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12 hours ago, Ohokaman said:

Christ, deposits down to 5% and up to four people living in them can get grants so $40k.....why not give them away ?

Wanaka and Te Kauwhata.....???! Who the hell decided they were the places to build houses in ?

As Crusher said " Looking for a holiday bach ? Has Megan Woods got a deal for you...."

:rolleyes:

( Christ, deposits down to 5% and up to four people living in them can get grants so $40k....)

It seems all 4 will be able to sign up for the mortgage and repayments , what a circus , can you imagine what will happen when one or two of them don't keep up the payments .

Speculators will love this one , wack another 50k on the price , that's only $12500 extra per person , $10 a week over 30 years  , what a bargain .

Another hopeless government idea , they don't know what they are doing .

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On 9/3/2019 at 1:39 PM, rdytdy said:

mallard-baby-1068x633.jpg

By JC

A Government Like No Other

This government has to rank as the most inept, illogical and idiotic we have had the misfortune to endure. They sit in the House in Question Time like possums in the headlights. Unable to answer questions coherently, they are only saved from the equivalent of daily roadkill by the blatant bias displayed by Speaker Mallard. His knavery in continually wading to their defence is nothing short of a disgrace.

Worse than that though, are the decisions being made, many which reflect an inability to make sensible judgments. Ideology is overruling rational thinking which highlights a major problem with this government. They find ideology much easier to cope with than rational thinking which requires a mental capacity to first comprehend the subject matter and then formulate legislation based on logical thought. 

 

Examples of where failure has occurred in this regard are:

ENERGY.  The virtual closing down of the oil and gas industry. A Captain’s call. The result is that the industry is sunk, just like the Titanic. Having done that, they declared a climate emergency and told everyone to buy an electric car. They then turned down an application to build a hydro dam on the West Coast in favour of a few kayakers. Hypocrisy in the extreme. If it wasn’t such a momentous act of stupidity we could all die laughing.

TRANSPORT.  The Hamilton to Auckland train. It is, in fact, two trains with two fares and only two stops taking over two hours to complete the journey. Then there’s the Dominion Road tram. The initial costing was two billion but evidently it is now approaching seven. This tells you a lot about the financial prowess of these dunderheads. I wonder where that leaves the business case? Perhaps there isn’t one. Do they even know what a business case is?

EDUCATION.  The closing of Charter schools. They are ruining the lives of children in need simply to please their Union masters. Due to other policy failures, school lunches are now having to be provided. The PM suggests that schools team up with the local bakery. What for? A pie, a doughnut and a coke? She failed to mention who would pay the bakery for the purchase of such wholesome treats. Here’s a better idea. How about the schools team up with parents and ask them why they can’t provide their child with a lunch. Perhaps even dare to talk about parental responsibility.

WELFARE. Their policies encourage lack of responsibility and as a result, the risk of indiscriminate procreation. Carmel Sepuloni made it very clear from the outset that antics in the bedroom were no concern of hers, but she would be only too happy to take financial care of the two legged consequences. The welfare cheques are so good they can’t get the nephews off the couch. And if the statistics are correct, they’re not getting people out of the poverty trap either.

H

13 hours ago, tripple alliance said:

Thomas , you really are a lost cause .

Blind faith is a concern , it's time to get real , what has cindy done for the less well off that has resulted in improving their lives , NOTHING , she is making things worse for them . She increased the rent subsidy , result rents went UP . She increased the benefit , result groceries have risen 6% since she took over , the fuel tax has hit the less well off harder than anyone else , the housing failure is staggering but wait here's another idea ,5% deposit for first home buyers , great but that doesn't build anymore houses so prices will rise .' 

'' Government halves deposit requirement for loans and deposits as part of Kiwi Build reset | ''The Home Start grant currently gives first-home buyers a $10,000 grant to help with their deposit on a first home under similar income caps and price caps, if the buyers have been with Kiwi Saver for five years. (Existing  National policy)

The 100,000 homes over ten years target is gone - and not replaced with any other target. (reason target has gone , can't measure embarrassing failure)

$400m progressive home ownership scheme.  Details are still vague but $400m has been allocated for a progressive home ownership scheme that could include rent-to-buy and shared equity plans for between 2500 and 4000 families .''

So ,VAGUE and COULD , typical , just like the cancer announcement  they don't know what they are doing , where are the 2500/ 4000 home's coming from , that's right from existing stock so this will  push house prices UP  , as I  said it's the less well off that are being hammered by cindys pathetic attempts to govern  .

This government has to go , the failures are all to frequent .

