The Social Housing Reform (Transaction Mandate) Bill allows designated Ministers to sell off state houses. Currently Housing New Zealand has no such power. Interestingly however this Government could introduce a Bill with criteria to enable sales to be signed off by the CE of Housing New Zealand but instead they are seeking that power for themselves. But within it there is a fishhook for iwi. UPDATE: comment from Turei and response from Bennett
John Key’s interview on Morning Report this morning suggests that National does not know what it is doing with its social housing policy. Are we approaching a situation where profits from New Zealand social housing is going to underwrite the cost of Australian social housing?
One News has reported that the Government is on the verge of introducing Social Bonds whereby investors in social services will be rewarded if targets are met.
Sky City has managed to persuade the Government to allow it to build a cheaper building while retaining the same valuable gambling regulatory concessions. Update: and the Government appears to have made further contractual concessions to Sky City.
Back in March 1988 David Lange had a clear idea about what lay ahead for New Zealanders as the long-term consequences of Roger Douglas’ psychopathic worshipping of the metaphysical Invisible Hand gradually materialised.
The Auditor General found that no one in National Ltd™, the Māori Party, Te Puni Korkiri, or any other of its apologists can detail exactly what Whānau Ora is supposed to be doing, provide evidence of its outcomes, or explain why up to 33% of the money is being paid in “administration”. In other words, Whānau Ora is a shambles. And dodgy.
The Government has appointed Paula Restock to head an expert panel tasked to review Child Youth and Family. Even now the intent appears clear, outsource functions and cut costs. But if they were determined to improve matters they should reduce child poverty.
The social democracy of my youth has radically collapsed into our current culture of individualism, privatisation and personal greed.
Sky City is doing what Rio Tinto and Warner Brothers have done in the past. Threaten to walk away from a deal unless the Government writes you a big cheque …
A new report shows that Steven Joyce’s MBIE fiefdom is failing miserably. Meanwhile the MBIE is under fire for the major cost blow out of the Sky City Casino deal – another deal with Joyce’s imprints all over it.
Hamilton City Council currently has plans to sell of its remaining pensioner housing stock. It already sold off a block of them in 2012. Of those sold, only 12 out of 53 units are available for seniors to rent at affordable rates. This is because 27 were sold as there was no social service provider able to buy them. So now Council want to sell the rest.
Chief executive remuneration packages in the privatised power companies have surged post float.
John Key’s latest answer to the housing crisis: bigger subsidies for private landlords! Subsidies to private landlords simply result in rent increases. It doesn’t increase the housing supply. But ole JK just likes screwing over young first home buyers..
A quiet shift in a dodgy Key govt-SkyCity deal: TVNZ land, sold to SkyCity for its convention centre, is to be used for a new hotel. Plus: non-mandated deal between Auckland Transport Authority & a US corporate – intense surveillance of Aucklanders’ diverse activities.
No one should begrudge John Key and the National party the right to celebrate an impressive election victory. It is little consolation to […]
Nationals promises to you. #1.
There’s much to discuss on the two election-focused TV debates conducted over the last 24 hours. Prime TV’s new show: Prime Time with Sean Plunket – Bennett & Turei on poverty/inequality (Prime TV Fridays 9.30pm): TV 3’s The Nation: Saturday 9.30am
Live News is reporting that 40,000 people have been removed from the electoral roll because they have moved address. Their enrolment update packs were returned to sender with the message: “gone no address”.
Rob Salmond at Polity has discovered that amongst the $212 million worth of road projects to be accelerated by the Government is a bridge that will speed up Bill English’s trip to his Queenstown home. But officials have said that under current policy settings it is unlikely that the bridge will ever be built.
If the aims of National/ACT’s education policy were, genuinely, to to improve the learning, education and career choices for our children, including the ones that are failing at present, they would not be following policies which have signally failed to achieve any of these goals, anywhere else they have been tried.
Bill English has stated that a third term Key government would majorly reform the government’s budgeting & spending. It’s a major move towards privatisation of public services, & full spectrum digitally-enhanced monitoring of individuals’ lives: especially those of the already demonised and harassed single mothers on benefits.
