Speaker kicks out Simon Bridges and Nick Smith as Auckland MPs are pariahs for the day
9 Mar, 2021 03:51 AM
3 minutes to read
Simon Bridges on being ordered to leave the House. Video / Mark Mitchell
Do not approach the Auckland MPs. Few are more diligent about enforcing the Prime Minister s Covid edicts than the Speaker, and so he issued orders to ensure Auckland MPs returning to Wellington could remain in their level 2 bubbles while everyone around them swung about at level 1.
Journalists in the Press Gallery, staff and party whips were all told that nobody could get within 2m of the MPs from Auckland.
Emergency housing has spiralled out of control on Labour s watch. Thousands more New Zealanders are being squeezed out of the private housing market by escalating prices and a shortage of housing options, she said.
Willis said Housing Minister Megan Woods and her colleagues had repeatedly said a motel was not an appropriate form of housing. Crowded motels are becoming hotbeds of dysfunction with families reportedly being forced to raise their children next door to gang members, drug-dealers and criminal activity. This is happening on the government s watch and it must take responsibility for fixing it.
Housing Minister Megan Woods.
Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas
Out of control : Government spending $1 million a day on emergency housing
9 Mar, 2021 06:12 AM
2 minutes to read
National Party housing spokesperson Nicola Willis: Emergency housing has spiralled out of control on Labour s watch. Photo / Dom Thomas, RNZ
National Party housing spokesperson Nicola Willis: Emergency housing has spiralled out of control on Labour s watch. Photo / Dom Thomas, RNZ
RNZ
The Government is spending $1 million dollars a day on transitional and emergency housing such as motels and boarding hostels.
Last quarter, $82.5m was spent on emergency housing grants for accommodation in motels or similar - equalling more than $900,000 a day.
In addition, almost $155,000 was spent on motels for transitional housing.
Emergency Housing Costing Taxpayers $1m A Day scoop.co.nz - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from scoop.co.nz Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
ROBERT KITCHIN/Stuff
Grant Robertson: There is no single silver bullet for addressing the housing crisis . The market has moved quickly and rapidly in a way that is not sustainable. We have to confront some tough decisions and we will do that in the coming weeks.
The Finance Minister is worried about the risk that interest-only home loans pose to the country s financial stability – and that s just the half of it. This month is crunch time for home-owners and investors who signed up for the Government s mortgage deferral scheme in last year s economic downturn. In the six months after the first lockdown, more than 61,000 bank customers deferred all repayments on consumer loans totalling around $21 billion. The deferral scheme was extended another six months and gradually, property owners restarted payments – but by the start of the year, the banks were still exposed to $2.4b in mortgages on which the borrowers weren t paying back the principal or the interest.