While the media and commentators have focused on Nick Smith’s folly this week the housing crisis in Christchurch has barely got a mention. Add the problems Canterbury people are facing finding a place to live to the Auckland housing crisis and alarm bells ought to be sounding in the Beehive. All we can hear however is the sound of panic, polling and bottom minding! When they finally wake up to a real issue, many people would have joined the exodus to Australia, currently running at an all time high of 1000 a week.
So disappointed with Gerry’s attack on Lianne in the house today, Annette, why didn’t you all get up and leave the chamber in solidarity with her? Such a low blow that was.
So the choices for the opposition parties were this week.
a. Nick Smith
b. All the other issues highlighted.
Seems like option a won out.
City of ruins!
! I’d be p****d if I lived there! 
!
Is anyone listening over in the Beehive?
Nah… too busy padding their backsides, organising cover-ups and creating diversions.
The housing crisis is not a new thing; it has just gotten more noticeable and been made worse by the loss of housing in Christchurch.
Affordable accommodation is and has been an issue for over a decade, the shortage of state housing is has been a long standing issue that was raised in the 90’s and under the proposed changes to legislation round local government spending could put council own flats at risk.
We have major issues here in NZ with housing it is not a left/right, red/blue issue, or National/Labour issue it is a NZ issue, we have our second major city munted, it is not going to be rebuilt in a hurry.
We have housing prices in Auckland starting to move upwards again because of a shortage of supply, no building activity happening, we need Mickey Savage back to get the building sector moving again. We have record youth unemployment surely we can get something moving, lets train these people and give them some pride, our is it just the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer.
At some point social responsibility has to kick in, it is not just $’s, people have to have heart and care for fellow human beings, unfortunately in todays society people are measured on how big their bank balances are.
The Government’s proposed local government reforms are of huge concern. If the Government whittles down the role of councils and community boards to rubbish, rats and rates, then what role in housing amongst other things will local authorities have? I note the Government wants to extend its powers to intervene if they don’t like the way local authorities are spending- will this mean more and more local councils will be dissolved so the Government can dictate to local people what their money will be spent on? Local solutions for local problems! We need to keep the integrity of the 2002 local government act which is about giving locals ownership over their community- I look forward (hopefully) to seeing Labour fight for community rights- and through this, achieving affordable housing (and building) programmes where Central and Local come together in partnership- it is the only way to get anything done in NZ.
The Labour radical who got state housing underway and also much of the 1st Labour Govt’s social thinking, was John A Lee. Whilst Micheal Joseph Savage was the figurehead and Prime Minister much idolised by the public, he became somewhat remote from the drive to set in place the great changes lifting NZ people and business sector up out of the grip of depression.
Lee had a poor up bringing, was involved in petty crime as a child to eat, came back from the first world war with his arm missing yet rose to prominence with his strong sense of social justice, outspoken courage and drive. It was Lee who forced the cabinet bring legislation controlling the banking and promoting better pensions, free hospital care and a wide range of ground breaking social reforms.
As a parliamentarian he had the largest majority of the time but never allowed to be a cabinet minister as they were scared of his rhetoric and following. John A Lee has the greatest political legacy of any NZ politician and a prolific author. He held no fear of the bankers and despised the plunder of NZ with their debt finance system.
The next courageous reformer was Norm Kirk who set up the superannuation scheme which would have set NZ on its feet with the population investing in the Govt and country. National with the US propaganda machine. Hanna Barbara linked with the mob and US money running the election campaign. National got in and ditched that scheme putting us back in the hands of the bankers and the path to growing debt and overseas ownership.
@ Eye Patch, I too was amazed the entire Opposition sat there dumb-struck by big bully boy Brownlee using a point of order to mount a personal attack on Lianne questioning her integrity as a member of the House, and the snivelling little Tory speaker just sat there an let it happen, forcing Lianne to seek leave to explain herself. I seem to remember that same snivelling little Tory speaker slapping an Opposition MP down for even alluding to Key’s integrity. If the Big Bully Boy was pissed at his mate Smith getting the shaft, then he would have done better to turn his venomous personal attack on his own kind who set him up and outed him.
Roswell, it has been made worse by Christchurch, I agree. However the other crisis is the leaky homes which is effectively taking up to 120,000 Auckland homes out of circulation due to being unsaleable. One of these was natural, the other man-made. Both combined mean something big is a brewin and no one has a plan to deal with it.