Rob Salmond at Polity on what has landed in his mail box paid for by your GST and also close to the wrong side the permissible limits of Parliamentary Services funds. Or perhaps this is something for “NZ Taxpayers Union” to moan about wasting taxpayers money with. They won’t of course because they seem to be good little front organisation for Act and Jordan Williams appears to have about as much independence as their beloved slaves. But if you received one, then a complaint seems in order.
The more that National publicly adopts “left wing” “socialist” party policies, such as “free” medical care for children under 13, keeping the retirement age as it is, and balancing the budget, the more they rise in the polls.
The real story of the coming election is what was revealed in Bill English’s reported pre-budget speech to the National Party’s Southern Region conference at the weekend. He signalled an intention to reduce the proportion of government spending to 26% of GDP over the next 6 to 7 years. The current level at 30% already places NZ in the lowest quartile of OECD countries, having fallen from 35% of GDP in 2008. Most developed nations spend a significantly higher proportion of GDP on government goods and services.
Phil Twyford has exposed the government’s asset-stripping approach to running down state housing, while favouring of private & overseas entities. The Greens & Mana have strong policies for increasing the amount of state housing. Still waiting for a commitment from Labour.
All inequality measures are not equal. The GINI Coefficient is widely used but it doesn’t show the impact of vast increases in inequality between the richest and poorest Kiwis; it doesn’t show increasing experiences of hardship: it can mask vast inequalities in wealth & asset ownership.
A government is carrying out a crash-program of privatization without a mandate. It is desperate to sell, so it sets the price of the shares artificially low, and loses $1.5 billion in a single day. No, this isn’t New Zealand (yet) – its the UK:
Tomorrow Today: Support the important Day of Action across NZ against the TPPA – the TPPA is anti-democratic, pro-corporate & will make life harder for ordinary Kiwis; Support the NZEI demonstrations in Auckland & Wellington, for a living wage, for an excellent public education system, against poverty that undermines education. [Update: photos & reports]
Big (US) Pharma has been the leading lobbyist that has shaped the TPP, followed by corporates in the following industries; Hollywood, automobile, textiles, dairy. This makes the TPP a major threat to the interests and well-being of Kiwis. Good reasons to take part in next Saturday’s Day Of Action (29 March 1pm) across NZ.
Simon Collins article on reducing inequalities for Māori & Pacific people. Māori and Pacific youth have become significantly disadvantaged in employment. However, the article supports charter schools, without examining how such neoliberal intitatives are ultimately damaging for Māori & Pacific people.
International, cronyist, corporate capitalism skews democratic processes in NZ, making it harder for the majority of battling Kiwis to get a fair go – harder to ensure all New Zealanders live in a society that works for them. The TPPA is a power-play between the US and other powerful countries. There’s nothing in it for NZ. National Day of action March 29th, 2014.
A photo/video documentary project in March Metro Magazine shows Glen Innes as a war zone. The National Government’s war on the poor continues with the sales and removal of state housing. Protest this evening at Glen Innes.
Two uncritical articles in Auckland’s local press, raise questions about the role of the NZ military, and the educational and cultural impact of a military charter school. Unstated and unquestioned, is the nature of NZ’s relationship with that of militaristic US imperialism.
The Government has effectively conceded that the Genesis share float will not meet expectations and is softening New Zealand up to the prospect that only 30% of the shares may be sold. It makes you wonder why they are still going a head with the sale.
The Crown Financial Statements to the end of November 2013 show that the sale of Meridian and Air New Zealand added hundreds of millions of dollars to the cost of the asset sales programme. Combined with the cost of the Mighty River Power sale and ancillary costs such as the Rio Tinto payout, the total cost of the asset sales now stands at $440m. National just likes burning the money of the taxpayers for no productive purpose.
There’s a tussle going on as Obama pushes to seal the deal and to limit Congress’s say on TPPA deals. But, Congress would still have more say about the deals than NZ MPs. It’s about democracy & sovereignty. It could slip under the radar over summer.
