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MICHAEL BASSETT: THE GREENS AND THE COALITION OF CHAOS

It’s hard to suppress my feeling that Green Party MPs inhabit another planet. Their policy announcement at the weekend that they would introduce rent controls and hold increases to 3% pa told me that they know nothing about the history of housing or rent controls, either in New Zealand, or anywhere overseas. The Greens’ great nostrum for helping low income people in 2023 was first tried using a series of Rent Restriction Acts during World War One, more than a century ago. The idea proved to be disastrous. And when revived by the First Labour Government it was no more successful.



Many private investors who owned rental properties in 1914 and who found their rents frozen at below the inflation rate, sold their houses, and invested elsewhere. This severely reduced the stock of rental housing. Thirty years ago, I went carefully through the official records of the then Department of Industries and Commerce and briefly included some details in my book The State in New Zealand, published in 1998. There are other sources of information in Wellington that are easily accessible to the Greens which give no encouragement to their brainwave. After an initial decade of rent controls came the question of what was a “fair rent”. Efforts to legislate this did nothing to ease the growing shortage of rental houses. And this lack of rental houses, due to the law of supply and demand, pushed up rentals on any that were still available. To get any sort of decent rental housing in Auckland, families had to pay to landlords exorbitant amounts of “key money” up front. Difficulties in this area were one of the factors in the First Labour Government’s decision to construct state houses. They enabled ministers to bypass the private sector. In Europe where a higher proportion of homes have always been rented, experiments in rent controls proved even more futile. In many cities the private rental market collapsed. A Swedish economist observed in the 1940s that only pattern bombing had done more damage to Europe’s cities than rent controls!



But the Greens don’t bother to do any research about issues. Its MPs react to problems instinctively; they blurt out those reactions and then label them “policies”. The Greens, of course, have reason to be worried. With the Labour Party fading before their eyes, suffering from collapse within the Cabinet – think Stuart Nash, Meka Whaitiri, Michael Wood, Jan Tinetti, Kiri Allan – the Greens haven’t yet been gathering strength from Labour’s decline. They have obviously decided to make a bold strategic play for extreme left-wingers who are as ignorant and unreflective as they are themselves.



What with a depleted Labour Cabinet struggling to survive, which is obsessed with all things Maori, and a rag-tag Maori Party that can’t string three sentences together intelligibly and makes up grievances on the run, it is clear that one of our options on election day is a Coalition of Chaos. But before we get too excited about the other option – National and ACT - let’s analyse what they stand for. At its King’s Birthday conference ACT presented an array of policies that tackled many of today’s problems. Whether National is yet sufficiently enticing to inspire voters remains to be seen. There was plenty of noise at its recent conference but little of substance emerged. We know that National is opposed to rent controls, and is generally sounder on economic policy. Despite efforts to dismiss Christopher Luxon’s law and order policy by the Herald’s Claire Trevett, Audrey Young, and Michael Neilson, all of them seemingly charter supporters of Labour, this is an area where the centre right clearly outdoes the Coalition of Chaos.



But what of National’s stance on Labour’s never-ending crusade to ram Maori advancement at us every which way we turn? Day in, day out we have people who to the naked eye are almost entirely European in appearance, adopting Maori names, mokos and tattoos, and claiming unverified tribal connections, seeking to advance causes from which they stand personally to benefit. Newspapers, Radio New Zealand, and both television stations have become captives of Labour’s woke agendas. Nonsense “principles” of the Treaty of Waitangi; Gobbledegook titles for institutions that we once related to; confusing road signs; and a false name for New Zealand have all leapt out at us since the 2020 election. Yet what National intends to do about it all is anything but clear at this stage. A promise to slash the funding for the Maori Language Commission would be a promising start. Putting English titles first in a language spoken by nearly every resident of this country, rather than in a language largely being created daily by the Commission, and understood by virtually no one, would also be reassuring. And I haven’t even started on the big-ticket items like unscrambling Three (or is it Ten) Waters and healthcare where chaos rules in our hospitals because a succession of Labour ministers convinced themselves that a poorly-thought-through structural overhaul of the hospital system in the middle of a pandemic would benefit Maori. There was some National mumbling about getting rid of Te Whatu Ora, and slowing moves towards co-governance, but I’ve seen few specifics. And what about the future for the amendments to the Resource Management Act, all 1,300 pages of them that Labour says it intends to rush through?



