Mike's Minute: Real estate deals shouldn't be race-based

The Dixon Street building debacle surely allows us to ask some questions of the Treaty process.

If you missed it, Dixon St Apartments sold for a million dollars to local Māori under their Treaty deal – the Treaty deal had a first right of refusal clause.

David Farrar: Kainga Ora scams themselves

The Herald reports:

Iwi flipped Wellington’s Dixon Street flats for just over $3 million, less than three weeks after buying the block from Kāinga Ora for almost a third of the price.

Good on the iwi – they made $2 million. Bad on Kainga Ora for being stupid.

David Farrar: The return of consequences

Stuff reports:

The number of Kāinga Ora tenancies ended due to disruptive behaviour has rocketed up by more than 500% in a year after the organisation started taking a harder line.

In the year ended June 30, there were 74 tenancies ended due to disruptive behaviour.

David Farrar: Of course you should be evicted for not paying rent

Stuff reports:

The tenants of two Kāinga Ora homes in Porirua have been ousted after failing to pay the rent, as the public housing landlord implements a harder line on breaches of tenancy agreements.

Kāinga Ora made successful applications to the Tenancy Tribunal in relation to the two properties, where outstanding rent payments added up to over $72,000.

Chris Lynch: Kāinga Ora reduces disruptive tenant complaints with faster response times

Kāinga Ora has reduced response times for dealing with disruptive tenant complaints, resolving cases in an average of 13 days compared to 60 days in early 2024.

New data revealed that since July 2024, 553 Section 55A notices have been issued to tenants for disruptive behaviour—13 times the number issued during the same period last year.

DTNZ: Kāinga Ora faces major restructuring including 330 job cuts

Social housing agency Kāinga Ora is set to cut approximately 330 jobs in its latest wave of restructuring, following an earlier announcement of 232 layoffs.

Some of these new cuts are expected to come from key teams, including a significant reduction in staff from its Te Kurutao Group Māori, which was established to address Māori housing needs.

Heather du Plessis-Allan: We got away lightly with Kāinga Ora's leadership change

Now, onto the outgoing boss of Kāinga Ora and his $365,000 pay-out to leave - no surprise here, but the tone that’s been adopted on that is that it’s massive. Mega. Eye-watering.

No it’s not, that's tiny for a CEO. That's only half his annual salary, that's not a lot.

When Tony Gibson quit the Ports of Auckland, he was on $820,000 a year, which is not that much more than the boss of Kāinga Ora - he got a pay-out of about $1 million.

David Farrar: Kainga Ora needs significant change

Some key facts from the independent review into Kainga Ora:

* Kāinga Ora annual operating expenditure has grown from $1.5 billion in 2019/20 to $2.5 billion in 2022/23

* Deficits forecast to grow from $520 million to $700 million

David Farrar: Worst landlord #87247

Stuff reports:

Kāinga Ora has been ordered to pay a tenant $6000 after she was “terrorised” by her neighbours and fellow social housing tenants, who pooed outside her door and allegedly threw a woman off a balcony.

Poor woman.

Ele Ludemann: Anti-social tenants no longer tolerated

Anti-social tenants will no longer be tolerated in state houses:

Kāinga Ora – Homes & Communities has been instructed to end the Sustaining Tenancies Framework and take stronger measures against persistent antisocial behaviour by tenants, says Housing Minister Chris Bishop. . .

Ele Ludemann: What were they doing?

How did this and who let it happen?

The number of new social houses sitting vacant across New Zealand is completely unacceptable, Housing Minister Chris Bishop says.

 

“I was dismayed to learn that, as of late last year, the total number of vacant social homes in New Zealand was 3,906, or five per cent, of New Zealand’s total public housing stock.

David Farrar: How bad is Kāinga Ora?

Chris Bishop announced:

“A recent report by the Treasury and Ministry for Housing and Urban Development found that Kāinga Ora's level of debt had grown from $2.7 billion in 2018 to $12.3 billion in June of this year. Advice released last year suggests that if Kāinga Ora continues on its current trajectory, their debt would reach $28.9 billion by 2033.

