It’s time to improve squatter’s rights in New Zealand

 

There is something that most Kiwis have in common. We usually care about each other and want to see everyone have a chance at a successful life. One of the exceptions to this rule is of course landlords, who more often than not will bleed their tenant’s dry, or simply evict them out of spite.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the Labour government recently implemented their Healthy Homes Standards, which became law on 1 July 2019. Many slumlords were so outraged about these improved standards, that instead of adhering to the affordable requirements to provide a warm and dry place for people to reside in, they simply evicted their tenants.

This has inevitably increased the number of homeless people in New Zealand, including those who now live in vehicles.

Yesterday, 1 News reported:

Number of children listed as living in cars more than 200

The number of children living in cars has gone up dramatically since the Government came to power.

Those on the ground are blaming rent prices and are pleading with the Government to do more.

The number of children listed as living in cars has gone from 51 at the end of 2017, to 228 in June this year.

The numbers are pulled when people apply for help from the Ministry of Social Development. People are asked where they're living and if they have children.

The number of people living in tents also climbed, with 21 at the end of 2017, up to 84 this June.

One of the solutions to this growing problem would be to increase squatter’s rights in New Zealand. We have lots of empty houses, many of them becoming derelict because of disuse and vandalism, and we have lots of homeless people who cannot afford to rent a house because the welfare system doesn’t provide enough money to those without an address for service.

Prior to 2013, taking possession of an abandoned house used to be legal in places like England and Wales. This meant in times of crisis, such as after the Second World War, people could still find accommodation and survive. But unfortunately the real estate industry has achieved too much influence over our politicians. The door was shut on the homeless in Great Britain, even though allowing people to occupy unused dwellings so they don’t become exposed to the elements is entirely the right thing to do.

The alternative is to have rough sleeping and more children living in vehicles, whereby they will struggle to attain an education and sustain their well-being, which will have lasting negative effects for them and society in general.

$4 million worth of mansion in Oriental Bay sits abandoned.

 

Similar to the Tories in England, unfortunately the National Party in New Zealand isn’t proposing any solutions to this growing problem. In fact their policies would make things worse. Along with proposing harsher sanctions on disabled beneficiaries, which would assuredly increase the number of people who cannot afford to pay their rent, the blue "teams" current leader, Christopher Luxon, is only interested in throwing stones at Jacinda Ardern.

Along with providing homeless people with more resources to attain a roof over their heads through improved squatter's rights, the Government should also implement an Empty House Levy to ensure property owners who aren’t utilising their assets properly are penalized appropriately. We don’t want lots of homeless people on the streets while perfectly good houses remain empty…and we don’t want Kiwi kids living in cars either.

Kelvyn Alp - Arsehole of the Week

Even if you only have a cursory interest in politics, it’s likely you’ve heard of an outfit called Counterspin Media, which is a disinformation programme that propagates fake news and encourages people to undertake severe acts of violence. Based along similar lines as Infowars, Counterspin is run by a trumped-up little fascist named Kelvyn Alp and (to a lessor degree) his misguided partner, Hannah Spierer.

 

Wikipedia reports:

Alp is a director of and programme host for Counterspin Media Limited. Counterspin streams on the Steve Bannon-led GTV network, whose content has been described as "a significant source of fake news and misinformation".

A Counterspin contributor interrupted a press conference by New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern in November 2021, loudly shouting misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines, leading Ardern to temporarily halt the event.

Alp was an agitating force at the Convoy 2022 New Zealand protest, calling for the protestors to storm parliament and arrest MPs, while making multiple references to killing them.

The thing you need to keep in mind about failed politician Kelvyn Alp and his band of disinformation merchants is that they’re essentially cowards! Instead of actually working towards change, Alp tries to manipulate others into doing his dirty work for him because he’s too gutless to put himself in the firing line.

In effect Counterspin Media preys upon the disaffected and mentally unwell with extremist views designed to cause other people harm. But worse than that, Alp and his cohorts pretend to care about other people’s legitimate grievances to elicit support for their own objectives…far right objectives that will not help to resolve any problems New Zealand is currently facing.

Along with a number of other deluded and dangerous operatives, Kelvyn Alp’s activity to undermine our society was recently exposed in an excellent NZ On Air funded documentary called Fire and Fury, which was a look behind the scenes of the Parliamentary riots.

 

Our latest @StuffCircuit documentary, Fire and Fury: who's driving a violent, misinformed New Zealand - and why. #FireAndFury https://t.co/wqbAscI7KE

— Paula Penfold (@paulapenfold) August 13, 2022

 

What really clinched it for Kelvyn Alp winning this week’s Arsehole Award was his response to this entirely factual documentary. Instead of acknowledging any wrongdoing on his part, the conceited Alp went online and bleated for three hours in a live-stream…a diatribe where he even reiterated his threat to kill New Zealand politicians.

 

Last night a number of the conspiracy grifters featured in @NZStuff's Fire & Fury doco joined a three hour Counterspin Media episode to criticize the programme.

