? The ruling obsession of the contemporary Left is that political action undertaken by individuals or groups further to the right than the liberal wings of mainstream conservative parties should not only be condemned, but suppressed.WEB OF CHAOS, a “deep dive into the world of disinformation”, ...
Muriel Newman writes – As the new Government puts the finishing touches to this month’s Budget, they will undoubtedly have had their hands full dealing with the economic mess that Labour created. Not only was Labour a grossly incompetent manager of the economy, but they also set out ...
Today the British PM, Rishi Sunak, called a general election for the 4th of July. He spoke of the challenging times and of strong leadership and achievements. It was as if he was talking about someone else, a real leader, rather than he himself or the woeful list of Tory ...
This post marks the return of an old format: Photo of the Day. Recently I was in an apartment in one of those new buildings on Great North Road Grey Lynn at rush hour, perfect day, the view was stunning, so naturally I whipped out my phone: GNR 5pm Turns ...
The Government may struggle with the political optics of scrapping assistance for first home buyers while also cutting the tax burden on landlords, increasing concerns over the growing generational divide. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government confirmed it will dump first home buyer grants in the Budget next ...
Yesterday, the Reserve Bank confirmed there will be no free card for the economy to get out of jail during the current term of the Government. Regardless of what the Budget next week says, we are in for three years of austerity. Over those three years, we will have to ...
It doesn’t inspire confidence when politicians change their minds. But you must give credit when a bad idea is dropped. Last year, we reported on the determination of British PM Rishi Sunak to lead the world in regulating the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. Perhaps he changed his mind after meeting ...
This video includes conclusions of the creator climate scientist Dr. Adam Levy. It is presented to our readers as an informed perspective. Please see video description for references (if any). Is carbon dioxide removal - aka "negative emissions" - going to save us from climate change? Or is it just a ...
Headed for the legislative wastepaper basket… Buzz from the Beehive It looks like this government is just as ready as its predecessor to dip into the public funds it is managing to dispense millions of dollars to finance – and favour – the parties it fancies. Or ...
Rob MacCulloch writes – National and Labour and ACT have at various times waxed on about their “vision” of NZ as a high value-added world tech centerWhat subject is tech based upon? Mathematics. A Chicago mathematician just told me that whereas last decade ...
Eric Crampton writes – Danyl McLauchlan over at The Listener on the recent shift toward more contestability in public policy advice in education: Education Minister Erica Stanford, one of National’s highest-ranked MPs, is trying to circumvent the establishment, taking advice from a smaller pool of experts – ...
Ele Ludemann writes – That Kāinga Ora is a mess is no surprise, but the size of the mess is. There have been many reports of unruly tenants given licence to terrorise neighbours, properties bought and left vacant, and the state agency paying above market rates in competition ...
Bryce Edwards writes – It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result ...
The scathing “independent” review of Kāinga Ora barely hit the table before the coalition government had acted on it. The entire Kāinga Ora board will be replaced, and a new chair (Simon Moutter) has been announced. Hmm. No aspersions on Bill English, but the public would have had more confidence ...
I'll light the fireYou place the flowers in the vaseThat you bought todayA warm dry home, you’d think that would be bread and butter to politicians. Home ownership and making sure people aren’t left living on the street, that’s as Kiwi as Feijoa and Apple Crumble. Isn’t it?The coalition are ...
Politics is about compromise, right? And framing it so the voters see your compromise as the better one. John Key was a skilful exponent of this approach (as was Keith Holyoake in an earlier age), and Chris Luxon isn’t too bad either. But in politics, the process whereby an old ...
On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a ...
It’s being explained as an “inadvertent error”. However, National MP David MacLeod’s excuse for failing to disclose $178,000 in donations for his election campaign last year is not necessarily enough to prevent some serious consequences. A Police investigation is now likely, and the result of his non-disclosure could even see ...
The relentless drone coming out of the Prime Minister and his deputy for a million days now has been that the last government was just hosing money all over the show and now at last the grownups are in charge and shutting that drunken sailor stuff down. There is a word ...
Buzz from the Beehive Foreign Minister Winston Peters has confirmed a New Zealand Government plane will head to riot-torn New Caledonia in the next hour in the first in a series of proposed flights to begin bringing New Zealanders home. Today’s flight will carry around 50 passengers with the most ...
Precious declaration saysYours is yours and mine you leave alone nowPrecious declaration saysI believe all hope is dead no longerTick tick tick Boom!Unexploded ordnance. A veritable minefield. A National caucus with a large number of unknowns, candidates who perhaps received little in the way of vetting as the party jumped ...
Rex Ahdar writes – The Rt Hon Winston Peters, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs, likes to trace his political lineage back to the pioneers of parliamentary Maoridom. I will refer to these as the ‘big four’ or better still, the Four Knights. Just as ...
Bryce Edwards writes – Willie Jackson will participate in the prestigious Oxford Union debate on Thursday, following in David Lange’s footsteps. Coincidentally, Jackson has also followed Lange’s footsteps by living in his old home in South Auckland. And like Lange, Jackson might be the sort of loud-mouth scrapper ...
That is the only way to describe an MP "forgetting" to declare $178,000 in donations. The amount of money involved - more than five times the candidate spending cap, and two and a half times the median income - is boggling. How do you just "forget" that amount of money? ...
In this week’s “A View from Afar” podcast Selwyn Manning and spoke about the upcoming US elections and what the possibility of another Trump presidency means for the US role in world affairs. We also spoke about the problems Joe … Continue reading → ...
Hi,Two years ago I briefly featured in Justin Pemberton’s Web of Chaos documentary, which touched on things like QAnon during the pandemic.I mostly prattled on about how intertwined conspiracy narratives are with Evangelical Christian thinking, something Webworm’s explored in the past.(The doc is available on TVNZ+, if you’re not in ...
The Government is leaving the entire construction sector and the community housing sector in limbo. Photo: Lynn Grieveson / The KākāTL;DR: The Government released the long-awaited Bill English-led review of Kāinga Ora yesterday, but delayed key decisions on its build plan and how to help community housing providers (CHPs) build ...
This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Daisy Simmons Farmers who can’t sleep, worrying they’ll lose everything amid increasing drought. Youth struggling with depression over a future that feels hopeless. Indigenous people grief-stricken over devastated ecosystems. For all these people and more, climate change is taking a clear toll ...
New Zealand’s relationship with China is becoming harder to define, and with that comes a worry that a deteriorating political relationship could spill over into the economic relationship. It is about more than whether New Zealand will join Pillar Two of Aukus, though the Chinese Ambassador, more or less, suggested ...
