Birkenhead boomers campaign to stop any new homes being built anywhere near them while hundreds of kids live for months in motels; Oranga Tamariki reveals one child in care lived in motel for 651 days
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that Aucklanders have to pay a private company to read their publicly accountable mayor’s comments on an important public transport issue?! 😔 Surely this could’ve been released as a press statement (or even a letter!).
I think this key article is the best summary of our current scenario - 'magical thinking' - it doesn't add up. This reflects the same scenario at a global level to the approach to ecological collapse and population overshoot (why we have climate change) - 'magical thinking'.
That’s a logical fallacy claiming you cant build here because there’s no supermarket. It’s just as correct to say, we’re building here so we need to get a supermarket. Currently a minimum 10min drive to Birkenhead or Glenfield to get to one.
Beachhaven has such a diverse community, with multi million dollar water front properties, to a street over kainga ora social house. We’re a microcosm of NZ, successfully matching the national result more times than any other electorate. But the area is also rapidly gentrifying, with many young couples, my wife and I included, moving in as one of the few “affordable” locations left on the shore. If anything is changing the community here, it’s that. But you won’t hear the nimby’s complaining about young professionals moving in, many with the stereotypical pram and dog in toe. There’s a real undercurrent of racism and prejudice against these developments, that less overtly lurks in the room during those meetings.
I had a quick look at Google Earth. Cresta Avenue in Beach Haven seems quite a hike from main transport routes, and perhaps for that reason may not be the best place for densification. On the other hand Zion Road in Birkenhead is just a few metres from the main drag Onewa Road. So John Gillon's proud obstruction seems born of nimbyism rather than commuter-transport anxiety.
Surely the place for densification is the Auckland isthmus. All of it. Remuera golf course is ideally situated for a beautiful green housing project, mixing moderately high-rise buildings of six or seven storeys with trees and open spaces. The government should seize it under the Public Works Act.
Yes, ideal in our area would be Northcote Point and Birkenhead, but that was blocked from development due to ‘special character’ housing protections, as was gleefully bragged about by Danielle Grant (local board member) in last years re-election campaign. And yes, she was re-elected by said home owners.
Bernard open this one up for public consumption. This issue laid bare by your analysis here and the contrasting stories highlights the profound dysfunction of our “magical thinking”.
Thank you for your bluntness on this topic. Had a laugh when reading the article yesterday that the community did not have sufficient funds for legal advice due to budget cuts from Wayne Brown. Certainly some irony in there...
When will National be up-front on intensification? At present they have barely spoke about the topic since Luxon became leader, and (as you point out) are towing a line of cross-party support for intensification, while also being a champion for NIMBYs. At some point their stance needs to become clear... right?
Boomers gonna boom - the same short-sighted individualism & greed that gets us into all the trouble in the first place... we’re supposed to be an altruistic species, yet there’s precious little evidence of that, with housing being the perfect illustrator. If you ever want WP or Business Insider gift links I can happily share those!
They sound like untrusting and afraid people and frankly I don’t blame them. Nothing is working as it should and commitments by Government or anyone else are meaningless. I’d be building elsewhere rather than scarring already scarred areas. Every place needs more green space and better design so if there is resistance move on to more expansive and appropriate building sites. It’s not worth wasting time or the grief. No means no. They don’t really need a reason.
There are plenty of beautiful places in the world where people live in apartments & high rises. Think about the Randstad, about Venice & Barcelona. Yes, shared green spaces are the key & traffic calming. I think the newish development at Hobsonville looks great. It’s time to grow up, & house our people but with good design & PT
We have all these tourists returning and instead of staying in hotels and motels some prefer the BnB. These houses are no longer available for Kiwi families to live in. So, we end up with some of these families going into motels instead of the houses. Duh!
The AirBnB which is owner occupied and where the spare bedroom is rented out is fine, but having a whole house dedicated to renting out is wrong. They undercut motels because they don't have to meet the regulations and costs of motels.
