Party’s policies fuelled housing crisis
Zizi Sparks, in her editorial, writes that the housing crisis “snuck up on us slowly but surely”.
Really? Where was she living during National’s nine disastrous years in power?
Between 2010 and 2017, it introduced three policies that ensured a housing crisis would arise.
First, it began selling state houses, most of which were bought by landlords who immediately doubled the rent.
As homeless appeared on the streets, in doorways and under bridges, National then decided foreigners could buy up as many houses as they liked.
As the numbers of homeless grew into the thousands, National doubled down and allowed unlimited immigration, with no new housing or infrastructure to service all these people. It was a perfect storm.
By September 2017, voters had had enough of watching families sleeping in cars, in tents in the middle of winter and bunking two or three families in a garage. The Government was dumped by the people, horrified that New Zealand had allowed this to happen.
Economists, at the time of the election, agreed it would take a generation to fix the problem.
The housing crisis was deliberately created by a party which has never believed that the poor should be homeowners at all.
Lizzie Murdoch
Mangakino
Ma¯ ori adequately represented on council
Having spent some years on the council, like Glenys Searancke, I have listened to many councillors speak on behalf of Te Arawa over the years.
As Rotorua Residents and Ratepayers member Glenys Searancke rightly points out, the Rotorua council has always had several councillors representing Te Arawa, and they have been elected at large as a result of standing and being counted.
As pointed out, four of the 10 councillors at the moment are Ma¯ ori. In my view, Rotorua has historically been more than adequately represented by Ma¯ ori, which makes a mockery of this Government’s claim of lack of Ma¯ ori representation, and hence its undemocratic change in legislation.
(Abridged) Mike Mcvicker
Rotorua