. Its role is to build statehouses. The fiasco that is Kiwibuild proves this beyond doubt. The targeting of landlords with endless regulations means the resulting increased costs are being passed on to the tenants making renting even less affordable. Hence an increase in the housing waiting lists. They obviously couldn’t even work that out.

free-money-630x630.jpg Free Money. Cartoon credit SonovaMin

HEALTH. Millions are being poured into mental health for no positive effect. This is another example of left-wing ideology, that problems are solved by throwing money at them. Then there is the cancer agency broken promise and DHB financial blowouts.

CRIME.  A ridiculous knee jerk reaction following the Christchurch massacre meaning law-abiding citizens are being forced to hand in their firearms while the gangs keep theirs. Judges are now handing down pathetic sentences to honour the Government’s policy of reducing the prison population. Multiple rape = home detention.

This is proving to be a government incapable of governing. The prime minister, as has been noted, is part-time at best, although full time wouldn’t make much of a difference. Her grasp of the issues of the day is woeful as evidenced weekly in the ums and ahs interview with Mike Hosking. The rest of her shambolic team is equally lightweight and clueless. 
We deserve better, but that will only happen with a change of government. National, and don’t we like to moan about them, are nowhere near this level of downright incompetence. With ACT to keep them honest, as opposed to NZF, I think we might get a government that could command some respect.

 

 

 

Trying something always trumps ..doing nothing...Nationals default position...don't have the data,what crisis...etc.etc.

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1 hour ago, tripple alliance said:

( Christ, deposits down to 5% and up to four people living in them can get grants so $40k....)

It seems all 4 will be able to sign up for the mortgage and repayments , what a circus , can you imagine what will happen when one or two of them don't keep up the payments .

Speculators will love this one , wack another 50k on the price , that's only $12500 extra per person , $10 a week over 30 years  , what a bargain .

Another hopeless government idea , they don't know what they are doing .

not to mention how likely it is that (say) 4 young people living in a house together will /move on or out of the area inside a year or two; argue over payments made or missed; argue over selling the place for a quick profit and do it all over again. And what happens when interest rates start going up not down?

I agree TA .. Labour has no idea what they are doing in resolving the housing supply/demand issue..

 

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1 hour ago, eljay said:

Simple answer to the housing "problem" - halt all immigration until the country has housed those already here and have upgraded the infrastructure to cope with that lot.      

Yes stop it for just two years and housing problem is solved , it will have a temporary negative impact on the economy but it will solve the housing problem .

What happened to winstons promise to cut immigration , just more bullshit .

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46342732a9cf9a648dff4a4ec6c65875-1068x80

By JC

All Over the Place Like a Mad Woman’s Custard

So the much-anticipated Housing reset has arrived. 

The first thing it tells you is what a brain dead lot we have running the country. Megan Woods said the target of 100,000 houses in ten years was overly ambitious. Wow! What a eureka moment. It’s taken them all of two years to work that out. She said it meant houses were built in places with little demand. That in itself is a hugely damning admission. Taken at face value that means that without doing any proper work on how Kiwibuild might effectively help those it was supposedly designed for, houses were just being plonked anywhere so as to meet the 100,000 target. What did they think they were doing?  Playing Monopoly. This is the height of irresponsibility. The money being used is our money, taxpayers money, not Monopoly paper money.

 

According to Woods, the government is going to build as many houses as they can as fast as they can using a housing dashboard. What is that? A dashboard taken from a car with the speedometer still attached and a Monopoly house added every time they manage to build one? These idiots really don’t have a clue. It would be funny if it wasn’t so pathetic.

She’s announced a “progressive homeownership” initiative (don’t they just love that word progressive) using $400 million of reallocated Kiwibuild funds whereby up to 4,000 households could be supported into home ownership. I wonder where they got that figure from? This would be through a rent-to-buy or shared equity scheme. Good idea in theory but how well has this been thought through by the Labour party’s brainless trust? What happens, for example, if the person wants to move on from the house for whatever reason? So that’s another $400 million of our money at risk, is it?

Woods says a rent-to-buy scheme is where a person is given a discounted rent in order for them to save to buy the house. Another example of hopeless left-wing thinking. Here’s some free advice for Ms Woods. Charge them the full amount and deduct a certain amount each week which is a form of compulsory saving. Otherwise, what guarantee is there they are saving and not just taking advantage of cheap rent. This is like the university subsidy all over again. These people never learn.

