Who pays for the meth scandal?

As the story has developed, and the human cost is clearer, some level of compensation seems inevitable.

Aweek has passed since the Prime Minister’s Chief Science Adviser, Sir Peter Gluckman, released a report whose reverberations are still being felt. In the report Gluckman’s office showed that Housing New Zealand had used the wrong measure when testing state houses for meth contamination.

Up to $100 million was wasted on testing and remediation, under the assumption that state houses were being used as clandestine drugmaking laboratories. Around 300 people were evicted over three years and property was destroyed unnecessarily. In some cases, Housing NZ added insult to injury by demanding that evicted tenants pay the costs of decontamination.

A 2016 press release revealed Housing

NZ was seeking $34,000 from an Ashburton tenant and $17,000 from one in Whangarei. The release boasted of Housing NZ ‘‘being more vigilant than ever around retrieving costs from ‘offending’ tenants’’.

It had signs of a moral crusade. Meth use has been seen as a scourge and its users are routinely demonised. State housing tenants became collateral damage in a war on drugs.

Housing NZ chief executive Andrew McKenzie finally fronted for interviews yesterday, after repeatedly refusing to talk about the scandal. He apologised but the question of who is to blame remains murky. The Ministry of Health is certain that it met several times with Housing NZ and ‘‘routinely’’ pointed out how the guidelines should be applied.

McKenzie claimed Housing NZ was never given ‘‘formal written notification’’ by the ministry that it was misusing guidelines, but during an interview with RNZ yesterday, McKenzie conceded that Housing NZ was told ‘‘this is not the best threshold to use, but it’s the only one available’’.

Hopefully, a clearer picture will emerge of these communications. McKenzie only became chief executive in 2016 as a new standard was being developed. Under his management, Housing NZ has recognised that ‘‘tenants need a stable home to have the best chance of working through addiction issues’’, rather than eviction.

But how far does McKenzie’s admission of historical responsibility and sense of regret take us? Hundreds of vulnerable people had their lives disrupted and property destroyed. They paid a high personal cost for what we might generously call a mistake by managers at Housing NZ, within a political climate that suited the tough-onbeneficiaries rhetoric of former social housing minister Paula Bennett.

People might rightly ask how Housing NZ can or will pay for its mistake. McKenzie has confirmed that no-one at Housing NZ will lose their job over its misuse of meth testing that he now recognises was wrong, but ‘‘the organisation is taking responsibility’’.

There is a blank slate approach. Offending tenants have been taken off a blacklist and Housing NZ will no longer pursue them for remediation.

But will Housing NZ go further and pay compensation? When the Gluckman report appeared, Housing Minister Phil Twyford was unwilling to commit to compensation but, as the story has developed, and the human cost is clearer, some level of compensation seems inevitable.

It is obvious that tenants who were wrongly pursued for costs by Housing NZ should be reimbursed. They should also be compensated for property that Housing NZ ordered destroyed and other costs associated with eviction. That would be a good place to start.