Dangerous Murmurings Pulse from Hulse

Guest post by Stephen Berry from Affordable Auckland 

Anyone who reads between the lines of politician gobbledygook should be very worried by comments about rental tenancy tenure made by Auckland’s Deputy Mayor Penny Hulse .

Following the release of the ‘Residential Mobility’ report from the Growing Up in New Zealand study, which shows high levels of residential movement in young families,  Ms. Hulse says she is “disturbed” by findings that “a high proportion of our most vulnerable, being children, have unstable accommodation in the first years of their lives.”

This situation is not acceptable on any level [she says]. Auckland Council’s Housing Action Plan identifies the need for more secure rental tenure as a key priority. We are calling on the government to urgently address this issue and put some options to the community on how this can be achieved.

Comments like that clearly indicate Hulse wishes to further regulate the housing and rental market – that she harbours a barely-concealed desire to write another volume of ill-begotten regulations making life worse for all involved.

Should go down that path, she would effectively be condemning her low-income constituency to homelessness.

The more rules that are put in place to supposedly protect renters actually add costs for landlords, which result in higher rents and fewer rentals. If legal minimums are implemented for periods of tenancy, for example, then landlords will become more risk-averse in dealing with young and low-income applicants, making it far harder for them to rent a house.

Policies supported by the Len Brown-nosing Hulse have already shut the young and poor out of buying property. Now she clearly intends to shut them out of the rental market too.

Stephen Berry believes that with the waning of Len Brown’s political career, Penny Hulse is now the greatest political threat to the freedoms and wallets of Aucklanders.

Brown knows his career is over in 2016 and that is why his behaviour is increasingly erratic. Hulse on the other hand clearly has plans to succeed Brown as Mayor, which is very concerning.

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Stephen Berry was the Affordable Auckland candidate for Mayor in the 2013 election. He finished in third place.
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