Family and friends will be able to pool their respective $10,000 First Home Grant and KiwiSaver to buy their first home. Family and friends? All very cosy but what happens if there’s a subsequent falling out? According to Marama Davidson there is also a plan where people can own part of a house. Which part? The garage, the loo, the lounge room? God knows how that might work. There are, I might add some saner suggestions in the reset in regards to making money easier to obtain for those first home buyers and those I support. 

As a footnote, an article in a newspaper quoted Ms Woods as saying Kiwibuild is a “leaver” (note the spelling) not an outcome. It could well be the former as per the spelling but most definitely not the latter.

 

 

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Listened to Don Brash this morning,he made some good points 

1.How can you have affordable housing when a section big enough for a dog kennel sells for 3/400k.

2.Houses are approx 50% over valued.

3.A 4 bedroom new build in Phoenix at the moment ranges from 250k to 300k.Even allowing for the exchange rate its still pretty good.

4.Just getting consent to build costs thousands.

Like or dislike him and his politics he speaks sense.

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3 hours ago, eljay said:

Simple answer to the housing "problem" - halt all immigration until the country has housed those already here and have upgraded the infrastructure to cope with that lot.      

dont have to halt all immigration, just be tougher on who is allowed in and who isnt...far too many low income earners getitng their extended families over here havng beben here  afe wyears themselves...too many unskilled workers 

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3 hours ago, flockofewes2 said:

No Govt has the balls to upset the homeowners/investors that vote.The FIRE sector rules NZ.

Thomas even you must be doubting the talents of cindys lot , just hopeless .

I had my doubts weather it was true or not  that  people could combine the first home buyer grant of $10k , it's true they can .

What a kick in the guts for a young family trying to buy a house , they will be competing with a bunch of student etc who are trying to make a quick buck , more cindy logic . 

'' The First Home Grant can now also be applied to a group of buyers, subject to existing income caps. 

It will allow groups to each combine their $10,000 First Home Grant and their KiwiSaver savings to buy a first home together. ''

Potentially 30 could get together and buy a cheapie for $300,000 and pay NOTHING , they could then turn it into party central . Whatever they do it hasn't built another house , just pushed prices up ,  it's a real kick in the guts for  young family's  .

Well done Thomas , you must be proud of cindy and her bunch of incompetents .

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15 hours ago, shodsie said:

https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/national/we-are-not-going-to-stop-our-ambition-pm-still-confident-in-kiwibuild/ar-AAGPC6a?li=BBSVtLJ

 

not even an apology for wasting millions of tax payers dollars...........

i don't think she will be getting too many phone calls from the private sector once her times up.......... 

Mike Greer homes is doing o.k.

The  fact remains the Natz have no intention of addressing a housing crisis they denied existed...they fueled it.

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1 hour ago, flockofewes2 said:

Mike Greer homes is doing o.k.

The  fact remains the Natz have no intention of addressing a housing crisis they denied existed...they fueled it.

Thomas you are in denial of ignorant .

Labour MP Louisa Wall appeared on The AM Show alongside Dr Smith, and said National didn't build any at all. It's true that KiwiBuild is putting taxpayer money into building new homes and buying off the plans .  DIDN'T THAT WORK OUT WELL .

 Nick Smith , "When I became minister, we were building 15,000 houses a year, five years ago. Last year we built 31,000 houses - that's a more than doubling," he told The AM Show on Friday. Three years ago I introduced the HomeStart scheme, which helped 50,000 first-home buyers into their homes," he said.

"Labour is claiming National didn't build any houses - that's just not true."  Statistics NZ data shows when Dr Smith took over the housing portfolio, there were indeed around 15,000 consents for new dwellings. And last year, there were about 31,000. 

There you have it Thomas , just more bullshit and lies from Wall , and what about tyford , what a joke . Watching Ausse channel last night , boy did they have ago at cindy over the COMPLETE FAILUE of kiwi ? , can't call it build any more , they  failed by 19800 homes over 2 years , stunning really , can you believe how utterly useless they are .

 

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Megan-Woods.png

By Christie

Government Should Be Held to Account on Kiwibuild

The original idea was floated by David Shearer in 2014. It was named Kiwibuild. The Labour Party imagined itself as the champion of young families; providing them all with homes, as they had done in the 1960s. This time, though, it would be even better, as these houses would be owner occupied. What a daring scheme! What heroes they would all be.

In 2014, they campaigned hard on Kiwibuild. Phil Twyford, foreshadowing the cry of ‘Nine Years of Neglect’, promised he would solve the problems for all those young families ‘locked out’ of the housing market. The champions of the downtrodden: Twyford, and his Labour mates, would provide affordable houses for the masses. Everyone who had ever dreamed of owning their own home would have that dream fulfilled.