Here's Kelvyn Alp on the episode doubling down on his threats against the government: "I reckon you should hang them." pic.twitter.com/dfjh36o6qc

— Nick (@StrayDogNZ) August 14, 2022

 

In my humble opinion, Kelvyn Alp, who is assuredly a complete and utter arsehole, needs to be shut down before he encourages some poor deluded fool to actually kill someone.

New Zealand, we have a problem

Dear Aotearoa, we have a major problem that is inhibiting our success, namely racism. Destroying old and young alike, racism in New Zealand is the silent assassin, a killer that permeates through every facet of our society.

On Thursday, the NZ Herald reported:

Cricket: Black Caps great Ross Taylor's racism claim outlined in new book

In his autobiography Black and White, which is released today, the Kiwi-Samoan star reveals he faced racially charged "banter" in the dressing room from teammates.

Taylor, who retired from international cricket in April after a career spanning 16 years, doesn't specify at what level of the game he experienced the racist comments.

"In many ways, dressing-room banter is the barometer. A teammate used to tell me, 'You're half a good guy, Ross, but which half is good? You don't know what I'm referring to.' I was pretty sure I did. Other players also had to put up with comments that dwelt on their ethnicity," Taylor writes.

If you don’t believe Taylor that racism is a problem in New Zealand, then look no further than our opposition parties who recently had to backtrack on their ‘one person, one vote’ political tropes, because it was revealed that property speculators who own multiple houses in different districts have additional voting rights.

On 31 July, Scoop reported:

National Will Restore Equal Voting Rights

A National Government will restore the basic principle that all New Zealanders have equal voting rights, National’s Justice spokesperson Paul Goldsmith says.

 

The Act Party also reported:

Prime Minister refuses to acknowledge one-person one-vote

The idea that one person should have one vote, and every human being is born alike in dignity isn’t one that should be so difficult to answer for anyone who believes in a functioning liberal democracy.

A few days later, 1 News reported:

MPs' views on multiple property-owners getting extra local votes

New Zealand has a rule where some ratepayers who own property and pay rates in different local body areas can have additional votes at the local body elections.

...
 
Deputy National leader Nicola Willis: I think the principle of one person, one vote is critically important, but what we are seeing with the issue of people who are resident in two jurisdictions is that they are not being afforded anymore vote in that jurisdiction than someone else. These are the sorts of issues I would be interested in seeing how many people are actually in that position. But my view is they're not actually altering the proportionality of representation in that region.

ACT's Brooke van Velden: The ACT Party's point is that we always go back to one person one vote, we do believe in one person one vote, so if this is a particular area that is causing concern, we are open to looking into it but I don't think it is the problem that it looks like, really anyone bringing this up on Twitter is just trying to deflect from the Labour Party's problem that we actually have a cost of living crisis, crime is going through the roof...

I don't think this is a real problem.

So it's ‘One person, one vote’ when we’re talking about the Labour led Government moving to improve Maori representation. But it's ‘One person, MORE THAN ONE VOTE’ when we’re talking about rich predominantly white citizens who own numerous houses.

Talk about a lack of consistency and self awareness from both the National and ACT party representatives.

You only have to read a few reports detailing how people of colour are more likely to be arrested, prosecuted and receive harsher sentences than their Pakeha counterparts for similar crimes to know that there’s a terrible injustice that’s being perpetrated in this country.

However, just in case you needed any further convincing that we have a racist society that is supported by racist institutions, along comes another born to rule National Party MP, Sam bloody Uffindell.

With the help of three of his accomplices who used wooden bed legs, Uffindell attacked a 13-year-old boy, bashing him while he was sleeping and leaving him with serious potentially life-long injuries. In fact they beat their victim black and blue, and there are apparently photos to prove it. But instead of calling the police for such a vicious and cowardly assault, his school, King’s College, covered up this dastardly and criminal act.

The National Party also covered up their knowledge of this crime during and after Uffindell’s selection as their candidate, something that would never have happened if this bully were a person of colour.

Now a National Party MP with all the perks, Sam Uffindell, who wasn’t even properly expelled for the serious assault on a 13-year-old, then went on to intimidate numerous students at his new school. The bully then harassed his university flatmates, smashing up their house during one incident in a drunken and drug induced rage, which led to one flatmate having to escape through a window for fear of her own safety.

Sam Uffindel, the underwear sniffer, obviously got away with this atrocious behaviour because of the colour of his skin and his privileged background.

On Wednesday, Newsroom reported:

National’s hypocrisy over Sam Uffindell’s behaviour

If a Māori kid who was over 6ft tall committed the kind of assault Uffindell committed and it hit the headlines, National would be calling it thuggery and demanding he be locked up.

…

Uffindell may no longer beat kids up in their beds in the middle of the night. But he still aspires to grasp at the power to beat up others who he considers beneath him. This is a guy who now wants to wield the power of the state against people who have already been victimised.

