Oh dear! When the marxists think the government is failing things must be bad. Measures for child poverty have worsened under Ardern’s ‘leadership’. Don Franks at the left-wing Redline blog has a look at poverty at the other end of one’s lifetime. Quote.

Quite rightly, there’s growing anger at the level of child poverty and the failure of successive governments to fix it. Statistics New Zealand reveals 254,000 children living in poverty – an increase of 0.4% in the last year.

The other end of life is not all roses either.

My latest bank statement shows my old age pension’s just gone up. After tax I’ll be getting an extra $10 a week after tax. Thankfully I can still teach the three chord trick and play the odd paid gig.

Not everyone’s so lucky. According to the 2017 Material Wellbeing of New Zealand Households report, 40 per cent of my fellow pensioners have virtually no other income source. That means they’re struggling for their food and shelter.

Hardship grants for food have jumped from 9000 in 2013 to almost 16,000 last year.

A larger increase in the number of grants fall the ‘other’ category, which has gone from 14,000 to almost 23,000.

Most of those ‘other’ increases were grants for emergency housing.

Dr Kay Saville-Smith, Director of the Centre for Research, Evaluation and Social Assessment tells why:

“The big change is New Zealand is the increasing numbers and proportions of older people who are entering their older life stages either in housing debt – they have mortgages OR (and very importantly) living in rent. New Zealand superannuation assumes that older people will be mortgage-free owner-occupiers. The tenure revolution means that this is increasingly not the case and in twenty years time we could expect around half of those reaching 65 years to be in rent.”

Susan Jenkins, Executive Officer of housing charity Abbeyfield reports that in recent months older people living in their cars and desperate for affordable accommodation have been knocking on Abbeyfield’s door.

“If National Super is your only income, private rentals are unaffordable.”

What to do? Many of us over 65 are able and willing to work; to most employers we’re simply ‘too old’ for consideration. Such prejudice is socially acceptable. Todays activists seldom rant indignantly against Elderphobia. […] E

Judith Collins must be really enjoying herself at present. Shooting fish in a barrel has nothing on the rich pickings that Twyford is offering her at present. But, as he asserted in the house on Thursday, he stands by all his answers. Mostly they seem to be a repetition of his mantra, “We are providing affordable homes to first-home buyers, and it’s working.”

The trouble is that the first-home buyers are not buying so it’s the taxpayer who is buying houses that no one wants. Quote.

For the first time, the Government has been forced to purchase KiwiBuild homes off a developer because the houses weren’t selling.

The Housing Minister insists the homes will still be snapped up by KiwiBuild buyers.

Wanaka is famous for its bustling tourism, beautiful vistas – and now possibly a thorn in the Housing Minister’s side.

“There is really significant need in Queenstown Lakes District. It has the highest housing costs in the country.”

For the first time in KiwiBuild’s short history, the Government had to purchase homes off the developer. Four of the homes are still unsold nearly six months after being balloted to first home buyers.

But Twyford says this is not a problem. […]

But Twyford is “pretty confident” the homes will sell to first-home buyers. Currently, all KiwiBuild homes are underwritten by the Government – taking the risk off developers, and making them more attractive for investment. End quote.

Is that like “pretty legal”? That one did not work out so well. Quote.

That includes all 211 homes contracted for Northlake.

While the houses are unsold, the Government will stump up the costs for maintenance like lawn-mowing and the cost of marketing them. End quote.

Newshub

But Phil said that they would be “snapped up”. There must be a different definition of “snapped up” where he comes from.

Last December, eight days before Christmas, the prime minister made a regulation that allowed electronic applications for dealer’s licences, licences for gun shows, and permits to import and procure guns – including military-style semi-automatic weapons.

“There appears to be no press statement covering this move on the Scoop, Police, or Beehive websites. Where did the government announce these changes?

“The Government blatantly neglected the fact that an important part of the licencing and permitting process is face-to-face contact with police.

“Personal contact between police and dealers and gun owners is critical to identifying any potential issues that government agencies should be aware of.

“It is astounding that the government thought this regulation – made at the stroke of a pen with the prime minister in attendance – was a good idea.

“Now the government is abandoning any sincere attempt at public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny of our laws in changing the Arms Act.

“The government that has a working group for everything is all over the show on gun laws. It is taking a truly incoherent approach to our firearms legislation.

“I believe our gun laws must change, and I support changing them with proper public consultation and parliamentary scrutiny

“However, good intentions and rushed legislation do not guarantee good and lasting outcomes. There is very real danger that in a rush we will make bad law with unexpected outcomes and loopholes.

“If gun legislation is important, it is important to get right.”