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Then maybe just don't claim more than the average person earns in a year to live in your own mortgage free apartment.
Maybe especially don't do that when you get up and give speeches about how people who can pay should pay, and how tight money is and how you're gonna make cancer patients look for work or cut their benefits. Or do, I dunno I'm not a PR expert.
He seems like an absolute greedy CEO brain type of person. His argument when questioned about the allowance was ‘I am entitled to it’, even though he’s one of the wealthiest PM’s we’ve had and is the first PM in 34 years to claim the allowance. All the while cutting budgets across the government and getting tough on the poorest beneficiaries.
Do people vote for people like him because they think he’s going to make them richer? When have these multimillionaire CEOs ever come into a company to enrich the workers below them? He’s not even pretending to care or relate to the average kiwi. Even John Key came off as more empathetic person and leader.
Being PM just feels like it’s another step in the ladder for him to enrich himself and advance his career.
Poor old Mr Luxon can’t handle living in a house that is at about the same standard as the thousands of slumlord rentals on the market. What a surprise. Can we expect his government to improve rental conditions, or is everyone else also expected to go live in their mortgage-free apartment instead?
Man, it's a real shame that there aren't legally enforceable minimum standards for the quality of rentals that would require landlords to provide their tenants with basic standards of warm, safe, healthy homes rather than wrigging out every single cent of profit they can out of people who just need somewhere to live. That'd be kinda cool right? Maybe balance out the disproportionate amount of power landlords have over their tenants?
Tired, yes. But if it's so bad it's unliveable (his words), why won't he let the media see? Has it really gotten so much worse in a couple of years?
I think there is a very real difference between someone with a low income and a comfortable income in terms of what they consider an acceptable residence.
If the guy has 20ish mortgage free properties, then he's got to be an order of magnitude of wealth above the comfortable income person, so his standards are likely a lot higher. It's likely not "unlivable", just not of a standard appropriate for the head of the country.
But now I think about it, letting the media see is gonna be a disaster because the first thing they will do is go and talk to one of his tenants in one of those properties and see what standard the house is in compared to Premier House.
I suspect his rental properties will be in better condition than Premier house actually, mostly because a lot of landlords prefer to have a better quality property, in good condition, as you tend to get a better standard of tenant.
Owning and renting the bottom of the market as a landlord means you're also dealing with the bottom of the market with your tenants, from my understanding.
It probably depends on the specific properties. But you're right, there is definitely a group of landlords that have higher quality properties, but I also know landlords that just buy any old property, hand it over to a rental agency, and do nothing but the minimum legal requirements.
It could go either way really.
