Racist Trade Me flatmate ads censored

Trade Me flatmate listings advertising no pets, smokers or Indians, have been called ‘‘straight out racist’’.

The website has changed the wording of two listings, one in Rotorua and another in Christchurch.

Trade Me received two complaints about a Rotorua listing in Springfield, and a Christchurch listing in Wigram received three complaints, the company said.

Trade Me spokeswoman Millie Silvester these kind of listings were rare, and the vast majority of ‘flatmates wanted’ listings raised no concerns.

‘‘Flatmates wanted ads are tricky, under the Human Rights Act you are allowed to be very specific about who you want to live with. For instance a young woman can say she wants a 25-30 year old female flatmate. It is important that when someone lists a room in their house they’re honest so everyone is on the same page and they’re not wasting anyone’s time. However, we don’t want our members to be d .... when writing their ads.’’

Rotorua district councillor Raj Kumar said the advertisement was ‘‘straight out racist’’ but he was not surprised by it.

Kumar, who is also a business owner and employed migrant Indian staff, said some of his workers had been rejected without reason despite having good references and being shortlisted.

‘‘We promote ourselves as a multicultural and bilingual country, so posts like this can be surprising. But we have to remember the racist comments don’t reflect how the whole society thinks,’’ Kumar said.

‘‘People need to travel more and see the world, see how other cultures live.’’

Silverster said Trade Me’s trust and safety team have tools to monitor all listings including flatmates wanted listings and will check anything out ‘‘that raises a flag’’.

‘‘We will remove anything that our team thinks goes too far, or we will speak to the member and edit their listing if we’re concerned, but we err on letting listings remain.’’

Rotorua Multicultural Council president Margriet Theron said it was the first time a racist listing had been brought to her attention.

‘‘You should just not be placing advertisements like that.’’

She said while it would have been difficult for Trade Me to monitor all its posts when volume was so high, they should have acted quicker.

‘‘Renting a room or deciding who you want to live with is an important decision. But you have to interview people and go through the correct processes.’’

NZ Property Investors’ Federation executive officer Andrew King said racist listings were rare and those he had come across had been by tenants.

King said once a house was let to a tenant, the landlord had no say in who lived with them, apart from limiting the number of people living there.

‘‘There are pretty strong rules on what you can and can’t say as a landlord. But it’s the tenant’s home, they decide who their flatmates are,’’ King said.

King said apart from breaching the Human Rights Act, it made no business sense to be racist when looking for tenants.

‘‘Even if you don’t advertise, you might have preconceived ideas about different races and that’s not a good idea. You could be writing off very good tenants unnecessarily.’’

It made no business sense to be racist when looking for tenants. Andrew King