20/03/2005

Family living in garage today receive the keys to a brand new home built in just 5 days

Five carefully selected South Auckland families will receive keys to brand new houses built over this last week by over 700 volunteers including a team from the New Zealand Army.

One family will today be able to move from a garage where they have been living into a brand new 3 bedroom room built by Habitat for Humanity Manukau that has been part of a large community event called Blitz Build 05.

Each house has been built from donated and sponsored materials; volunteer trades-people and teams from all around New Zealand, America, Canada and the U.K have worked alongside each family to build their own home.

During the week the School of Military Engineering from Linton Army Camp have assisted in the rapid build. Corporal Thomas says, that “it has been great that we have been able to assist families in real need here in New Zealand; and this week has helped us see and be part of a well managed speed build programme which will assist us in emergency reconstruction in overseas disaster zones.”

Habitat for Humanity International will meet the recent tsunami distaster by building 25,000 homes in Asia. Over the week of the Blitz Build raised $ 25,000 dollars to donate to this project.

The keys of each house will be handed over to families at 1.00 pm today (Sunday 20th March) in an emotional ending to a week of extreme hard work.

ENDS

Gordon Campbell: On John Key’s Agenda For The Nation

There seemed to be three main components to John Key’s speech :

a) tax cuts largely paid for by a hike in GST
b) mining in national parks and on conservation land, while building more roads.
c) giving firms easier access to the r&d from Crown Research Institutes, so that business can continue to get the taxpayer to pick up the tab for the research that keeps them competitive.

After all, corporate welfare is always such a blessed thing – its only social welfare that corrodes enterprise and ambition. More>>