Press Release

MANA Vice President John Minto

MANA wants a “Paula Bennett Housing Policy”

Nothing for Low-Income Families in Housing Policy Announcements

Monday 29th October

“The National government’s proposals for reducing the cost of housing are next door to useless for low-income families” says MANA Vice President John Minto.

“They will most likely improve the profit margins for property developers and give a few more middle-class, double-income families a chance to purchase a house but there is nothing to address the housing crisis facing low-income families. These families have been pushed to the margins. They have been shunted off the state house waiting list onto a subsidised treadmill of expensive private rentals and no hope to own their own home. Many live doubled or tripled up”.

Mana wants a “Paula Bennett Housing Policy”.

In an interview early in her political career Social Development Minister explained her circumstances to a journalist who reported it like this:

“When she was only 19, Paula Bennett was on the Domestic Purposes Benefit but was able to buy her own home in Taupo with a Housing Corporation loan for $56,000. Bennett said she’d worked part-time but that she “pretty much fell apart because I was exhausted and I went back on the DPB”.”

“Where is this option in Finance Minister Bill English’s big plan?”

“Low income families are treated like crap by National. MANA’s housing policy would put them alongside other New Zealanders with opportunities to get out of the rent trap. The first priority must be 20,000 new state houses which would bring multiple direct benefits to families facing the housing crisis as well as knock-on benefits to middle-income New Zealanders”.

ENDS

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