Our jails are also full of people, the majority of them Māori, who have been beaten up by those who represent the state. One government report found that 83 percent of young male inmates had been in state custody as children. What good did that do them as children?

The revelations about yet another National Party MP being a bully couldn’t have come at a worse time for National, and in particular their current leader, Christopher Luxon. Not only was Luxon’s beneficiary bashing policy announcement at their latest conference an eye opener, he also had to go into damage control in regards to National’s vetting process and his own knowledge about Uffindel’s extensive history of abusive behaviour.

Until the National Party fixes it’s selection process and ensures that its candidates aren’t more of the same old racist fools, then they aren’t a viable alternative to the current Government. Not unless you want a more divided and racist New Zealand.

Sam Uffindell must resign

You’ve got to wonder why the National Party knowingly hid information from the public about their newest MP, Sam Uffindell. Surely they must’ve realised that their secret would eventually leak into the public domain. New Zealand is far too small for cover-ups of this kind to be effective.

Despite his violent past, which should have automatically disqualified him from a position within a political party, Sam Uffindell was accepted as a candidate for the National Party with the proviso that he phone one of his victims to make an insincere apology.

National initially said that they knew about the serious aggravated assault when Uffindell applied to be a candidate. However their leadership “team” is now saying they only learned of the dormitory attack yesterday.

Uffindell is still refusing to say whether National Party leader Christopher Luxon knew. He also claims to not remember if he used a bed leg in the violent assault that left his victim with serious injuries.

Yesterday, Stuff reported:

National MP Sam Uffindell 'asked to leave' prestigious King’s College after violent nighttime attack on younger boy

 The man said the original incident happened on the last night of term in 1999, inside one of the King’s College boarding houses.

He had been in bed in his dorm room after lights out, when four older boys came in and jumped on him and began beating him, he said. He thought the boys had been using wooden bed legs unscrewed from their dorm.

 

It seems rather incongruous that National holds itself up as the party of law and order while continuously selecting candidates that aren’t suitable because of their unlawfulness. The National Party must ensure that Uffindell resigns and then explain why they have such a low bar for their selection process?

It should go without saying that Sam Uffindell needs to leave politics. He has after all brought the House of Representatives into disrepute. But in my opinion the Police should also investigate the fact that a 13-year-old boy was badly beaten by multiple assailants using offensive weapons. Such crimes should not go unpunished just because one of the perpetrators is now in a position of power.

The opposition is in disarray

What on earth is going on with the main opposition parties at the moment? Both National and ACT have been making numerous flip-flops and miscommunications, clearly indicating that they aren’t a viable alternative to the current Labour led Government.

Of particular note is the duplicitous reasoning given for why they support wealthy property speculators being able to vote in multiple local body elections, while arguing that Maori shouldn’t be allowed to have any say in how our water resources are managed.

'One person, one vote' is David Seymour’s racist campaign slogan; a rule that the ACT party now says shouldn’t apply to wealthy and predominantly white property speculators. It’s pretty obvious that allowing property owners to have multiple voting rights in numerous districts is unjustifiable, and also the main reason why councils have an overabundance of white representatives on their disproportionate boards.

Chris Bishop explaining why the principle of 'one person, one vote' should not apply to property speculators who can vote in multiple local elections: pic.twitter.com/Kgb2vivBaw

— antihobbes (@antihobbes) August 2, 2022

Then we have Christopher Luxon similarly looking like a fool by trying to keep his trip overseas secret. Instead of being upfront about his holiday in Hawaii, presumably to receive advice from John Key, Luxon’s social media "team" misled the public into thinking that he was hard at work in Te Puke.

In fact, the National party is currently all over the place, not only with their online campaigning, but also with their very limited policy announcements.


Today, the NZ Herald reported:

Act, Labour, Greens accuse National policy of stoking inflation as National drops tax policy

National has copped friendly fire from its likely coalition partner, Act, which is arguing that National's tax plan would stoke inflation by cutting taxes and increasing spending at the same time - sending a wave of cash through the economy.

Act isn't alone - nearly every party in Parliament has lashed out at National's bracket indexation policy, which would reduce income tax by raising tax thresholds, for being inflationary.

National disputes the idea that the tax cuts would be inflationary, but its finance spokeswoman Nicola Willis has confirmed the policy was on the bench for now, with the party working up a new tax policy for the next election.

Obviously providing the wealthy with another windfall would be inflationary. Invariably that’s one of the main causes of inflation. It's not just overseas headwinds. In New Zealand the business assistant program provided companies with billions of taxpayer dollars recently. They then posted record profits from what is essentially price gouging. These profits end up in wealthy people’s savings accounts...rich people whose main pastime is to over-inflate the price of our essential goods and services, such as housing.

The National party claiming that it doesn’t need to be consistent with its tax policy is as stupid as claiming women who have abortions should be imprisoned for ten years or that the wealthy should have more voting rights than the rest of us. It’s bad politics and indicates that the opposition will turn on a dime with even the slightest change in the wind.