 
DxvPXToUYAE4mvw.jpg-large-630x481.jpeg Cartoon credit: Tremain

In what we now know to be typical histrionics with no research, Labour took their plan into government, obviously thinking it was all going to be easy. Not once had they stopped to wonder why houses had become so expensive in the first place. They had not considered the questions of building regulations, resource consents, land zoning, building costs, supply of land, the availability of construction workers… which is where they should have started. They should have begun with overhauling the various acts and regulations that slow down the building process so drastically. But no. They thought they would be able to knock up 10,000 houses a year with no real effort. Produce a report, perhaps a working group or two and all would be well.

The KiwiBuild “reset” won’t satisfy New Zealanders desperate to see housing made affordable. The changes announced today are an attempt to lower the public’s expectations, and voters should insist on something better.

Many voters will be feeling “ripped off” after today’s KiwiBuild reset.

It turns out it was more about resetting public expectations than getting the government’s housing affordability project “back on track” and actually delivering.

The problem is, fixing the housing affordability was one of the promises that got this Labour-led government elected.

They weren’t elected, but that is hardly the point. They arrived in government and continued to promise affordable houses for the masses… a promise that they had no idea they were never going to be able to deliver.

Labour, in particular, won votes on their specific promise to build 100,000 affordable homes.

It’s now officially a broken promise.
Housing Minister Megan Woods announced today that the promised 100,000 house figure will be scrapped, and no new target will replace it.
It’s the kind of cynical “solution” that leads voters to lose faith in politics and have a low opinion of politicians.


In abandoning the promise of 100,000 affordable houses, it seems the minister wants us to believe that it was the existence of this target that was the problem, not the government’s failure to deliver. So, she has gone with the option of cancelling the target rather than redoubling efforts to meet it.

I think people would have forgiven the government if, instead of building 10,000 houses a year, they built 8,000. The fact that they have built about 200 in 2 years shows that they never had a hope in hell of meeting people’s expectations… expectations that were created by this overreaching government in the first place.

Woods now says that the government will simply deliver “more houses” as part of their programme. But voters shouldn’t allow such a lack of accountability and should insist that the electoral contract be fulfilled. The media, too, should continue to tally the number of houses against the promise of 100,000.

Dead right. Sometimes politicians need to be held to account. With a bold promise like this, the voters have the right to expect more than a backdown, and a promise that they will still build houses, but no one has the foggiest idea how many.

A target has been put forward in terms of the “progressive homeownership” initiative: as part of the KiwiBuild reset, 4000 households could be brought into homeownership through a shared equity or rent-to-buy scheme. 

“Could be’… but we are a bit short of the 100,000 houses promised, and none of these are necessarily Kiwibuild houses. Also, 4000 is a drop in the ocean, being somewhat less than 100,000.

Unless 100,000 affordable houses are no longer needed for some reason, the government should have risen to the occasion and found a way to embark on a full-scale housing infrastructure project that actually meets society’s needs.

That would have cost more money. But at the moment there’s a developing consensus amongst economists about the need for this government to start spending much more on all sorts of social goods – housing, education, transport, health – in order to fix problems and stimulate the economy.

Everyone seems to have forgotten that these Kiwibuild houses were going to be at no cost to the taxpayer; that the government might have to put some money up front, but that would be refunded and then recycled once the houses were sold. Now we are talking about millions of taxpayers dollars going into a bottomless pit to provide affordable housing for the chosen few. But why should the taxpayer fund people into private homes? That is a rhetorical question because, of course, they shouldn’t. No way.

Labour possibly thinks it’s being smart in being so conservative on housing and in scaling back its ambitions. But there’s a strategic danger for them in their caution. For many government supporters, today’s “reset” will be seen as an embarrassing capitulation.

Which is exactly what it is.

The truth is that the government soon came to realise that they were never going to be able to come anywhere near fulfilling the promises they had made on Kiwibuild, but because they had made so much noise about it, they were forced to front up to their failure. Voters don’t really care about the details of why their promises went so spectacularly wrong. All they know is that they thought there would be affordable houses available and there are none.

Having won power in 2017 on the basis of promises like KiwiBuild, it would be apt if the Labour-led government lost that power in 2020 because of their failure to deliver.

Stuff


Wow. This is academic writer Bryce Edwards speaking. In general, he is a government supporter, although not a sycophant like many of them. If the government has lost people like Bryce Edwards, they really are in trouble.

 

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5 hours ago, flockofewes2 said:

Mike Greer homes is doing o.k.

