Houses

I know it will seem strange using the words “significant” and “Phil Heatley” in the same sentence without something more pejorative in between, but over the long weekend while everybody was away the housing minister and former credit-card king slipped out a small but significant announcement on TVNZ’s Q+A programme about the houses the govt owns and rents out.

Showing he may perhaps have learned some small amount at the housing conferences he was sent to while in opposition, he announced that the government no longer sees its role as an owner of houses (not before time), and will seek to sell some houses to existing tenants; to transfer others to lobbyists private housing providers (complete with tenants, whose rent the govt taxpayer would still subsidise); and for the remainder will implement rolling reviews to ensure that the 22,000 people, or 32 per cent of state house tenants, who have been in their houses for at least 10 years, are not living in more subsidised house than they need.

It’s not a full solution to divesting govt of a job it shouldn’t even be doing (I look forward to that day with no expectation at all, just as I do to the day it stops subsidising landlords by paying tenants an Accommodation Supplement) but this is a far bolder announcement than I thought the soft-shelled credit-card dodger could countenance.

Watch out for him to backtrack on it all once the protests start.