Been hoping we would see something like this from Sir Geoffrey Palmer. This is excellent.The present Bill goes further than the National Development Act 1979 in stripping away procedures designed to ensure that environmental issues are properly considered. The 1979 approach was not acceptable then and this present approach is ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect New Zealanders' right of free speech. The “Protection of Freedom of Expression Bill” will ensure that no organisation or individual, when acting within the law, is unreasonably denied use of a public venue for an organised event or ...
The Green Party unequivocally condemns the governing parties’ attempts to limit the public’s say on the controversial Māori wards legislation, after the select committee considering the legislation set a deadline for submissions of just five days. ...
Disabled children and families nationwide have recently found out they’re no longer able to use disability support funding for programmes during school hours in another quiet update from the Government. ...
Following a horrific case of stalking that ended in tragedy, Labour’s police spokesperson Ginny Andersen has drafted a bill that would add stalking to the Crimes Act. ...
The Rt Hon Winston Peters, joined by Mike King, has announced $24 million over four years for the ‘I Am Hope Foundation’, and will provide young people aged between 5 to 25 years with free mental health counselling services. This funding will help I Am Hope’s ‘Gumboot Friday’ initiative give ...
Te Pāti Māori have launched a petition to stop the repeal of Section 7AA from the Oranga Tamariki Act. This announcement comes prior to the first reading of the Section 7AA repeal bill in Parliament today. “Section 7AA forces the Government to adhere to Te Tiriti o Waitangi with respect ...
The Government has yet again failed to do the one thing that needs to happen to ensure houses can be built – commit to ongoing funding, Labour housing spokesperson Kieran McAnulty said. ...
Treasury officials have outlined many ways in which the Fast Track Approvals Bill is deeply flawed, Labour environment spokesperson Rachel Brooking says. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick used this year's State of the Planet to call on the Government to prioritise people and planet as the delivery of the Budget approaches. A full transcript of their speeches can be found below. ...
Green Party co-leaders Marama Davidson and Chlöe Swarbrick have used their State of the Planet speeches to challenge the Government to prioritise people and planet over profit as the delivery of the Budget approaches. ...
The Government’s introduction of legislation that would enable landlords to end tenancies with no reason marks a dark day for the 1.4 million people who rent their home in Aotearoa. ...
The Minister for Mental Health has found the Suicide Prevention Office and mental health support for 111 calls slipping through his fingers, says Labour spokesperson for Mental Health Ingrid Leary. ...
Today’s justification from the Minister for Children for scrapping protections for our tamariki was either a case of ignorance or deliberate deception. ...
The Green Party says the Government’s misguided policy on gangs will fail, following the announcement of the establishment of a national gang unit and district gang disruption units to target gang activities. ...
“With Police pay negotiations still unresolved after six months in Government, Mark Mitchell has today rolled the Commissioner out for a rebrand of their approach to gang crime,” Labour police spokesperson Ginny Andersen said. ...
The Government bringing back 50 charter schools will not increase achievement and is a distraction from the core mission of the education system, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Te Pāti Māori is showing extreme concern over the Environment Select Committees adoption of a lucky dip draw to determine hearings for the Fast Track Approvals bill. Of the 27,000 submissions, 2,900 requested to present. All organisations will be heard; however, the remaining 2,350 submitters will be subject to a ...
Today New Zealand First will introduce a Member’s Bill that will protect women’s spaces. The ‘Fair Access to Bathrooms Bill’ will require, primarily in the interest and safety of women and girls, that all new non-domestic publicly accessible buildings provide separate, clearly demarcated, unisex and single sex bathrooms. This Bill ...
The Green Party is welcoming Climate Change Minister Simon Watts’ continuation of Hon. James Shaw’s cross-party work on climate adaptation, now in the form of a Finance and Expenditure Committee Inquiry. ...
The National Government plans to cut 390 jobs at ACC, including roles in the areas of prevention of sexual violence, road safety and workplace safety. ...
The Government has been caught in opposition to evidence once again as it looks to usher in tried, tested and failed work seminar obligations for job-seeking beneficiaries. ...
The Green Party is welcoming the announcement by the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform Chris Bishop to approve most of the Wellington City Council’s District Plan recommendations. ...
David Seymour has failed to get the sweeping cuts he wanted to the free and healthy school lunch programme, Labour education spokesperson Jan Tinetti said. ...
Over the next four years, Budget 24 will support the training and recruitment of 1,500 teachers into the workforce, Education Minister Erica Stanford announced today. “To raise achievement and develop a world leading education system we’re investing nearly $53 million over four years to attract, train and retain our valued ...
1. New Zealand Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Rt Hon Winston Peters; Minister of Health and Minister for Pacific Peoples Hon Dr Shane Reti; and Minister for Climate Change Hon Simon Watts hosted Cook Islands Minister of Foreign Affairs and Immigration Hon Tingika Elikana and Minister of Health Hon Vainetutai Rose Toki-Brown on 24 May ...
The Government has approved two-year extensions for four New Zealand Defence Force deployments to the Middle East and Africa, Defence Minister Judith Collins and Foreign Minister Winston Peters announced today. “These deployments are long-standing New Zealand commitments, which reflect our ongoing interest in promoting peace and stability, and making active ...
The Climate Change Commission Chair, Dr Rod Carr, has confirmed his plans to retire at the end of his term later this year, Climate Change Minister Simon Watts says. “Prior to the election, Dr Carr advised me he would be retiring when his term concluded. Dr Rod Carr has led ...
Nine highly respected experts have been appointed to the inaugural board of the new Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission, Sport & Recreation Minister Chris Bishop says. “The Integrity Sport and Recreation Commission is a new independent Crown entity which was established under the Integrity Sport and Recreation Act last year, ...
Foreign Minister Winston Peters confirmed today that Vote Foreign Affairs in Budget 2024 will balance two crucial priorities of the Coalition Government. While Budget 2024 reflects the constrained fiscal environment, the Government also recognises the critical role MFAT plays in keeping New Zealanders safe and prosperous. “Consistent with ...
New social housing funding in Budget 2024 will ensure the Government can continue supporting more families into warm, dry homes from July 2025, Housing Ministers Chris Bishop and Tama Potaka say. “Earlier this week I was proud to announce that Budget 2024 allocates $140 million to fund 1,500 new social ...
Introduction Today, we are sharing a red-letter occasion. A Blackball event on hallowed ground. Today we underscore the importance of our mineral estate. A reminder that our natural resource sector has much to offer. Such a contribution will not come to pass without investment. However, more than money is needed. ...
