Monthly Archives: Jan 2017

Students vulnerable to housing crisis

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Over the next few weeks tens of thousands of students will be going back to University, to Wananga’s, to Polytechnic’s to begin another year of study. They will be looking for flats, apartments, student halls and places where they can pay board to stay. Most will have no trouble finding a flat. But what about those who cannot compete, yet face a stark choice of either abandoning their study or studying at an entirely different institution?

Everyone has a right to housing under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and under the New Zealand Bill of Rights.

The theory is that the market is driven by demand, and the more that is paid, theoretically the higher the quality of the accommodation should be. The reality is somewhat different from the theory. The theory would be the case if were not for land lords – most of whom are quite fair and responsible people – asking for exorbitant rents whilst not necessarily using the money to maintain the property. The rents will be a challenge for many needing jobs to pay their way, or having to dig into hard earned financial reserves.

It should also be said that the market is not a silver bullet solution to everything, including and especially housing. We have seen in Auckland the damaging effects that a market gone mad is having on people and economic sectors – teachers cannot afford to work in Auckland because living costs are made too expensive by rent, causing principals in turn to worry about whether or not they will have enough qualified staff to deliver the curriculum.

Students are our future. Without trained teachers, doctors, police officers, and so forth the entire economy and way of life tips over. But if our students cannot afford inhabitable accommodation with electricity, running water and working sewerage, then it is difficult to expect them to continue studying, difficult for them to work to earn money to pay for study.

The Government should be concerned. It is election year, and National wishes to have a fourth term in office, yet it denies that the housing sector is in crisis. It denies that there is a teacher shortage in Auckland because of the crisis and it also insists that bringing a large number of migrants in to New Zealand, many of whom have poor English is a working solution. An effect of this influx is to add unnecessary demand to a limited housing stock.

An eight year old Government that has not made tangible improvements to the housing market now is not likely to do so in the foreseeable future. Housing will be an election issue in 2017.

 

The new boy on the block: The Opportunities Party (T.O.P.)

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Businessman Gareth Morgan has introduced a new party to the New Zealand political system. It is called The Opportunities Party, and its philosophy appears to be

But wait. What is The Opportunities Party and what do they stand for? According to Mr Morgan, the Opportunities Party is intended to give people a fair go, and enable the younger generation to have the same opportunities that the older generation(s)have had.

Before I draw any conclusions about The Opportunities Party, I want to see what the costings of their policies will look like. Mr Morgan has said that his tax regime will not charge a single dollar more. Mr Morgan might regret that promise when his other policies such as health, education, social welfare and so forth come out as all will need significant Government funding. As Mr Morgan is not a politician, it could be potentially said that he is just using the opportunity to impart what he believes is the best party and why people should vote for it.

The environmental policy of T.O.P. appears to be a three way cross between Labour, the Greens and New Zealand First. It puts fresh water, climate change, the Resource Management Act and the impact of tourism near the top of its priority list. Mr Morgan’s war on cats might be aimed at protecting the native flora and fauna, but it needs to be a war on possums, with Government funding to develop safer and less problematic poisons that break down more readily in the environment.

With regards to immigration though, I see good intentions with not so good ideas about how to make immigration work for New Zealand. Without going into specifics I think I begin to see loop holes in Mr Morgan’s ideas about making immigration sustainable. Those loop holes are a combination of badly written policy and half hearted attempts at correction, on the basis that “She’ll be right”, or “this will be just fine – we don’t need to do any more”.

Mr Morgan’s party is promising policy on climate change, health, education and our constitutional arrangements. Will he take a step to the left now that he is in office, in return for time being granted to further develop the policy platform, find good candidates to impart the policies and get on with some serious fundraising. So close to the election, Mr Morgan and his party have a lot of ground to cover quickly if they wish to catch up with Mr Trump and the Trumpolution.

Christchurch recovery getting on; Cathedral is not

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As we approach the 6th Anniversary of what I call Black Tuesday, 22 February 2011, Christchurch is a city alive with reconstruction of the Central Business District. Office workers are moving back into the city in large numbers, giving spaces and places that were dead a couple of years ago new life. Large businesses such as Kathmandu are establishing corporate offices and call centres in new buildings. The seat of regional Government has now taken up residence in Tuam Street.

Out in the suburbs it is still a case of West Christchurch and East Christchurch, divided by a margin of slowly worsening road conditions, increasing numbers of randomly empty sections and roads and drive ways that go nowhere. The urban red zone has ceased to exist as the condemned houses have now been demolished and their owners/tenants have moved on. Endless road works, road closures and a lack of amenities in the eastern suburbs have also made parts of Avonside, Dallington and New Brighton off putting to visit. And despite the time passed, there are still houses being randomly pulled down in western Christchurch because the owners have finally settled with their insurance company and decided to rebuild.

img_20160713_165012 Christchurch on the whole has come a long way in the last year or so, with parts of the Arts Centre now reopening, and looking absolutely magnificent. The Art Gallery is doing well and the annual World Buskers Festival is on right now, attracting buskers from all parts of the planet. And in the last few days, the Sign of the Kiwi, a well known turn of the 20th Century cafeteria at the top of Dyers Pass has reopened.