Having slammed the Greens for their off-the-top-of-their-heads announcement on rent controls, perhaps I should be pleased that National seems to be being super cautious? But the clock is ticking towards Election Day and more clarity from the centre right is surely necessary?

 
 
 

116 comentários


pat.j.dyer
pat.j.dyer
07 de jul. de 2023

you're a champion Michael. Love your articles. Where would we be without you. Thanks for keeping us informed.

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Madmac
Madmac
06 de jul. de 2023

I have been around a long time and remember the dume policies tried every few years. I have always liked Muldoons Quote about the Greens" For those people who want to spend so much to save the Earth. spend so little time on it" On the matter of opinions. I believe it's right to have them and to be able to give them. However, I do wish they would attach facts to their opinions not stupid or unintelligent. uneducated and impossible answers. I can feel so much your eminent and serious concerns about what's been going on. OK let's not pass on your concerns to those who are writing here. let's get your heads together so that you c…

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KiwiResistance
05 de jul. de 2023

Hi Cherie @ the act party. One day when you're all grown up you'll understand that we live in a pseudo democracy & voting, especially out of protest. simply perpetuates the sham. Act is not a real patriotic nationalist party, it's an ultra-liberal globalisation party, It was your hero Roger Douglas & all his turn coat ex labour comrades that began the unraveling of our nation. So a vote for them is a vote for our foreign masters & the continuation of deep set rot.


Politics today, from left to right is dominated by all manner of puffed up liberals (extremist progressive's to self serving libertarians). You're all part of the problem, not the solution.


The bit by bit racist…


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John Bishop
John Bishop
04 de jul. de 2023

re your 2nd paragraph re rentals- I have always been somewhat mystified by the continual claim that when landlords abandoned ownership of rentals there is never any mention of how that enabled others in "the middle classes" to buy them, when they were precluded from buying said properties whilst landlords held them. I am NOT saying that rent controls were good but rather that sometimes the end result can be beneficial. At the same time as this happened (or shortly after) the Govt. (us taxpayers) built many State Houses for the same less well off renters. I am fairly sure there will be many who think I am a loopy leftie but this situation is exactly what happened to th…

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Basil
Basil
04 de jul. de 2023
Respondendo a

Agree. I recall my own grandparents who rented a solid little state house on a quiet suburban street - he had fought in WW1 - and eventually they were able to buy the same property, where he and Nana lived until old age pushed them out (into aged-care facilities).

Not everything that originates from socialist ideas is bad of course, but our current government seems hell-bent on distorting the entire fabric of our society.

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Cherie
04 de jul. de 2023

Hi Kiwi Resistance. You go first out to the streets and stand up for democracy and equality for all and I will gladly follow. Right now I'm going about my fight by working hard for ACT NZ which stands on principle and good policies which is (currently) the polite way to make real change. I'm also keen to stand alongside you on the street to demonstrate my abhorrence to tribal rule.

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KiwiResistance
04 de jul. de 2023
Respondendo a

Hi there Cherie, well aren't you the good little libertarian activist then. Act is not a real right wing nationalist party, it's an ultra-liberal globalisation party. It was your hero Roger Douglas & all his turn coat ex labour comrades that began the unraveling of our nation.


Politics today, from left to right is dominated by all manner of puffed up liberals (extremist progressive's to self serving libertarians). You're all part of the problem, not the solution.


By the way, I've done my fair share of street fighting both here & in Europe & have the physical & emotional scars to prove it. I'm pretty long in the tooth now & I've done my bit, but I will agree with…


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