Interesting question Steve. I had a quick search on Airbnb for Beach haven weekend in March and found nine properties. There's only one available next week. Suspect Airbnb more of an issue in Queenstown.
There was an article in The Press in the last week about Williams Construction, who build apartment blocks.
Things had quietened down for them recently so apartments they couldn't sell they were renting out on AirBnB. Unhappy apartment owners in blocks who were told units would not be AirBnB.
It’s clear poverty, and especially housing-specific poverty, underlies and fuels family and personal dysfunction, and that action now is critical to reducing the rate of harm and the perpetuation of misery and disadvantage. But action, however appropriate and on whatever scale, will take time to filter through on a societal level. Alongside economic reform, we need urgent, large-scale measures to manage the harm expressed as “challenging behaviour”. This spillover of profound distress has some local manifestations that are easily invoked to justify nimby-type reactions, compounding the distress and harm in question.
As for boomers being condemned to booming – this is really beginning to smell like birthdate bigotry. Can we be very clear that we have no more control over our dob than our ethinicity, and that prejudiced assumptions about our politics, beliefs and behaviour hurt?
Yes Janet. I refuse to be a boomer just because of my birthdate. We can't lump anyone we don't know well, into any category, which is why community is so important - people greeting one another in their neighbourhoods and hearing their stories. All people have a story to tell which often belies the first impression they give. As for poverty caused by housing insecurity - those kids in motels don't need bedsits and studios, they need 2 or 3 bedroom dwellings with room to play inside and out. Not just a TV screen to counter their frustration at being hemmed in. Kids can't play on the street as it is full of parked cars and too dangerous. Parks were once prevalent but just wait, they will be built on too.
And still, no one of them are mentioning our health crisis, Little has all but disappeared on the nursing Pay Parity issue and back pay issue from 2019 as it’s now in front of the ERA. The DHBs are now threatening to take the pay comparator scale back to the start which will delay us another 18 months as some of the comparators they already have compared nursing to have moved upward of 30% in base rates since they started negotiating prior to covid.
It’s a shambles. Most nurses I know will go to australia as soon as it’s sorted if they don’t own a house or have an immobile family.
The bit I hate is that Andrew Little won't say anything concrete.
It's all "We are training more nurses", or whatever the subject is.
He won't quote any numbers. If he were to say "In 2017 before we came into office there were x,xxx nurses trained in that year. That number is now up to y,yyy", (say x,xxx plus 900).
But that higher number may be embarrassing because it is still less than the number leaving. Which is why we're having to import more nurses.
Exactly, and he won’t front up to us either. He snuck into the hospital to open the new icu wing, and snuck out - literally. He knew he’d be confronted.
The issue around importing nurses from anywhere overseas is their lack of training with Māori and Pasifika i.e. Whare Tapa Whā model and Fono Fale model of care. And the fact that a surprising amount of patients are REALLY racist.
If we could get our kiwi nurses back from overseas it would be helpful. But that being said, I’m leaving. The difference between $35 an hour here or $75 plus meal allowance and accommodation in Australia 🤷🏼♂️
I will go initially for a six week contract I think to get the feel for it, and then possibly another six week after that.
Even though I’m an ICU nurse, my passion is for community and minority groups especially, so ultimately I’d like to try remote nursing. But you need a wide range of experience to get that type of work and I’m still a bit green.
But there is need across all disciplines there (same as here), and lots of need in rural ED.
I don't know why he doesn't as OIA requests have shown that as far as public hospitals go, there has been an increase in nurses employed every year. There are now an extra 2700 FTE nurses employed (a 14% increase since 2018). These figures should speak for themselves, but typical of this Labour government they never seem to accentuate the positive.
Good point, but in reality it’s done nothing to change the staffing ratios (safe staffing levels), pressure on EDs, and especially in rural hospitals - like Greymouth, where I started. Overnight the staffing ratio can get as bad as 1:10, one nurse for ten patients. It’s terribly unsafe.