Increasing national and regional prosperity, providing the minerals needed for new technology and the clean energy transition, and doubling the value of minerals exports are the bold aims of the Government’s vision for the minerals sector. Resources Minister Shane Jones today launched a draft strategy for the minerals sector in ...
The coalition Government’s legislation to restore the rights of communities to determine whether to introduce Māori wards has passed its first reading in Parliament, Local Government Minister Simeon Brown says. “Divisive changes introduced by the previous government denied local communities the ability to determine whether to establish Māori wards.” The ...
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The Herald has been looking at the hole the government has been digging for itself by not meeting standards expected of responsible landlords.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/kainga-ora-the-human-cost-of-living-next-to-neighbours-from-hell/F6EAATWTSTH2ORNM7ED3U3M5FY/
Exempting tenants from accountability has a parallel with another extreme policy, its deal with National to let developers ignore urban planning rules.
From the link:
“At the heart of the problem is a government policy to “sustain tenancies” rather than turfing people out on to the street. It has resulted in just three Kāinga Ora evictions since the Labour Government came to power in September 2017.
Those who endure the consequences are going without sleep, suffering severe stress and mental anguish, with some seeking court-ordered restraining orders for protection, and others selling their homes to escape.
The policy has been panned by political opponents, who say it breaches the Government’s legal responsibilities as a landlord to ensure its state housing tenants are safe and free from being terrorised by other Kāinga Ora clients.
The policy also emboldens rotten apples and lets them off the hook, National claims.
The Tenancy Tribunal has ruled the no eviction stance is at odds with the state’s legal obligations, ordering Kāinga Ora to pay thousands of dollars to affected claimants.
There is now talk of a class action to hold the Government to account and there is no shortage of people keen to sign up.”
……………………………….
A good investigative reporter article, well worth the read. A classic case of Labour academic woolly wishful thinking that if you are just nicer to horrible people, they’ll be nice back.
And, typically, no Plan B.
Being intimidated and harassed by the tenants of a property also happens in private rentals. The cost of a private rental adds to the daily stress so people head for the bottle or drug. When off your face the ugly you is shown or waiting for the next fix as small stuff will set you off.
In a lot of cases it is the drugs, alcohol and homes that people grew up in with violence, physical , sexual and verbal abuse, alcohol and drugs.
One problem property affects the whole street. Those on the anti social property know that they can get away with a lot, often it is the people who they bring to the property which also increases the bad behaviour.
Semi detached rural properties are required, drug and alcohol rehab, education on what the boundaries of being a neighbour is. Counselling to understand the damage that occurred in the childhood home.
Yes. I think you’ve nailed the core problems & the solutions.
Do you see this Labour government doing these things, implementing these harm & harassment mitigations, & underlying problem solutions?
I’m afraid I don’t.
I actually think they’d be more likely to have occurred under Bill English / Whanau Ora & the targeted spending he envisaged for dealing with specific people & whanau who were identified as in most need of comprehensive state-funded help & deliver a return of less needed social spending on them in the future.
Saying such things here is not likely to be popular tho. ☹️
Yeah right Gezza National paid lip service setting up Whanau Ora to fail by under funding .
Labour has thrown a lot more money at Whanau Ora.
But with lack of stable housing intergenerational violence and neglect it is bound to fail. And as a former front line voluntary worker its pissing into the wind raking water uphill a former Social Worker told me over 40 years ago.
Nothing has changed in that time.
Social Workers don't last long in this failing system they get burned out very quickly compounding the problem.
It's not going to be fixed until direct intervention takes place.
That it is putting social workers into the families in a stable housing situation.The family Court's and child protection are not making any difference but have contributed to making it worse.
The Canterbury University research project of having live in Social Workers had a 72% success rate of turning dysfunctional, violent drugs including alcohol, gang families .It only took 6 months of intensive intervention,fixing communication,discipline,budgeting,getting rid of losers out of influencing families,keeping drugs including alcohol out. It cost $72,000 per intervention.That sounds like a lot ,but these families are million dollar plus welfare,crime.education failures that can cost multi millions.
It's time for this trial to be expanded into the community.
That's not happening any time soon so the band aid solutions continue and continue to fail.
So instead of building more houses we will be building more Prison's finishing schools for criminals to gain their PHD's in crime and failure.
Labour has thrown a lot more money at Whanau Ora.
Labour’s too good at “throwing money” into problem areas. It’s shite at getting value out of that hastily flung money in terms of improved outcomes, because its Ministers are so inexperienced they allow themselves to be confused, diverted & hamstrung by overwhelming departmental inertia.
Look at what they threw at Mental Health, just as one example. Results? No improvements at all, in fact Covid’s reportedly making the lack of mental health services deliver even worse MH statistics.
…getting rid of losers out of influencing families,keeping drugs including alcohol out.
Wonder how they did that? Do you know? When did this project actually start?
Labour want a 30% reduction in the prison population over 15 years
And you see that as a bad thing do u PR ?
Depends.
Lowering the prison population because less people are committing crimes = good
Lowering the prison population because people that should be sent to prison but aren't = bad
What improvements would you make to the system if you could hold sway …not including bringing back the rack etc
First off you have to reach these people before they're born
Go to any unit and you'll see any amount of guys in there with older family members already in prison
Actively target these families with all manner of support networks required
As an example the average prisoner will be/have
1. Poorly educated with probable learning disabilities, not necessarily dumb but basically never went to for very long
2. Mental health issues and/or addictions
3. Lack of empathy. They are the single most important person in the world, not their kids, not their families, them.
They start off not seeing Plunket or other health services
Do poorly at school
Have…chaotic home lives
Have no real job prospects nor even want a job
Yet prison is where its supposed to sort them out?
No. It needs to happen before they get to prison, when they're young.
@ Pucky
That’s the approach Bill Emglish wanted to take.
Evidence based, targeted funding to those most in need of the full range of support & remedial.
Because he called it Social Investment the woke & the stupid & the Opposition at the tiime sneered, derided, & shouted it down, not bothering to work out that it didn’t mean rewarding execs & shareholders of private companies providing contracted services.
It meant getting a social return on the investment of that targeted funding. Turning broken families & individuals around. Giving them better education – even if just basic literacy & numeracy, tools many still lack. Teaching them saleable, useful skills, creating more choices for them, more options for their future that included becoming increasingly more financially independent & better socially connected , more skilled, more secure in themselves as contributing members of the societies they live in.
Would have been good to see it implemented
🙄 Bill English
* Evidence based, targeted funding to those most in need of the full range of support & remedial *services.
At the moment, about 8400 inmates, including pre-trial, in a population of just over 5 million, 164 per 100,000. In 2035, predicted population 5.3 million.