Jason Walls: Toothless Kāinga Ora must be given the power to evict violent tenants

There seems to be a problem at New Zealand’s social housing agency – Kāinga Ora.

They either can’t, or won’t, evict tenants no matter how much harm they cause to their neighbours.

Kate Hawkesby: You can’t bluff your way out of this and keep telling us we feel safe

Well we learned yesterday that state housing tenants call the shots at Kāinga Ora, in that they know they won’t be evicted so they do whatever they want.

Figures showed despite 10,000 complaints, only three had been evicted in 18 months. So, bad behaviour rules the roost there.

Then we learn also this week that gangs clearly run Ōpōtiki. Again, they know they can do whatever they want, and an entire community will just shut down around them. The fact this is happening in our country, in 2023, beggars belief.

Reynold Macpherson: Why Scepticism Greets the Rotorua Housing Accord

 

Introduction

The content of the Rotorua Housing Accord prepared for signing on 9 December is different than the uncritical reports published at various news outlets. It suggests that the articles were based on the press releases provided by the Ministers and our Mayor and were intended to spin the intended outcomes of the Accord, rather than clarify the substance and implications of the Accord. When the limitations of the Accord are added to the legacy of distrust created by the previous Council, it is understandable why residents and ratepayers remain sceptical. 

Point of Order: New appointees will get to sit around the table with Tipa Mahuta

No matter which health authority board they are joining

We were reminded today of the formidable influence exercised by Tipa Mahuta, sister of Local Government Minister Nanaia Mahuta.

Tipa’s name popped up – twice – in a press statement from Health Minister Andrew Little, who has made more appointments to the boards of the authorities that run the country’s health services.

Mike Hosking: Why won't the Govt get tough on those abusing the system?

I assume you saw the story of the poor old 80-year-old woman in New Plymouth who has been put into hotels by her family to give her a break from her Kainga Ora neighbours.

The claim is she has been terrorised.

These stories aren't new. Earlier this year we got the revelation that the agency had not evicted anyone despite behaviour no normal person would even come close to tolerating.

If this Government has one major issue next year in the election, beyond the policy specific issues they already face like lack of delivery, Three Waters, co-governance, and an economy in recession, it is their inexplicable acceptance, if not encouragement, of people who refuse to conform, behave, to be normal, or just be decent human beings.

Mike Hosking: Govt housing failures continue to pile up

I get the impression that the part that Megan Woods doesn’t get about the monstrous debt Kainga Ora is taking on to build their social housing dream is several fold.

One, they will never meet demand. The queue is 27,000 long and growing. They will never build at the rate they need to. They don’t have the manpower. They don’t have the money.

The point she made on the programme yesterday that was fair was that, yes, the debt is massive, but so is the asset. And by-in-large houses grow in value.

Point of Order: The govt knocks down old state houses and builds new ones – but the net result is a waiting list that cries out for demolition

It was a simple question about housing and Point of Order listened closely to Housing Minister Megan Woods’ response.

Alas, we are none the wiser on one part of the question, about advice on how long it will take to get the waiting list down to around 5844. But – if we have done our sums correctly – we can tell readers there has been a hefty increase in the numbers of people on the state housing waiting list over the past five years.

We took a crack at working this out after Parliamentary questions were put by National MP Chris Bishop to the Associate Minister of Housing (Public Housing), who presumably was not in Parliament at the time. Megan Woods did the answering.

Bishop asked:

Point of Order: Who said Shane Jones was all washed-up? Three Waters (and co-governance) have flushed him back into politicking

Shane Jones — remember him?- — has re-emerged into public life and thrown a hand grenade at the Labour government on its Three Waters policy. He has done so in a think-piece for the op-ed page in the NZ Herald at a time when the Ardern government thought it had recaptured the high ground in the nation’s politics, with its measures to take the sting out of inflation.

But Jones’ intervention has widened the battleground.

The implications, separately, are interesting. Does it foreshadow Jones, a close ally of NZ First leader Winston Peters, stepping back into politics? Could it be that Jones senses that here is the issue that could revive NZ First from its moribund state?