Clearly I was wrong to assume you might have been invited to a party.
Printable View
Obviously it was a Labour ideology that everyone should get a house from Housing New Zealand, not from private landlords. They successfully made it near on impossible to make ends meet as a private landlord with ever increasing legislation aimed squarely against private landlords on the one hand and Housing NZ paying competing in the market with often ridiculous buy offers way above market value on the other hand.
The result clearly is much higher rents for tenants that they otherwise would have been, much of it subsidised by Government.
It is great to see some sanity returning to this sector, but sadly too late for many that have already sold out or will be doing so soon.
Labour set booby traps for the Right all the time. Changing conventions on taxation vis a vis landlords, then if National restore the previous status quo they are ‘looking after their rich mates’. Likewise, Labour change the convention on how benefits are calculated, then if National restore the previous status quo they are ‘stealing money from beneficiaries’ or - even an even better narrative from the Lefts point of view - ‘stealing money from beneficiaries to fund tax cuts’.
The key foundations stones of the Lefts strategy are as follows:
National: to be portrayed as literally hating ‘the poor’ and always ‘looking after their rich mates’.
Landlords: greedy, grasping, selfish, evil, unjust, undeserving.
Beneficiaries: downtrodden, saintly, victims.
Tax cuts: bad, unjust, invariably portrayed as ‘funded through cuts to essential public services & benefits’.
Government spending: must continuously increase exponentially to fund ‘critical public services’. Any cuts to government spending ‘remove essential public services’.
Labour always act to set traps for the Right in order to drive their disingenuous narrative. They are constantly on the look-out for new ways to do this. They just can’t make it too overt.
Say Labour were to announce a one-off levy of $10,000 on every landlord in NZ to pay for ‘critically needed infrastructure’. Of course they would not to this - too obvious, too overt, but ‘the trap’ would be essentially the same: if National scrapped it they would be described as ‘looking after their rich mates’.
Say Labour were to announce a one-off grant of $10,000 to every beneficiary to ‘reduce poverty and close the inequality gap’. Of course they would not to this - too obvious, too overt, but ‘the trap’ would be essentially the same: if National scrapped it they would be described as ‘stealing money from the poor to fund tax cuts’.
Rental properties are indeed like any other businesses. It has been the case since time immemorial and rentals provide a critical service to society.
Why should other businesses be as easy to leverage as rental properties? They typically involve more risk and why should lenders assume the risks?
One of the answers to NZ’s pre-occupation is a CGT which politicians avoid like the plague. Not the fault of property investors.
This business of ‘setting traps’ became even more pronounced since rabid marxist spin-doctor Craig Renney became an advisor to Grant Robertson. Renney is now back in the union movement as ‘Chief CTU Economist and Director of Policy’. Who he ‘really works for’ is moot anyway: Labour is simply the parliamentary wing of the Union movement.
Sometimes he’ll pop up on TVNZ as ‘an economist’ casting doubt on Nationals numbers -
https://www.1news.co.nz/2023/08/31/n...rky-economist/
(And in response Nicola Willis said:
"Can I just point out that Craig Renney, who you've just had on; his immediate prior job to the one he has now was advising Grant Robertson," she said. "And the CTU, who he works for, yesterday put up attack ads about the National Party.)
Sometimes he’ll be writing columns in The Post (available on the web at Stuff) such as
‘KiwiRail ferry costs – prioritise New Zealand, or prioritise landlords?’ (Again, witness the disingenuous narrative is ‘cutting essential public services to look after their rich mates’.)
https://www.thepost.co.nz/a/nz-news/...tm_id=mh_stuff
Renney understands propaganda like nobody else. He knows that if you call your policy / legislation ‘Fair Pay Agreements’ then if National removes it it makes it seem that they hate ‘fair pay’. It’s clever because it is so easy to do.
Each business and investment activity has different legislation and rules with which to comply.and they also have different mix of returns and taxes and/or subsidies. So obviously residential investment is treated differently. In NZ investor real estate does not contend with a general CGT or stamp duties that other countries impose. Owning someone else’s home faces a different set of business circumstances, legislation and service requirements to producing ball bearings.
In feudal times life, shelter and business activity may well have been at the whim of Seigneur and Sovereign.