Will that population in 2035 include more or fewer of the age which most often ends up in prison, as our population ages?
Does the target figure include pre-trial detainees? Are home detention figures included?
Not sure about the pre-trial but home d doesn't count, only those in prison I believe (but who really knows with a government)
So school then is that what you,re saying ?
One part of it but there is no quick fix, there is no one thing
Take a crim, remove their addictions, teach them functional literacy and then what?
Return them to the same family, same community that produced them and then be surprised when they reoffend?
Return them to the same family, same community that produced them and then be surprised when they reoffend?
Exactly. Bill English’s Social Investment policy aimed to break that cycle by changing the famiily & background to which they were returning & (unsurprisingly) reoffending again because nothing which caused them to be anti-social & /or criminal offenders had changed.
When was that Canterbury trial project run?
I wrote a long reply and it did not post.
Government works in silos when it comes to addressing the cause of difficult behaviour due to waiting times and not having the specialist support. The welfare of children is my priority as there are no bad kids just bad parenting.
The worst tenants require some sort of new tenancy conditions clearly stated which cover harassment, intimidation and unlawful use of the property. Tenancy education classes and refuge support services for the person who signed the lease as they could be being intimidated by the new partner and their mates. OT needs to step up and place children in a safe environment away from adults who are incapable of looking after their self.
I have seen it that once you provide a skip bin people clean up and this is self rewarding. Then provide a vegie box with quick growing plants, either the plants die or the person nurtures them. People need purpose.
It was a good idea, would have been interesting to see it implemented
I would add, it’s been 14 years now since I retired from the Public Service, so I don’t know if departmental Policy policy & Operational policy are still developed in the same way.
But we used to have to do a Strategic Risk Analysis (using a well-respected Risk Assessment Tool – the RAT) of all new policies, looking at what could go wrong across multiple areas identified as to be impacted by the proposed policy change. You had to identify what risk mitigation or elimination strategies would be employed were the foreseeable problems to arise after implementation.
I’d love to see the Risk Assessment for this “sustain tenancies” policy – if there ever was one.
The covid ruling of "no evictions during lock down' has contributed imo.
Plus housing all the homeless during and after lock down. With people 'home' all day and night, these problems are magnified. (Though some cases look like 'benign' neglect by the Minister not responding to cases .)
We have not since World War two had such problems of people having to accommodate others and/or stand lengthy separations. Stress and anxiety is at a very high level after 2 years of covid rules.
Covid has laid bare the inequities and their horrible outcomes. Many of those inequities began with Meth and lowered "job seeker" benefits plus cruel penalties, when people lost homes for very minor infringements. That pendulum has swung too far in some cases.
Those trying to find systems to work for such disparate individuals have a hard unrewarding task, as one leader said "some have meth as their main need and they are selfish with it." It would be unfair to say those same Public servants are not looking at outcomes, just they are trying to meet all needs and failing another group.
RATs are many in these covid times, and the PM commented "These are hard times to plan" . Now we have a new strain for the Government to worry about.
Treetop private landlords are less likely to take on problematic tenants as they can chose from the best of the best tenants (you know the one who have glowing references, no pets are scrub up well etc).
Social housing and motels are used to house people in extreme need, who likely wouldn't stand a chance in the private rental market.
I am not saying tenants in private rentals or even home owners can be shitty neighbors.
Kainga Ora numbers would be higher. I had across the street class A addicts who had a lot of guests, roaming dogs, screaming domestics. Neighbours on either side (shared main wall), were too scared to complain. The rent usually becomes too much so they get kicked out. Person who signed the lease was great with her kid for 18 months until the rent ballooned and due to desperation she took in a boarder. She got hooked on drugs and she lost the control of her home.
Why don't TV1 & TV3 have proper investigative journos looking at this kind of scenario that flows on directly from rent increases going so high they go beyond someone responsible's ability to pay.
In that one example you cite there, Treetop, the collateral damage of unintended / unforeseen consequences (aka blowback) is so immense that no ordinary person would ever have expected that outcome.
But you do. Why isn't Sunday, starring Miriama Kamo, covering this kind of nightmare – instead of many of the soft fluffy magazine-style snippets it features
When the wrong person gets in the door of a vulnerable mum she is at risk of being abused and manipulated and thinks the rent will be halved having a flat mate or a boarder's portion of the rent will pay the rent. A cycle of abuse starts, then Kainga Ora eventually find the mum an affordable rental but her self esteem is so low and the wrong type exploit her further.
To not see that outcome, the people not seeing it have not got the right people doing the blowback.
How do the government think a single mum can afford to pay $370 pw?
The answer to that one is that they aren’t living on the benefit or in a low-wage job so they have NFI of the stress and struggles of those who live from benefit paycheck to paycheck & have nothing left over when something breaks or they encounter a sudden unexpected financial burden.
Short answer: The university-educated policy wonks are all far too well paid & too distant from their “clients” to know or really care.
This is where a Minister with community connections, intelligence, & a bit of steel up their spine can make all the difference. Rejecting policy papers that don’t tackle the problems they should already be well versed in. Too many of them seem to just read departmental briefing papers.
They need to read relevant werking gruppe reports & also to get out & about & and find out for themselves what & where the problems are. Imo.
" Why isn't Sunday, starring Miriama Kamo, covering this kind of nightmare – instead of many of the soft fluffy magazine-style snippets it features"
From Sunday's blurb Kamo says; "Our journalists are the country’s finest. I’m proud to work alongside them and to be a part of bringing their stories to the nation. They are trusted practitioners who fearlessly hold power to account, who make change in the lives of New Zealanders, and who help shape our country’s narrative and identity.”
https://www.tvnz.co.nz/shows/sunday/the-team/miriama-kamo
Maybe stories about poor people, gangs and inequality don't fit with Audi's (principle sponsor) brand image.
Also, the "flagship current affairs programme" is there first and foremost to keep eyeballs on the screen for the advertisements.
That is how chief executives get paid.
Exactly, gsays. It’s not really about in depth examinations of significant national & international current affairs, it’s about catering to the widest audience – hence the relatively short duration of multiple “stories”.
It’s not to say they don’t sometimes have items covering significant issues, particularly in Kiwiland, but they are nearly always too short, have an “angle” rather than a neutral presentation, & are too “once over lightly”.
TV journalism in Kiwiland is nowadays mostly of rubbish quality, compared to, say, the 70s, 80s, & 90s, maybe some parts of the 2000s. ☹️
It has gotten to the point where we will have to support the journalism we want directly eg donation or subscription.