The other thing about that increase of course is a huge number of us (myself included) were syphoned off into MIQ for quite a while during that time. I was there from October 2020-May 2022.
To be honest I don’t think there have been any done? A lot of my colleagues are considering it.
Interestingly, I applied for my AHPRA registration at a cost of approx AU$500. All I had to do was send a copy of my passport authenticated by the court, provide my New Zealand registration number, and I was approved in under a month. It was a very easy process, and the NZNO and nursing council should be a little worried about that.
The nursing shortage is a good example of our collective magical thinking.
We all want more nurses and that they'll be better paid, study for free etc.
To do that the govt need more income. So either more tax or more printing. Joe public doesn't want either of those options and National are screaming they can somehow do better with less funding. Until we realise more tax is essential for providing better public services nothing will change.
Couldn’t agree more. We need to ensure large business are the top 1% are actually paying their tax, too, not just Joe Public. As Bernard has said here many times, the wage subsidy ended up in the term investments of business owners - there should be a review process.
Yes well I do enjoy your broadcasting voice but even more importantly I enjoy the substance and while you are right on the button it is depressing at times.
I’m truly not sure what the Government thinks it’s up too. Carmel Sepuloni is a sexist, lazy arrogant minister who took no advice implemented bugger all , even when it was most needed from Welfare Advisory Group so she seems TOTALLY out of her depth and they all seem too slow entirely to continue with illegal and unacceptable “status quo”...having two bogans isn’t likely to change much given they’re both career politicians. Can’t see much hope for change needed frankly.
Thanks Kath, but I wouldn't be so personally critical of Carmel Sepuloni. She tried to get a benefit increase through in late 2020, but Treasury and Grant Robertson blocked it on the grounds it would delay a return to surplus. I suspect most of the issue is fiscal intransigence, rather than anything personal.
OMG and now McUlnulty is saying rent hikes are “.OUTRAGEOUS”. What did they think would happen to NZers with bankers off their leashes? Seriously recover the debt via windfall taxes and wealth taxes they have caused to get heat out of the economy and tie up the RBNZ. Invest in people and infrastructure and do it legally and via direct investment, state advances etc. They’re acting as if they don’t understand cause and effect (and primarily on whom the worse). It looks more like racketeering every day. How many of them are paying family members from Govt coffers and lobbying again? No wonder kids ignore the laws. The adults and institutions are dysfunctional and as bent as hairpins. They simply CANT be this thick.
I still think they have been negligent of laws, human rights and duty of care. Carmel Sepuloni is complicit in this continued unacceptable prejudice against women and children as are the rest of them. Especially as things are getting worse by the week and it also is largely caused by them letting the central banks wreak havoc and masses of profiteering by business banks etc. Tax them. I seriously wonder what they’ve been doing for over five years. Other than running their own personal minority agendas and wasting precious time. What needs doing is so self evident.
Who couldn’t get by Grant Robertson? And if she couldn’t she certainly doesn’t have the heft to be Deputy PM given all the evidence she had and so called “values” what a joke.
Does anyone else find it ridiculous that Aucklanders have to pay a private company to read their publicly accountable mayor’s comments on an important public transport issue?! 😔 Surely this could’ve been released as a press statement (or even a letter!).
Absolutely Reuel! The Herald's paywall policy of keeping Op-Eds behind the paywall is very strange.
I think this key article is the best summary of our current scenario - 'magical thinking' - it doesn't add up. This reflects the same scenario at a global level to the approach to ecological collapse and population overshoot (why we have climate change) - 'magical thinking'.
Thanks David. Indeed. It's useful you've reminded us about our climate limits.
That’s a logical fallacy claiming you cant build here because there’s no supermarket. It’s just as correct to say, we’re building here so we need to get a supermarket. Currently a minimum 10min drive to Birkenhead or Glenfield to get to one.
