I think it's a huge conflict of interest when it's MPs' own properties. Essentially taxpayer funds are supporting the accumulation of untaxed capital gains for every MP who does this. Its yet another example of why our housing policy is so borked when those elected to make the rules are so compromised in multiple ways.
I like your idea of KO building purpose accommodation for MPs.
Student dorms, two to a room with random assignment across parties to encourage maximum sitcom-esque situations like drawing a line down the middle of the room
Agree, I was talking generally there but my overall point was - it sounds like the kinds of things you're after are Greens policy, so you should vote for the Greens :)
Well hey, if it's consistent with your values and what you want out of a political party why not? The beauty of our electoral system is you don't have to just vote for Labour or national. Yes one of them will be in govt but the more votes the minors get the more they can push for things
Govt should just build a big apartment building near Parliament and they can stay in that while in Wellington. If MPs want to live somewhere else they pay for it themselves
The Greens, who have a comprehensive tax policy with relief targeted at the lower end and rebalancing the tax take to come from capital gains and wealth instead of being heavily weighted to taxing work and consumption.
Wow 10kg is a lot. I had a similar exercise when I moved into my house and my parents took the opportunity to dump all my childhood stuff on me to get it out of their place. I didn't have quite that much lego but still a fair bit. Sorting out by colour first worked well for me because I had a few quite distinct sets.
It's finally arrived, I'm really liking it so far. Consistent torque, nice stuff like auto cruise control, very quiet. I haven't got much into the recharging habit so far to compare that with my old ICE car but it seems good - my brain is still acutely aware of the range estimate going down as I drive but I'm sure thatll go away.
It's a bit of an adjustment having all sorts of menus and beeps and cameras - it's all a bit sensory overload driving at the moment. My old car was about 15 years old so had none of that haha. Probably more a new car thing than an EV thing
They have said they will build state houses, but they haven't elaborated on how much and what level of funding they'll allocate to do it.
All their housing policy seems to mention is cutting the Kainga Ora land acquisition fund to help pay for their 'build for growth' policy (I. E. Giving councils funding for new houses to incentives them to be more accommodating to new housing, not a bad idea in of itself on the face of it tbh)
National produced negative state houses last time they were in government and presided over the massive sell off in the 90s. I do not trust their words over their track record on this.
Incidentally, when googling their housing policy to check this, I got this which isn't related but made me lol.
I don't think it's surprising, but good research to have backing this up nonetheless. Pretty much every problem in this country can be traced back to the lack of affordable and stable housing. It makes complete sense to me that a state house with security of tenure comes out better than a private rental you know you have for a year at most (and likely less if no cause evictions come back).
Incidentally, the authors of this study have done a lot of research into housing quality too. They found that providing insulation grants for our notoriously cold and damp houses generated savings many times the cost due to less pressure on the health system and fewer sick days from school and work.
When the people who would have bought $2m properties get blown out of the water by foreign buyers, theyll look to lower priced categories. This is how this will drag house prices up overall.
It seems to depend on where you count your costs and benefits, and who is included in that.
Research seems to say that lower speeds are beneficial to society overall in a range of ways, National only seem to be counting car drivers and their right to continue taking up most of our public road space at the expense of everyone else.
Seems that way