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- Date published:
8:19 am, May 22nd, 2026 - 32 comments
Categories: chris bishop, housing, national, nicola willis, poverty, same old national -
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What a day yesterday was.
National announced that some of the poorest amongst us were going to have their rent increased so that others that are also poor would receive slightly more.
From Lillian Hanly at Radio New Zealand:
The government’s announced a major shake-up of social housing beginning in this year’s Budget – which will boost weekly support for 110,000 families by almost $15 but leave another 80,000 families worse off by $30 a week.
The change will be paired with more stringent criteria for getting a social house – and possibly new tenancy duration limits and regular check-ins.
Housing Minister Chris Bishop made the pre-Budget announcement at Parliament on Thursday, launching the planned multi-year reform programme he said it would make the social housing system fairer, better targeted and more focused on encouraging independence.
He acknowledged the changes could be done in a way that didn’t leave as many households worse off if “money was limitless”, but he said it wasn’t so the government had to make “tough choices”.
He said the social housing situation currently was “incredibly backwards” and “inequitable”, calling the system “unfair”, because similar households can get different support depending on whether they are in social housing or a private rental.
To do this in an election year and in the middle of a cost of living crisis makes you wonder what the motivation was. There are some savings, by my calculation about $39 million a year, but this is a rounding error in terms of the Government’s books.
Maybe they were after what they thought was a good media opportunity but this was blown by Nicola Willis describing Kainga Ora tenants as having won lotto. A more tone deaf response is hard to imagine.
Or maybe they realise that this Government is on the rocks and they want to push as much of their far right Atlas inspired agenda through as they can.
Or maybe they just despise poor people.
Whatever the motivation was they should realise this has reinforced the already strong impression that they do not care about the poor. After all they are wealthy and sorted.
How about get people onto a house and assist them however you can to get to the point where they can buy it or another one, what's the point of leaders who arnt for all the people
If they want to be "fair" then they would also let council tenants be eligible so councils can put rents up and cover costs and be on the same footing as private landlords.
But nah they want councils to be forced to see housing to the private market a la Thatcher.
The current government is being mean to local government they have been bullying them lately despite all their rhetoric about localism to sell their local water done well policy before the last election.
Yes, Bwaghorn we had that policy before state housing tenants were able to tick a box to say they were interested in buying the house they were renting or if the house was not available due to high demand for that type of house (for example number of bedrooms, size and location of house) they could by another property either state or a private dwelling. And the state would help them into home ownership I remember this was under National and may have been under Labour. But I am not sure who got rid of it. I also recall you had to a tenant for a certain period of time. Unfortunately, this is not what National are doing though.
One does get a strong impression that they’re going [for] broke and are on a suicide mission throwing the kitchen sink and Cabinet at the bottom half of NZ society.
Divide..and Rule. Been The Rule since ages…..
And…will this be enough to make non voters…Vote? (and FYI I personally have heard, and met, more than enough, to whit, just some : Ah, they're all the same. Why vote it only encourages them?. I'm not interested in politics, Ive got more important things to do) and reasons, et al….
And FYI, I have indeed tried to engage with same….please, look at who is shitting on you…there are people who will do their level and utmost best to make things better for you..not the 1%ers.
Will it need to get worse…before they do vote? (and if any think NZ Fist is the answer? jeebus…. help NZ.
I did make comment on Daily Review :
And yes, I think they will be part of the change we need to Save New Zealand.
Look they probably already have policies to make sure people who can afford to go private do as tenants have to fill out a form every year on income and sign a declaration saying who lives there and how much they earn etc. HNZ would hire a private company, and they would come and check your house this was done on a yearly basis. Bishop doesn’t want to house the poor (he wants the private market to do this) and his idea of state housing is cheaply built little boxes like the ones sitting vacant on Cambridge terrace in Lower Hutt that no one wants to buy. Bishops’ little boxes might have to sell at a loss, and this won’t be the first time. National are making up policy to balance Nicoliars books and they need to be mean as their coalition partners are stealing their voter based.
