Bridges: P payouts ‘wrong’

National Party leader Simon Bridges is defending his comments that the Government is providing ‘‘compensation for meth crooks’’ after Housing New Zealand tenants were kicked out of their homes over flawed methamphetamine tests.

But the Government says that’s not true, and that ‘‘people were denied natural justice’’.

About 800 families that would have costs reimbursed were in homes that tested under the new contamination level.

In a report into the issue last week, Housing NZ said that between July 2013 and May

2018, 4958 of its properties were tested for methamphetamine contamination. That was out of 103,929 tenancies and 70,994 properties in service. Of those tested, 2483 were above the threshold at the time, which has since been found to be too low.

Of the properties found to be affected,

1214 were tenanted at the time of testing. Of those people, 264 were rehoused in other department properties. Of the 791 tenants who were considered responsible for the contamination and had their tenancies ended, 275 were barred from having a Housing NZ unit for a year.

An assistance scheme, announced in the report, includes the payment of a discretionary grant to help tenants who experienced hardship as a result of the previous methamphetamine policy. That grant is expected to be from $2500 to $3000.

Bridges has criticised the discretionary grants as ‘‘compensation for meth crooks’’.

But Housing and Urban Development Minister Phil Twyford said that wasn’t right.

‘‘Housing NZ has also acknowledged that these people were denied natural justice as there was no baseline testing before the test that led to their evictions.’’

Anyone convicted of the supply or manufacture of methamphetamine from a Housing NZ house would not get compensation.