While also not coming off all Tory with grievances about our 'tax payer $' going towards TVNZ & RNZ
She got hooked on drugs and she lost the control of her home.
Stories like that make my guts churn.
The semi detached rural still leaves them with a connected neighbour.
I don't see any "good" solution – hiffing them from tenancies of last resort puts them on the street, with the kids, and that will make everyone more difficult to locate and help. Taking the kids away for being bad neighbours might be a bit much, too.
Putting them all together makes a slum, and that's before looking at different gang affiliations folks might have.
Leaving them there can torment the neighbours.
Damned if I have any solutions.
permaculture would say find the solutions at each site rather than trying to design generic ones that can be enforced from the top down.
Is the problem anti-social behaviour? Is it socio-economics? The effects of colonisation? Trauma? Patterns of thinking that are hard to change because of all the above plus drugs and alcohol and violence?
What do the people behaving badly actually need?
It comes down to loss of personal control or being controlled. The injustices of life, not being nurtured with love, economic pressure, violence, addictions and not having a purpose or the opportunity to reach your potential.
Semi detached rural is not suitable for children due to being unsafe. I needed to clarify semi detached rural. A property which has no neighbours too close.
So you mean a fully detached house on a large section?
Sounds idyllic, especially for kids.
This has nurtured many in the past. A smaller dwelling depends on where it is placed.
Has squash em in housing created some of the problems for people who need more space to sort their shit out?
dunno, but as soon as folks figure out they can go from an apartment to a detached country home if they act badly…
The detached country home is what is suitable. Just like how some individual health services are more expensive due to the need. It is as much a health need as a housing need.
I would not just leave a person there without addressing the issues which put them there.
Isn't that John Key's story?
lol that got a chuckle
"Sustaining tenancies, but not if they were the neighbours of the politicians or bureacrats who came up with this policy (whoever they are) ……….
Its utter cruelty towards the decent tennants, all of whom will be social disadvantaged. What a way to treat these people. Shameful.
And those anti social tenants should be kicked out. They need to know the consequences of their actions…….The what about their children arguement doesn't really stack up either. What these people are modelling to their kids is I can be a real a….hole to other people and get away with it.
Its naive to think that people who induge in nasty anti social behaviour will suddently change if we show them "kindness". These people have deeply entrenched problems that there are absolutely no quck fixes to. Moreover I would bet that there are no signs of these people wanting to change "I have been a real b…d to my neighbors, and I realize I feel bad about that. I will get counselling".
Meanwhile they get away with terrorizing vulnerable people, making their life miserable.
Whoever is responsible for this policy lacks empathy
100% agreed
I'll be looking at signing up on behalf of my Parents … currently in the process of outlining their situation to Thorn Law, the law firm concerned.
Over the past two years, I’ve speculated here & elsewhere on social media that it’s a widespread situation as Kianga Ora appears to almost exclusively allocate social housing to deeply dysfunctional (read ruthlessly violent & anti-social) people with “complex needs”. I guessed that, like my Parents (90 & 91 yo), they’d be elderly enduring enormous suffering throughout the Country … and so it turns out …
Absolute Fucking Scandal.
great stuff Swordfish. I wish you all the very best with the legal action.
It is an absolute fucking scandal.
I think the reality is there is some people we can't help and a significant part of that is they don't want help. Not the whole picture. Your parents neighbour doesn't sound like he has kids, but if he did, that would be an unsafe environment for those kids.
I say evict this neirbour. Its not as if the house is going to stay empty because there are only 2 people on waiting list for a state house and neither of them in Whangarei. Would be interested to hear any updates.
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Thanks for your moral support, Anker … really appreciate it.
He does indeed have kids … & they are pretty clearly turning into / aping their Parents … very sad to see. They were last seen around 10 weeks ago, there for just a couple of hours in the morning … from the moment they arrived just a constant stream of "Fucks" & "Fuck Offs" shouted outside & slamming front door repeatedly … exactly like both of their parents … really dysfunctional family. Can see quite clearly how it becomes intergenerational.
But a real shame … the son seems to be about 11, the daughter around 6 or 7.
God that is disturbing Swordfish (the kids). And those who say we have to keep these people there because of the kids, no, no, no.
If the Govt is serious about the problem of anti social people, then give them a state house, but with conditions. 2 or 3 at the most strikes and you are out. So clear expectations of how to treat the neigbourhood. No loud noise after 9pm, no abusive or threatening behaviour etc etc. And all the blahing on about what to do we these people. Well I don't care too much about them. I do about your parents and all the others who have put up with these sorts of neighbours. Perhaps if they don't behave they do get sent to a country complex with others of their ilk. It might be really bad for them, but its terrbile for decent tenants. These people can then get a get out of jail card with good behaviour………….I mean really its like basic parenting. If the kids don't behave, they get the "naughty seat".
I do believe there are some people who can't be rehabilitated. Someone mention sending in social workers, but I am not sure what they would do.
In solidarity Swordfish, I have just left a comment on The Daily Blog where Pat O'Dea has written a column "No more evictions"I suggestion he read your piece about your elderly parents and also challenged him to live in a State house for two weeks next to these anti social tenants (of course a challenge that is not possible, but I did hope he might put himself in the shoes of people whose lives are blighted by these tenants).
I also wished the tenants all the best with their legal action.
And yes of course these kids would be apeing their parents.
Social workers sent around to spell out the rules and offer a course on emotion regulation and respecting others. Totally up to the anti social people whether or not they take it, but they are out very quickly if their behaviour doesn't improve. Sad for their kids of course, but we can't solve every problem.
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Thanks, Anker.
Had a quick read of O'Dea … typifies the Woke & their fellow travellers … pre-determined abstract theoretical views on good vs bad demographics, divorced from reality … & hence paternalistic romanticisation of entire social groups … for all the Intersectional talk of Lived Experience, there is, in fact, zero interest in judging each individual case on its merits through empirical observation [unless it adheres to the pre-determined precepts of Critical Theory] …
… well, apart from supplementing his abstract views of eternally innocent & virtuous social housing tenants across the board with an assumption that his own experience is typical / universal … it seems he's had just a couple of relatively minor noise, behaviour issues from social housing neighbours over the years … and apparently has decided that this must be not just the norm but in fact the universal experience.
Kids of the Prick nextdoor to my Parents have largely lived elsewhere with their mother ….. (many major borderline-violent confrontations between he [tenant] & her [estranged former partner] over the last 4 years, Parents often woken by them) ….. an extra source of stress … but kids were there around 30-40% of the time through 2018 / 19 … then hardly there at all in 2020, then on and off this year. They never settled at night … often screaming & stomping tantrums at 2am / 3am / 4 am a few metres away from my Parents on other side of non-soundproof dividing-wall … and often transported there in early hours of morning !!! (like I say deeply dysfunctional family) so were another source of stress & sleep deprivation.