People in the Hutt South electorate need to vote Bishop out he has done f– all for our area, he is all talk and spin.
You might not have been around The Standard when Bishflap Bishop's Links to Chris Meehan were outed ? Conflict..what conflict?
There is more….
There are subtle differences between Lotto winners and social housing tenants, allegedly.
https://thespinoff.co.nz/politics/22-05-2026/helping-nicola-willis-how-to-tell-a-social-housing-tenant-apart-from-a-lotto-winner
It beggars belief that Willis with her English Literature degree could mix up her metaphors so badly – perhaps it gave an insight into what she was really thinking.
The old saying: when they tell you who they really are – believe them!
Willis and Goldsmith and the rest of them exhibit a superiority and arrogance of cultists. They don’t care about ‘outsiders’; the ones not on the bus will either get on the bus or thrown under it – they can sort themselves out whilst eating cake provided by David Seymour. Cut first, then ask questions.
https://newsroom.co.nz/2026/05/22/ai-regulation-can-wait-until-public-sector-is-cut-says-goldsmith/ [currently behind subscription wall]
Nice line from The Spinoff:
"Parliamentarians like Willis are showered with government support that the beleaguered, butter-starved general public could only dream of."
The Spinoff feels like a warm blanket on grim days when the cold winds of austerity are shaking the house at its foundations and are trying to uproot society – La Nicola is worse than El Niño and La Niña and must be a result of Climate Change.
agree Merc…elegantly written.
Nico La. She's an ill wind.
Almost a nether wind…..(and there's a few different areas that could be from…)
)
Sometimes, if you didnt have Humour…what would you do?
" if you didnt have Humour…what would you do?"
Join the ACT party?
A good wind, with humour. Flanders and Swann with a tuba – making fun. And increase it by hitting CC and seeing the AI version of what is happening – sounds like! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjA6bA1qtfQ
How did Hitler get to be so powerful? How did Nicola Wontit get to be so powerful? What use are political systems of the common people if some common people manage to accumulate wealth and resources exponentially, and appropriate only the bad ways of the old nobility?
How can the poor help themselves when predatory, callous, degenerate people get power and then make society over in their image. Religion is used as a tax-free vehicle that seems to give worth in the eyes of the ignorant. People never have time to think things out or don't choose to ponder. Martin Le Fevre writes Meditations* on Scoop and is strong on quiet thinking; and the need to rethink and act carefully. For craziness read Terry Pratchett's 'The Fifth Elephant' and compare to us all now. We have a pretty wild system that could be good but needs from us strong, agile, humane minds and will to keep it. An ability to see what is good and hold it; what is unimportant or discredited and unwise iteration. * https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL2605/S00060/when-therapists-become-philosophers.htm
They don't know how lucky they are.
Once upon a time in 1990's Yorkshire they slashed benefits and charged people market rents for their social housing.
The RB Governor proposed the unemployed (a measly 10% at the time) be helped into work by allowing them to work for less than the MW – so employers could exploit recent labour law changes to remove the overpaid workforce, to give these lucky sods their job (a bit of an increase on their benefits).
The government of Yorkshire was so tough on those who were poor, the budget crisis soon became what crisis and so they eased the burden on the well to do by ending the estate tax and then stamp duty.
Sure, being close to a return to Yorkshire is not an ideal neighbourhood.
There is the cost of living crisis – the MW going up at half the inflation rate.
$22.70 to $23.95
1April 2024 up 45 cents an hour
1 April 2025 up 35 cents an hour
1 April 2026: up 45 cents an hour
Given it is tough for those in jobs, making it tougher for those not in jobs, shows a modicum of compassion .
Soon those workers can maybe get a few dollars in AS, it will no way make up for the risible pay increases, but they will at least know they are lucky not to have won a lottery and be facing a $30-$40 a week increase in rent.
Concept based on a discussion with Paul Swain 1999.
Satire..for those lacking a Humour sense..is sometimes a great attack on the RW….
They did that here, too.
Kay, this is what you have been dreading. They don't change. Austerity idiots.