Understand the Auckland leaky home crisis has been put back many years in the Auckland Spatial Plan. It will be for our children and grandchildren to sort out.
Great.
Leaky homes, who made the decision to change the Building Codes, surely someone should be held to account, I heard through industry sources that the main building suppliers put pressure on the Government to change the regulations to bring down building costs.
Also reduce the requirements for using tanalised timber, doesn’t appear to have done much for bringing building costs down. Just another expense handed onto the taxpayer and the ratepayer, meanwhile the companies and politicans walk away laughing. Sucks really.
Jack the main culprits have got away scot free. Carters fletchers among them
Anyway is national reversing the trend of the brain drain. It was an aspiration afterall
BRANZ was the culprit in justifying the changes to allow untreated timber framing. This was argued on a laboratory senario that was regarded as a laughing matter with dire consequences by experienced builders. Councils had little say in this change and building inspectors shook their heads in disgust.
Look who controls BRANZ and you will see it is wide open to industry pressure.
Fletchers is a foreign owned company and has been for many decades, a giant organisation with just about every aspect of building supply covered by their subsidiaries.
A variety of names are used such as Placemakers and before that Hardings with many small companies swallowed up as this capital produces profit and expansion of the empire. Large dividend are expatriated.
The price of building in NZ is high and the reason is simple.
They even have representation on the reserve bank board.
The monolith has been given a pivotal position in the Christchurch rebuild also.
I’m a Fletcher Building shareholder, and I’m not a foreigner. While there may be some overseas shareholding, so what, a large volume of shares is held by NZ’rs and they can trade up to more any day of the week. Who are the foreigners you say control the company John W?
The problem in this country is we have incompetence at Government and Regional Council levels alot of these people are professional seat warmers with nice safe secure jobs on high salaries and are not accountable to anybody.
These people dictate to the people of New Zealand how it is going to be with no thought of the consequences of their actions.
The concentration of power in Super Ministry’s and Super Council’s sets a dangerous precedence, we have a typical example with John Key and Simon Joyce wanting to control Auckland from Wellington, neither of them appear to be aware of Auckland’s transport and housing problems.
New Zealand and Auckland appear to be grinding to a halt under bureaucratic controls and increasing administration costs.
Richard
As a Fletcher employee and then shareholder in the 60, I received the reports from Colonial Sugar ( Aust ) as they were the main shareholders then and apart from small swings as you have covered the trend has shown significant further overseas interest.
Lets not get into the history of the company here but NZ interests are better served with responsible investment towards our future in creating local employment and processing of goods and materials.
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/93/7fletc.htm
http://www.converge.org.nz/watchdog/95/4gover.htm
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10722384
http://rogerkerr.wordpress.com/2011/03/28/the-truth-about-privatisation-blog-7/
The trend
http://www.nzfil.co.nz/news-story.php?Brian-Gaynor-A-lesson-we-shouldn-t-have-to-learn-again—NZ-Herald-36
John W
Placemakers were deliberately used by Fletchers to deal with the “proximity” issue in any negligence cases. “Carters” serve/d the same purpose. Two large companies deliberately putting a wall between themselves and homeowners. One could guess because they knew they were vulnerable.
BRANZ is a B8tch tot he manufacturers. manufacturers buy an appraisal. In its history BRANZ has NEVER withdrawn an appraisal. That also speaks volumes in an industry as dysfunctional and failing as the building industry between 1990 and 2004.
Sadly the people who created the problem are used to work out the solution which can never be complete because there are certain things they cannot change without admitting they stuffed up.
The problem in New Zealand nobody takes ownership for the stuff ups and just leaves the problems for the next Government or future generations of New Zealanders.
We had Muldoon’s Think Big Projects which stripped new Zealand’s Savings.
We had Roger Douglas’s Asset Sales with were carried on by National which now lead to 14.0 billion in dividends being repatriated overseas.
Now we have further excessive borrowing to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, in the hope trickle down theory will work, and we want to flogg off the few State Assets we still own and sell our Farming Sector to the Chinese.
Not alot of structured thinking going on, we need to be controlling our own destiny and trying to build a strong productive balanced economy,with a caring society not one built on greed.
We have created an economy in the last 30 years which is built
on greed and chasing the $, we idolise the wealthy and look at the less fortunate as parasites.
Jack as long as a number of voters cast their vote based on who they like rather than sound policies (if any parties actually have any policies around campaign time) we will get short term and shallow solutions…
“We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”
Albert Einstein
More crony capitalism?