Mike Butler: Cold housing and the poverty pimps

A rental property warrant of fitness will not stop another child dying of cold, as Children’s Commissioner Russell Wills and the Green Party would have you believe. Why? The answer was right there in the One News story titled “Otara state houses 'damp, full of cockroaches' but Govt defends HNZ after death”, which was the death of Emma-Lita Bourne after a pneumonia-like illness.

One minute in, reporter Max Bania said that the house had a heater provided by Housing New Zealand but the family seldom used it because they couldn’t afford the power bill.