I'm a RWNJ and I hate the accommodation supplement. $$ straight to landlords & inflated house prices. The best housing policy I have seen is the Greens progressive ownership… State house that part of each week's rent goes to your equity (like a mortgage… after 20 years ur paying mostly equity and very littel 'rent') and yes you can take your equity with you if you need/want to move. And the govt uses the rent $$ to build more, and more. No frills 100 to 150 sqm one bathroom, no garage= under $200,000 to build. Oh and bring in CGT, but not tied to the madness fo 3 x doctors visits. I have real problems seeing a doc, but not price (I pay $15) my issue is supply. = train 10% more, 3 x free is derr brain.
"How cruel do you have to be to raise rents for some of our poorest citizens during a cost of living crisis? "
As cruel as all neoliberal free market political parties masquerading as champions of the working class.
You know who I am referring to Greg.
The party who has your namesake Michael Joseph Savage hanging as a perverted attempt to pretend they are advocating for those who would prefer to talk to business audience's that want to be reassured that the NZLP will continue to enforce the very policies that are harming the poor you are referring to.
" NEW ZEALAND is heading toward yet another grim general election, and the mood of the country reflects it. After years of economic stagnation, rising hardship, and a political class that seems incapable of imagining anything beyond the narrow confines of the market, voters are once again being told that their only choice is between two parties who differ more in tone than in substance. The economic status quo has failed working people, yet Labour’s pitch is not to overturn it, challenge it, or even question it. Instead, Labour is offering to 'manage' the same failing system slightly better than National. That is the full extent of its ambition.
This week, Labour leader Chris Hipkins made that reality even clearer. Hipkins openly floated the idea of forging a bipartisan arrangement with National after the election. His words were revealing: 'So what I’m offering now … is a very competitive election campaign but then an ability to say, ‘Okay, the election result has been delivered, the voters have had their say, for the next few years let’s work together to figure out how to actually move forward.'
There it is, laid out plainly. No talk of offering an economic alternative. No recognition that the neoliberal framework of the past four decades is the source of the crisis. No willingness to confront the structural failures that have produced soaring inequality, a cost-of-living crisis, and a generation locked out of secure housing. Instead, Hipkins is signalling that Labour’s priority is not to challenge National but to work with it. The message to voters is unmistakable: a vote for Labour is a vote for a Labour–National alliance in everything but name.
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/05/vote-labour-for-labour-national-alliance.html
That is not an invitation to have a coalition with National. Labour would implode if Hipkins did this. It will not happen.
"
That is not an invitation to have a coalition with National. Labour would implode if Hipkins did this. It will not happen.
Greg read the article … stop the delusion I know its hard when your " tribal corporate LINO "
Your party is already in coalition with neoliberal free market polices that provide the economic outcomes that you and other " comfortable social democrats " support. When Hipkins is only fronting business audiences to assure them that a free market social democrat alternative will do anything that disrupts their interests and the promise of huge donations to keep the status quo in place means that your posts on waging war on the poor is simply a diversion from the awful nasty Natz away from the NZLP who have no intention of preventing the continuing the economic and social assault on our most vulnerable people and their communities.
If Labour wants to campaign on being the better manager of a broken system, that is its choice. But voters deserve to know what that choice really means. A vote for Labour is increasingly indistinguishable from a vote for National. And if Labour is already preparing to work with National after the election, then the slogan writes itself: vote Labour for a Labour–National alliance.
https://nzagainstthecurrent.blogspot.com/2026/05/vote-labour-for-labour-national-alliance.html
"'So what I’m offering now … is a very competitive election campaign but then an ability to say, ‘Okay, the election result has been delivered, the voters have had their say, for the next few years let’s work together to figure out how to actually move forward.'"
That seems to me eminently sensible – what's your objection?
" That seems to me eminently sensible – what's your objection?
That reply indicates you haven't or have any intention of understanding what I have posted eminently.
Try again.
" "'So what I’m offering now … is a very competitive election campaign "
Hardly competitive