Beachhaven has such a diverse community, with multi million dollar water front properties, to a street over kainga ora social house. We’re a microcosm of NZ, successfully matching the national result more times than any other electorate. But the area is also rapidly gentrifying, with many young couples, my wife and I included, moving in as one of the few “affordable” locations left on the shore. If anything is changing the community here, it’s that. But you won’t hear the nimby’s complaining about young professionals moving in, many with the stereotypical pram and dog in toe. There’s a real undercurrent of racism and prejudice against these developments, that less overtly lurks in the room during those meetings.
Thanks Alex. It's sad. You're right about the coded language used.
I had a quick look at Google Earth. Cresta Avenue in Beach Haven seems quite a hike from main transport routes, and perhaps for that reason may not be the best place for densification. On the other hand Zion Road in Birkenhead is just a few metres from the main drag Onewa Road. So John Gillon's proud obstruction seems born of nimbyism rather than commuter-transport anxiety.
Surely the place for densification is the Auckland isthmus. All of it. Remuera golf course is ideally situated for a beautiful green housing project, mixing moderately high-rise buildings of six or seven storeys with trees and open spaces. The government should seize it under the Public Works Act.
Yes, ideal in our area would be Northcote Point and Birkenhead, but that was blocked from development due to ‘special character’ housing protections, as was gleefully bragged about by Danielle Grant (local board member) in last years re-election campaign. And yes, she was re-elected by said home owners.
Bernard open this one up for public consumption. This issue laid bare by your analysis here and the contrasting stories highlights the profound dysfunction of our “magical thinking”.
Thanks. Israel. Will do that now. Good idea.
That's done now. You're all welcome to share.
Thank you for your bluntness on this topic. Had a laugh when reading the article yesterday that the community did not have sufficient funds for legal advice due to budget cuts from Wayne Brown. Certainly some irony in there...
When will National be up-front on intensification? At present they have barely spoke about the topic since Luxon became leader, and (as you point out) are towing a line of cross-party support for intensification, while also being a champion for NIMBYs. At some point their stance needs to become clear... right?
Yep. I'll be talking to Nicola Willis and Chris Bishop repeatedly about that this year.
Boomers gonna boom - the same short-sighted individualism & greed that gets us into all the trouble in the first place... we’re supposed to be an altruistic species, yet there’s precious little evidence of that, with housing being the perfect illustrator. If you ever want WP or Business Insider gift links I can happily share those!
Feel free to put any in these comments for our other readers to share. Cheers Dr Sea.
They sound like untrusting and afraid people and frankly I don’t blame them. Nothing is working as it should and commitments by Government or anyone else are meaningless. I’d be building elsewhere rather than scarring already scarred areas. Every place needs more green space and better design so if there is resistance move on to more expansive and appropriate building sites. It’s not worth wasting time or the grief. No means no. They don’t really need a reason.
There are plenty of beautiful places in the world where people live in apartments & high rises. Think about the Randstad, about Venice & Barcelona. Yes, shared green spaces are the key & traffic calming. I think the newish development at Hobsonville looks great. It’s time to grow up, & house our people but with good design & PT
How many of the houses in Birkenhead are AirBnB?
We have all these tourists returning and instead of staying in hotels and motels some prefer the BnB. These houses are no longer available for Kiwi families to live in. So, we end up with some of these families going into motels instead of the houses. Duh!
The AirBnB which is owner occupied and where the spare bedroom is rented out is fine, but having a whole house dedicated to renting out is wrong. They undercut motels because they don't have to meet the regulations and costs of motels.
Interesting question Steve. I had a quick search on Airbnb for Beach haven weekend in March and found nine properties. There's only one available next week. Suspect Airbnb more of an issue in Queenstown.
Hi Bernard
There was an article in The Press in the last week about Williams Construction, who build apartment blocks.
Things had quietened down for them recently so apartments they couldn't sell they were renting out on AirBnB. Unhappy apartment owners in blocks who were told units would not be AirBnB.