Although he was largely OK with his kids, there were more than a few exceptions where he inflicted violent intimidation on one or both … usually through the early hours of the morning … my Parents worried for their safety.
One of the key reasons the daughter hated being there … often screaming to her mother {dropping her off] that she didn’t want to go in.
'Predetermind abstract theoretical views about good versus bad divorced from reality". How well you put it.
I am a member of the Labour Party who have adopted this type of idealogy. What can be done?
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Cheers, Anker (& also Hetzer below).
Left a comment on O'Dea's Daily Blog post this morning … but hasn't been published yet (possibly never) … so I might as well stick it here … as you can see, I'm rapidly losing patience with these people:
Thanks Swordfish. I hope he publishes it, but he probably won't. At least he will have read it.
I have had a few comments to make on the post. The usual "well what would you do with these people". While I did make some suggestions, at one point I said "I'd evict them". That's all I said.
Somehow we think we have to solve these peoples unsolvable problems. One person suggested counselling and I almost said "you have to be f…g joking", but refrained.
I don't know of anyone in your parents situation, but it takes very little effort to empathize with the nightmare they and others are experiencing, how it could be fixed so easily and what an outrage it it is. I do feel very angry about it.
I am equally angry with Labour and Greens about the gender ideology bills, because I think gender ideology is just that an ideology and the party seems to be completely captured by it. You may not share my view of it and that is o.k.
As a member of the Labour Party (just)I am not sure what to do really
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Yeah, of course one The Standard's former authors along with her Green MP boss have been central to these campaigns.
Queer Theory zealots, hopelessly immersed in all the esoteric fantasies of 1960s French Postmodernist dogma associated in particular with Derrida & Foucault [albeit acquiring these ideas second-hand … unlikely they've actually read any of this from the original sources]. They're much more likely to have been influenced by the more recent application (& quite often mangling) of these theories by Judith Butler, Gayle Rubin, and Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick & others.
It's probably the most Year Zero of the various branches of Critical Theory in terms of its attempts to destroy all social norms & more generally the foundations of liberal democratic society. A kind of Permanent Cultural Revolution with all the never-ending social mayhem that that entails.
Anything associated with the normal, the commonplace, the majority, anything that is widely-accepted or can be categorized – in fact any sort of stability whatsoever – is deemed inherently "oppressive" & hence must be disrupted, subverted, dismantled. It's particularly keen, of course, on destroying social binaries … esp around biological sex, gender, sexuality. Hence their Blank Slatism fantasies & so on.
There's a rational middle-ground between Sex Essentialists & Queer Theory/Gender activists.
With Gender activists, & more generally Woke Critical Theory cultists, we're talking about inflexible dogmatists who've deluded themselves they're some sort of intellectual-cultural elite that exclusively possesses morality & wisdom … whereas in reality they've developed a highly dubious moral compass & have zero understanding of complex reality, not least because most appear relatively divorced from day-to-day society.
It's no surprise that this sort of elitist little cult, prioritising esoteric whims over cold hard material reality, attracts those from more financially privileged backgrounds … high decile single-sex schools have so much to answer for … they tend to create these Walking-Talking Horror Stories.
Thanks Swordfish. You put that very well.
I am a left winger from way back, but gender ideology first drew my attention to cancel culture and the shut down of debate.
I am a second wave feminist and I know it is not possible to change your sex. I have enormous concerns about the affirmation only approach and the medical transition of children.
Its good to know of other people on the Standard who see what is really going on.
Very colorfully written swordfish.
I'm curious what you see as their desired outcome of this (the theorists) ie what they believe their end goal is.
It must be absolute misery for your poor parents Swordfish. Such human excrement should be kept well away from civil society. We all know the issues of gangs and drugs and that your parents are suffering the end result of that is awful
The urban planning things seems a cheap way to try and solve the housing crisis. It has to potential to pit neighbours against neighbours and to create a shitty landscape from an archetectural point of view.
There would be a correlation between neighbour friction and the size of a property.
Imi?? I thought it was a typo but no, it's state-sanctioned terminology. Moriori language must transpose imi for iwi. See section 2 here:
https://www.legislation.govt.nz/bill/government/2020/0238/latest/LMS238062.html
An excellent succinct summary of our history! Note how the settler govt exercised native admin via recognising slavery as the traditional Maori prerogative. Such de facto creation of third-class citizenry seems quite innovative (section 3).
Particularly noteworthy are the consequences delineated in Section 5. Ownership produced by conquest as state policy integrated pakeha & maori trad political practice.
I see no evidence that the treaty signed by this govt includes an apology from the two offensive Taranaki tribes to the Moriori for that 1830s genocide. Put that alongside the apparent failure of the Waikato tribes to apologise for their earlier genocide in Taranaki, and various other maori genocides around the country in different eras. I suppose it's technically possible that apologies have been made without any subsequent media reportage to inform us of such occurrences. More likely, nobody feels apologies for genocide are necessary, since genocide is traditional.
Moriori ought to be honoured for pioneering peaceful coexistence in Aotearoa, long before Te Whiti got the idea. I doubt I'll live to see that, but rectifying historical injustice does actually need to be done properly. Tokenism is insufficient.
Yes, that’s something that has intrigued me. The Crown has – rightly – acknowledged its outrageous, oppressive, suppressive behaviours toward “rebellious” resisters & innocent Māori & offered it unreserved apologies in Treaty Settlements.
But I never see or hear anything about Māori warring on & enslaving other iwi/nations, & driving some iwi completely out of their traditional nga rohe, as occurred in – and following – the Nga Puhi-inspired Musket Wars.
One sees occasional multi-iwi disputes arising over settlement claims where more than one hapu or iwi claims for recompense for the same parcel of land. But I don’t know, where these claims are the result of iwi taua invasions & land stealing, whether the affected iwi sort out any muru/utu/compensation & expression & acceptance of apologies between themselves post the official Crown Settlement.
I agree, Dennis and Gezza. I have heard Maori accept the 'Right of Conquest' for pre Treaty of Waitangi events, but it seems that apologies and compensation apply only to post-treaty things.
This does seem a bit dodgy on pure moral grounds. Letter of the law rather than spirit of the law?
The case of the Seven Tenths Trust always struck me as very peculiar:
What is not mentioned is that they slaughtered all the peoples already living there. Just a decade before the ToW.