But whilst most of Christchurch is making progress, there is one part that is not. The Anglican Cathedral that gives Cathedral Square its name is crumbling slowly before everybody’s eyes whilst the Anglican Church dithers over the most famous building in Christchurch. The Church had wanted to demolish the Cathedral, but were aware of the potential for a massive and possibly ugly backlash if that happened. The dithering, it should be noted is not about a lack of money as the Anglican Church has huge financial reserves it can draw upon. The dithering is because, wanting to demolish the Cathedral is politically and socially very unpopular. An attempt at compromising by drawing up three options does not seem to have found much support (I favoured Option 2, but would not have said no to Option 3 if some use for the bells from the collapsed tower could be found).

Because of the haggling around the Cathedral, not much effort is being put into redeveloping the Cathedral Square precinct. And as a consequence, the area is quite sad and barren with no reason at all to linger at night time, and not much more even in day time. The unknown person who said that it might take 10-15 years before the C.B.D. is fully functional again, was not joking!

It is sad. There is a Catholic Basilica on Barbadoes Street that is significantly larger than the Cathedral and in some respects possibly grander to look at. Its owners have, to their credit announced firm plans to restore the Basilica to its former glory. Like the Anglican Church, the Catholic Church in New Zealand has access to significant financial reserves.

So, Christchurch will just have to continue waiting and hope that the Anglican Church takes a hint from the Catholic Church and gets moving with a long term solution to the issue of what to do with Christchurch Cathedral. Until such a time comes, the precinct will continue to look barren and dead.

Transparent to the world, but not so to Kiwi’s

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Every year Transparency International release a ranked list of nations transparency. 176 nations featured in the most recent version, which was released a couple of days ago. This project aims to create a sense of understanding of how a nation is performing in terms of its Government departments; state servants and elected officials.

To be in the top 20 for most nations would be a huge effort. But New Zealand has consistently been in the top 5, along with Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Finland. For the outsider looking inwards it seems free of major scandals, has a highly accountable security apparatus and relatively responsible police force. No major human rights abuses happen and New Zealanders seem relatively happy and free. And first place among all those nations seems to be justified.

Or so it seems from the outside. Non-Kiwi’s on work visas here have told me New Zealand is the best country, and when I have asked them why, they have often said no corruption (for a person whose first language is not English, “no corruption” might be easier than ” minor or low amounts of corruption”).

But whilst this is great news – and it is – it raises some serious questions about the process that new immigrants need to take to become fully fledged New Zealanders.

So whilst I admire the achievement and Transparency International saying so, we can be better in terms of how New Zealanders perceive the issue. Government departments need to get better at answering Official Information Act requests in a timely manner.  Unless it poses an obvious national security threat, an O.I.A. request is legally required to be fulfilled. There need to be meaningful measures that can be taken when corruption is detected, which both stop the act of corruption dead, but also discourage it from happening again. The courts need to be more willing to enforce the harder end of New Zealand law when serial non-compliance is happening.

It is on this note that I say I expect Peter Thiel and Immigration New Zealand to come completely clean on how he became a New Zealand citizen and able to buy up a substantial chunk of land. What grounds and what mechanism has the Government used to enable this and other purchases of land that New Zealanders should have had a say in, happen? What was the role of the Immigration Minister in all of this? New Zealanders have a right to know that their land is not being taken from under them by stealth using very wealthy individuals.

So, will the Minister for Immigration come clean now and tell us how Mr Thiel got New Zealand citizenship, or are we going to have to drag it out of him?

Government cracks the whip on Wellington’s quake prone buildings

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After introducing emergency powers to make buildings safe in response to the Kaikoura earthquake, Dr Nick Smith, Minister of Building and Construction, has firmly announced his intention to use them. The announcement that hundreds of Wellington building owners will be made to secure their facades and other features likely to pose a threat in an earthquake, is an acknowledgement of a duty of care that building owners, the government and relevant agencies have to the public, to the people who work in them. And ultimately to New Zealand and New Zealanders as a nation and a people.

In just one year, 300 individual Wellington buildings are going to have to be brought up to code, or evacuated. This is leadership. It will be quite unpopular with building owners, but frankly Wellington is out of time. It dodged an artillery shell rather than a bullet on 14 November 2016. Had that earthquake happened in Cook Strait, thousands would have died, a considerably larger tsunami would have been triggered and for the second time in less than a decade New Zealand would have been mourning the deaths of innocent people who simply did not need to die.

Admittedly the time frame IS tight. By the time a contractor is arranged and comes in and does a survey of the building, several weeks might have passed. This will be especially the case now with a large number of building owners suddenly needing the same services and only a limited number of building inspectors available to do the work.

But no one was expecting the combination of faults that ruptured on 14 November 2016 to do so. What Wellington’s many faults have in store shall only be known when they rupture, by which time it will obviously be a bit too late. And the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences points to an elevated earthquake risk throughout the upper South Island and lower North Island at the present time.

So, I welcome Dr Smith’s announcement about how this will be tackled. I welcome too, the positive statements suggesting that at least a few organizations and agencies have learnt the lessons of Christchurch.

So, long story short: Let this happen because one day it will save a lot of lives. And hopefully E.Q.C. will be able to go easy on adverts like the last one in this clip.