It’s clear poverty, and especially housing-specific poverty, underlies and fuels family and personal dysfunction, and that action now is critical to reducing the rate of harm and the perpetuation of misery and disadvantage. But action, however appropriate and on whatever scale, will take time to filter through on a societal level. Alongside economic reform, we need urgent, large-scale measures to manage the harm expressed as “challenging behaviour”. This spillover of profound distress has some local manifestations that are easily invoked to justify nimby-type reactions, compounding the distress and harm in question.
As for boomers being condemned to booming – this is really beginning to smell like birthdate bigotry. Can we be very clear that we have no more control over our dob than our ethinicity, and that prejudiced assumptions about our politics, beliefs and behaviour hurt?
Yes Janet. I refuse to be a boomer just because of my birthdate. We can't lump anyone we don't know well, into any category, which is why community is so important - people greeting one another in their neighbourhoods and hearing their stories. All people have a story to tell which often belies the first impression they give. As for poverty caused by housing insecurity - those kids in motels don't need bedsits and studios, they need 2 or 3 bedroom dwellings with room to play inside and out. Not just a TV screen to counter their frustration at being hemmed in. Kids can't play on the street as it is full of parked cars and too dangerous. Parks were once prevalent but just wait, they will be built on too.
And still, no one of them are mentioning our health crisis, Little has all but disappeared on the nursing Pay Parity issue and back pay issue from 2019 as it’s now in front of the ERA. The DHBs are now threatening to take the pay comparator scale back to the start which will delay us another 18 months as some of the comparators they already have compared nursing to have moved upward of 30% in base rates since they started negotiating prior to covid.
It’s a shambles. Most nurses I know will go to australia as soon as it’s sorted if they don’t own a house or have an immobile family.
Interesting times to be a nurse.
Hi Philip
The bit I hate is that Andrew Little won't say anything concrete.
It's all "We are training more nurses", or whatever the subject is.
He won't quote any numbers. If he were to say "In 2017 before we came into office there were x,xxx nurses trained in that year. That number is now up to y,yyy", (say x,xxx plus 900).
But that higher number may be embarrassing because it is still less than the number leaving. Which is why we're having to import more nurses.
Exactly, and he won’t front up to us either. He snuck into the hospital to open the new icu wing, and snuck out - literally. He knew he’d be confronted.
The issue around importing nurses from anywhere overseas is their lack of training with Māori and Pasifika i.e. Whare Tapa Whā model and Fono Fale model of care. And the fact that a surprising amount of patients are REALLY racist.
If we could get our kiwi nurses back from overseas it would be helpful. But that being said, I’m leaving. The difference between $35 an hour here or $75 plus meal allowance and accommodation in Australia 🤷🏼♂️
Wow. The employer paying for accommodation? Or just that it's cheaper in Australia?
Travel or agency nurses get FREE accommodation. Flights to and from as well for contracts over 12 weeks or over seven weeks in Western Australia.
If you go for 6-11 weeks you get a one way flight paid for.
Are you going long-term or short-term Phil?
I will go initially for a six week contract I think to get the feel for it, and then possibly another six week after that.
Even though I’m an ICU nurse, my passion is for community and minority groups especially, so ultimately I’d like to try remote nursing. But you need a wide range of experience to get that type of work and I’m still a bit green.
But there is need across all disciplines there (same as here), and lots of need in rural ED.
I don't know why he doesn't as OIA requests have shown that as far as public hospitals go, there has been an increase in nurses employed every year. There are now an extra 2700 FTE nurses employed (a 14% increase since 2018). These figures should speak for themselves, but typical of this Labour government they never seem to accentuate the positive.
Good point, but in reality it’s done nothing to change the staffing ratios (safe staffing levels), pressure on EDs, and especially in rural hospitals - like Greymouth, where I started. Overnight the staffing ratio can get as bad as 1:10, one nurse for ten patients. It’s terribly unsafe.