But according to the wookies – only white people are capable of wrong.
That is the power of the treaty, it seems, Maori 'conquer' hundreds of people pre-treaty, but Pakeha 'massacre' people post-treaty.
Could everyone on this thread please make their way over to this re-education centre…
I don't have any objection to telling the whole of NZ's history. Unless we can come to terms with our past and repudiate it's errors we will remain entangled with it's ghosts.
But the moment you see that history being selectively re-written, you know some other agenda is in play.
Just to clarify – I regard the invasion of the Waikato and Parihaka, etc, as despicable breaches of the Treaty, and agree with belated (if inadequate) compensation for the descendants of those wronged.
But I am a teacher of language, and I struggle to accept the wording which pretends that pre-treaty Maori never committed any offences themselves, and that offences happened only after the treaty was signed.
I also struggle to understand why sometimes in the late stages of the NZ wars in the South of the North Island there were as many Kupapa as British colonial troops repressing the local tribes.
To me there seems to be an obvious imbalance in terminology.
Ah yes – you touch on another verboten topic – that almost always alongside British colonial troops were Maori from other iwi playing an often vital role in crushing their own former enemies.
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Yep, if you want truly brutal genocidal violence … you'd need to head back to the Musket Wars .. three decades of horrendous massacres, at least 20k dead (vs about 2k in the New Zealand Wars), tens of thousands enslaved, some really brutal torture, cannibalism, massive upheaval, iwi massacred, others permanently driven from their nga rohe.
Bears zero relationship to the Woke's highly paternalistic 'Noble Savage' Romanticisation of pre-1840 Māori as some kind of peace-loving flower-power San Francisco Hippies.
The brutal inter-tribal warfare that dare not speak its name among polite Woke society.
And, no, that doesn’t remotely justify what happened after 1840 … but it’s important to highlight the bullshit double standards, the sheer hypocrisy & the Peter Pan fantasy world that sits right at the heart of Critical Theory / ID Politics and its on-going application in New Zealand.
Govts have used the 'we don't have the data'..excuse….here is the…data.
Mega Landlords: Over 22,100 homes owned by small group of very large investors | Stuff.co.nz
Good to see that graph. It provides the basis for class analysis of investors. Let's pretend there are still leftists who can do that. As a non-leftist, I'll provide this simulation to help them:
Class A: 10,254 own more than 50 dwellings
Class B: 11,944 own between 21 & 50
Class C: 96,107 own between 6 & 20
Class D: 264,366 own between 3 & 5 dwellings
Class E: 223,051 own 1 or 2 dwellings
So we immediately see that the legendary mum and dad investors are a minority of the investor class as a whole, ranked only 5th in the hierarchy. The five sub-classes are accompanied by business owners as capitalist vested interests in Aotearoa, and it would probably be pc to include iwi too.
Dennis, you might want to look at the figures referenced by Blazer again.
My reading of the graph in Blazer's reference is that 10, 254 houses are owned by owners of more than 50 houses (about 205 or fewer owners that works out as). Another 11944 owned by owners of 20-50 houses which makes between 239 and 597 owners.
According to you, investor owned houses would total between 2.3 and 4.6 million houses when there are 1.8 dwellings in NZ according to the census.
Read correctly, there are some 625,000 houses owned by investors and that leaves some 1.2 million owned by the occupant. The census says that 64% of NZ homes are owned by their occupants.
Well, owned by one of their occupants, at least.
Over half of NZers don't own the dwelling they live in (p34).
McFlock, I read p 34. How do we reconcile the two figures? One based on census figures of more than just 2018 btw and one based on your reference? Genuinely at a loss here……
Two different measures.
Census is how many houses had an owner-occupier.
The housing report had that measure earlier in the publication, but the p34 measure is how many people actually own the home they live in.
So lots of people rent out the spare room, have a boarder (or several) boarders.
But let it be known that we're a nation of renters, now. And this will only get more concentrated unless the housing market takes a dive.
Thanks. 🙂
Okay, I did take another look. Perhaps different interpretations of the graph are produced by the non-equivalence of investors & humans that Valocity used? When dwellings are co-owned the maths gets too murky for me!
Regardless, those five classes of ownership are wealth-generated, right? So the differential analysis does produce accurate relativity between classes.
The graph titled "Homes owned by investors by portfolio size" referred to the number of homes owned by investors who owned certain numbers of properties. For example, 10254 houses owned by investors each owning at least 50 houses, so at most 200 investors.
I don't doubt that mum and dad investors are over emphasised. The article states,"The analysis, which cross-referenced names on roughly 1.7 million publicly available property titles, shows investors with up to two properties only own just over a third of investment properties."
The study referenced by Blazer also said, as McFlock also stated from another source,"Investors are shown to now own more properties than either first home buyers or single homeowners.
Although the difference is slight – a difference of 15,638 homes – it’s a reversal of 2015 when first home buyers owned 78,086 more properties than investors."
Thanks for the link Blazer.
I look forward to the day that a multi-home owner is as common as a slave owner.
However, looking to a Parliament of landlords isn't where the solution lies.
Does anybody really think that the parliamentarians will change anything? Really?
We wonder why families can't get a roof over their head, drug addicts, aggressive renters of Kāinga Ora properties are not moved on? I doubt that our leaders will give them a roof over their heads.
It would take some extraordinary guts to end this, almost hero status really.
We are governed by the same type of people as the elite that earns 70 x a workers income and find they are under paid. Meanwhile all that rort is financed via debt (shall I mention 16 Billion dollars?). Good luck to us then.
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/politics/2020/08/the-number-of-properties-owned-by-new-zealand-mps-revealed.html
Yep… and you would think that hundreds of thousands of the disenfranchised and homeless would be out on the streets protesting the obscene inequities portrayed by that data linked to by Blazer in 3 above rather than protesting so called freedom restrictions by public health orders or against government's timid efforts to combat climate change or cleaning up rivers. (not implying that the same cohort of people are involved of course)
After the barrage of business people and National and Act attacking MIQ, and wanting to be rid of it, they may have been wanting its demise prematurely. Covid Omicron taking off round the world in the last two days sounds very serious and hopefully Jacinda and her advisers will continue to be very cautious about further relaxation of the borders.
Jim Bolger's appearance on Q&A harks back to a time when National was mostly made up of people who were decent citizens to say the least. Looking back over the last few years to the sleazy, unlikable types National took on board, it would be hoped they can select better candidates and party members. No Mervs or Michelles.
They need to look at the selectors. RATs.
https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2021/11/27/sweden-trans-kids-suffered-injuries-as-a-result-of-puberty-blockers/
“They just pause puberty, give time to work things out”. Yeah right.
I've taken the time to read up on the puberty blockers recently – unmitigated child abuse.
By the medical establishment.
Agree. Children's bodies are being mutilated by an experiemental treatment that countries such as Sweedon and Finland are rolling back. 22,000 de-transitioners and counting.
The insanity just keeps on coming
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Kāinga Ora Scandal
Brief outline of my Parents' experience (though it doesn't even remotely encapsulate the full enormity … it's a multifacted nightmare that goes beyond the prolonged violent intimidation):
Kianga Ora Scandal: My Parents Situation (sub-zero-politics.blogspot.com)
Horrifying situation.
I'm believer that spelling matters and in this case the spelling of Te Reo matters. Is there a way that you can do a global correct to Kainga Ora all the way through?
Also somewhere there is 'entires' that perhaps is 'entries?
Sounds as though some suggestions for Kainga Ora would not go amiss.
Perhaps KO needs to sell the other side of this duplex unit where one side is in private ownership. Use the funds to invest in another building for social housing.
They could also look to see if there are other instances of one in private/one still in public ownership that are causing problems and work out a plan to sell these as well.
It is called managing the portfolio. I am sure that a private landlord who found that one of their units were becoming a mecca for troublemakers because of whatever they would be cashing in and reinvesting in another place.
Your parents' neighbouring tenant sounds as if there are mental health issues (perhaps drug or alcohol induced) that seem to be running rampant and not being dealt with. Nobody should be expected to put up with this.
That's damn rough, it's not right
I'm genuinely curious if you have had any response from your local MP?
COP26 so now we don’t need to take responsiblility for our CO2 reduction commitments ? and just feed off others doing better by buying credits. No wonder the nuclear free moment of our time is NOT that important. Would it not be more beneficial if we all achieved our reductions as a min. and those that over achieve to contribute even less CO2 ?
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2021/11/study-finds-nz-could-buy-carbon-reduction-credits-more-cheaply-than-domestic-action.html
Have you seen where massive forest clearance has been going on in brazil for mining gold , the same brazil were going to by our credits from supposedly!!!
Yes and this area this area is referred to the lungs of earth and along with man made deforestation we had also forest fires doing their bit.🤯 I could say that their are too many vested interests and applying arbitrage to achieve a financial gain with no tangible benefit to the environment or climate. Just juggling the numbers !!!
https://ourworldindata.org/deforestation
https://www.businessinsider.com.au/amazon-fires-satellite-images-map-of-rainforest-blazes-2019-8?r=US&IR=T
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/145988/tracking-amazon-deforestation-from-above
Those links really speak to a complex picture – while Brazil may be at one stage of deforestation – other nations are seeing increases in forest cover. Overall the total is not changing all that much.
I respect worldindata but if you have a close look at some of those forest cover stats they look very dodgy. Almost all the Eastern European stats show huge increases in native forest cover. I really can't believe that Malaysia's has increased either. Haven't any way of verifying the figures unfortunately.
Good skeptical thinking there ! What I think is happening – and this comes from other sources I don't have the time to track back down at the moment – is that in Eastern Europe at least there has been a substantial reduction in farming. Especially as populations age and agriculture becomes more land efficient – the unused farms revert back to forest reasonably quickly.
I can't speak precisely to Malaysia, but it's actually a very developed and rapidly urbanising society – again as people escape poverty and move off the land – it reverts to forest as at least one possibility. This doesn't gainsay the horrible practise of palm oil plantations – but that's another issue.
That link to the deforestation story is really quite interesting and well worth some time reading. Brazil is indeed a mess and the erosion of the Amazon should be resisted – but the bigger picture isn't hopeless either.
Mongabay's data seems quite different. Australia's forest loss is particularly depressing – very noticeable west of the Divide in Qld.
Been gently raining here at Pookden Manor since about 1 pm. Southerly breeze so gentle it doesn’t even really exist. 😀
Are you there, mary? Wildlife clip from a sunnier day:
Just got back from 6 months in WA to our spot in Moreton Bay QLD. We're renting a tiny little unit about 15min drive from downtown Brisbane. But out the back is a 200 acre wilderness that's teeming with wildlife. So we just went for a walk and in a 2hr period we spotted:
Multitudes of ducks, herons, bitterns, water dragons, sea eagles, spoonbills, white herons, a flock of pelicans, and one snake.
The only downside is that if you sit down to enjoy a view, you immediately become the subject of a tug-of-war between ants size of small mice and mosquitos you could mistake for dragon-flies.
.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_water_dragon
They sounded intriguing 😀
Cheers Gezza. So serene and calming to watch.
Watching that scene, I remember that day well now, mary. It was an amazingly relaxing & fulfilling day. One of the best I’ve had just being at one with the natural world in my backyard, so to speak.
Being calm, moving very little, talking gently to the birds, waterbirds & eels.
Quite magic.
The Creator, whoever they were or are, did a fantastic job of creation.
I suspect that they all evolved brilliantly, Gezza.
Their (and our) DNA says they did precisely that, & therein lies the fantastic job that the creator did.
No one has yet explained:
Nor, of course, has anyone explained the origins of those origins..
The endless loop. The inevitable flaw in the Christian 8 Muslim apologetics debates. They argue that their Abrahamic God has to exist because everything in the universe has to have had an ultimate cause. To which the atheist response, naturally, is "So who or what caused God?" To which the apologists reply: "God is outside the universe" (or "God is both outside & inside the universe"). "He always was & always will be."
These things are easy to say but actually rather difficult to get your head around, so I don't bother. Our universe just looks designed to me. With layer upon layer of complexity. I suspect it had one or more designers. That's all.
From mu, right past nu and xi and onto omicron.
I suppose we should be grateful that we avoided the nu xi land variants down under.
With the multiple mutations of the spike protein naming the variant after the letter most suitable for a transformer character was apt. But surely they are now at risk of running out of letters.
Richard Harman, editor of the Politik website and former "Chief TVNZ Political Correspondent", told Jim Mora & listeners this morning how Judith Collins made history:
"She's the first major New Zealand political party leader to have a successful vote of no confidence passed in them, certainly since the Second World War and I would think stretching back before that."
https://www.rnz.co.nz/audio/player?audio_id=2018822361
So we ought to give her credit for this remarkable success. Put it on the cv, Jude! Maybe Swordfish will relish the research challenge of establishing how far back the actual precedent lies – presuming there even is one. If not, she really has made history!
Jude's greatest political achievement
I see that Judith has backed Luxon because he is "highly intelligent'.
I am left with the question, "How would she know this?"