The other thing about that increase of course is a huge number of us (myself included) were syphoned off into MIQ for quite a while during that time. I was there from October 2020-May 2022.
Thanks Philip. Interesting. Do you know of any surveys the union might have done on this issue of being willing to leave?
To be honest I don’t think there have been any done? A lot of my colleagues are considering it.
Interestingly, I applied for my AHPRA registration at a cost of approx AU$500. All I had to do was send a copy of my passport authenticated by the court, provide my New Zealand registration number, and I was approved in under a month. It was a very easy process, and the NZNO and nursing council should be a little worried about that.
The nursing shortage is a good example of our collective magical thinking.
We all want more nurses and that they'll be better paid, study for free etc.
To do that the govt need more income. So either more tax or more printing. Joe public doesn't want either of those options and National are screaming they can somehow do better with less funding. Until we realise more tax is essential for providing better public services nothing will change.
Couldn’t agree more. We need to ensure large business are the top 1% are actually paying their tax, too, not just Joe Public. As Bernard has said here many times, the wage subsidy ended up in the term investments of business owners - there should be a review process.
I hope next kaka broadcast has Bernard talking the Robot is awful
That's the nicest thing anyone has said to me in a while! Cheers. Will keep that in mind. Could do a cut down audio version of the above.
Yes well I do enjoy your broadcasting voice but even more importantly I enjoy the substance and while you are right on the button it is depressing at times.
Since nobody else has mentioned it.
From The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
https://twitter.com/BulletinAtomic/status/1617903690907799553
"We move the Clock forward, the closest it has ever been to midnight. It is now, 90 seconds to midnight." #DoomsdayClock
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/nuclear-risk/
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/climate-change/
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/biological-threats/
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/current-time/disruptive-technologies/
2023 Doomsday Clock Announcement
https://youtu.be/KxB9dM0u4mU?t=441
Thanks David. That's very useful. I had missed that. Cheers
I'm surprised it hasn't got more press coverage.
Usually I watch the live announcement, but missed it.
I’m truly not sure what the Government thinks it’s up too. Carmel Sepuloni is a sexist, lazy arrogant minister who took no advice implemented bugger all , even when it was most needed from Welfare Advisory Group so she seems TOTALLY out of her depth and they all seem too slow entirely to continue with illegal and unacceptable “status quo”...having two bogans isn’t likely to change much given they’re both career politicians. Can’t see much hope for change needed frankly.
Thanks Kath, but I wouldn't be so personally critical of Carmel Sepuloni. She tried to get a benefit increase through in late 2020, but Treasury and Grant Robertson blocked it on the grounds it would delay a return to surplus. I suspect most of the issue is fiscal intransigence, rather than anything personal.
OMG and now McUlnulty is saying rent hikes are “.OUTRAGEOUS”. What did they think would happen to NZers with bankers off their leashes? Seriously recover the debt via windfall taxes and wealth taxes they have caused to get heat out of the economy and tie up the RBNZ. Invest in people and infrastructure and do it legally and via direct investment, state advances etc. They’re acting as if they don’t understand cause and effect (and primarily on whom the worse). It looks more like racketeering every day. How many of them are paying family members from Govt coffers and lobbying again? No wonder kids ignore the laws. The adults and institutions are dysfunctional and as bent as hairpins. They simply CANT be this thick.
I still think they have been negligent of laws, human rights and duty of care. Carmel Sepuloni is complicit in this continued unacceptable prejudice against women and children as are the rest of them. Especially as things are getting worse by the week and it also is largely caused by them letting the central banks wreak havoc and masses of profiteering by business banks etc. Tax them. I seriously wonder what they’ve been doing for over five years. Other than running their own personal minority agendas and wasting precious time. What needs doing is so self evident.
Who couldn’t get by Grant Robertson? And if she couldn’t she certainly doesn’t have the heft to be Deputy PM given all the evidence she had and so called “values” what a joke.
"It does not compute". An understatement! Would make great bumper sticker for 2023.