The  fact remains the Natz have no intention of addressing a housing crisis they denied existed...they fueled it.

Jack have a read ,Thomas hasn't got a clue , comments like they fuelled it are pathetic .

ANZ: House prices could 'take off'

ANZ predicts the floor will be cut under interest rates, house prices could take off again.  

Cindy logic , cut interest rates and watch prices take off , hardly addressing the housing issue is it and again hurting the less well off in society . 

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This will be the reason for the latest bubby photos as the shit is about to hit the fan big time over this.

 

Screen-Shot-2018-03-13-at-8.39.59-PM-106By Christie

Abuse Victims Barred from Parliament Offices

Labour’s disgraceful handling of complaints about sexual abuse among its staff and volunteers are now finally being picked up by the mainstream media and not before time. Andrea Vance and Alison Mau, both of whom can rightfully be considered to be supporters of this current government, have banded together to condemn the government for its treatment of sexual abuse victims. So they should. Alison Mau, in particular, is the face of #metoo in New Zealand, and it would be hypocritical of her not to criticise the government for its woeful handling of the complaints just because she voted for them.

Labour’s president Nigel Haworth barred complainants and witnesses in an alleged bullying and sexual harassment case from one of Parliament’s main buildings.

Leaked emails show Haworth and other senior officials instructed the women, all Labour party members, to stay away from the Labour party offices in Bowen House, where the man at the centre of their complaints works.

One witness was ordered to stay away from the entire 22-storey office block, which houses Ministers, MPs and public servants.

In just about every other workplace, the accused would have been stood down pending an investigation into his behaviour. The fact that this has not happened in the corridors of the government in this country makes a mockery of any claim Labour has to be a safe workplace, or that it aims to protect workers’ rights.

Telling the victims to simply avoid the place where the alleged offender works is no solution. It does not reduce the victims’ continued stress, and basically, it lets the offender get away with it. Worse still, Labour could be seen to be condoning his behaviour. Sexual abuse is a crime, in case no one in the government realises.

The parliamentary staffer is the subject of a series of bullying, harassment and sexual assault claims. He was also barred from another building, where some of the women worked.

In an email to complainants in July, Haworth, the party’s top official since 2015, wrote: “there is a continuing need to maintain an appropriate degree of separation between you and [the subject of complaints].”
Ten days later, general secretary Andre Anderson wrote asking a witness to stay away from Bowen House.
“We acknowledge the stress that these matters are placing you all under and feel that maintaining a physical separation is an appropriate interim measure… as you are each making important contributions to the Party, we are hoping that this arrangement reduces any impact that the presence of one of the other parties may cause while these matters are being resolved.”
He added: “There may be other Party activities where you encounter each other, but where it would be both complicated and unfair to prescribe in advance who can and cannot attend. In these cases, we ask that you respect the fact that the other person may feel the need to leave.”

There is no doubt that they are condoning the alleged offender’s behaviour. In the halls of government, this is a disgrace.

The man, who Stuff cannot identify for legal reasons, is employed in the Labour Leader’s Office, a unit set up to help Labour MPs with the everyday business of Parliament.

He is a public servant employed by Parliamentary Service, not the Labour party.

The witness told Stuff that the women were unhappy with this decision and pointed out that they were required to attend work meetings in Bowen House.

He is employed in the Labour leader’s office but neither Alison or Andrea could bring themselves to actually point out that this means that he is employed in the office of the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern. Or is there another Labour leader that we know nothing about?

Labour’s ruling council agreed to investigate the claims of bullying and harassment in February and appointed three party members to investigate.

Interviews took place in March, and in June they delivered a report to the Council, which recommended no disciplinary action be taken. Council accepted that recommendation.

This decision was reached by three party members. Hardly an independent panel, is it?

The complainants were unsatisfied and began questioning Haworth, Lacey and Anderson about an appeals process.

There was no right of appeal in Labour’s constitution, but the party agreed to ask its solicitor, Hayden Wilson of Kensington Swan, to undertake a review of “procedural matters”. He would not re-investigate whether misconduct took place.

Some of the complainants decided to go public, sending an email to media outlets. An email from Anderson, on Jul 23rd, shows senior Labour figures were already aware of the allegations. These included: Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, and her chief of staff Mike Munro, deputy chief of staff Raj Nahna, and chief press secretary Andrew Campbell.

Stuff


The prime minister knows there are accusations of sexual assault against a man who works in her own office and yet he is still working there.

It is clear that the rules around sexual harassment in the workplace only apply to everyone else, not those at the highest echelons of government itself. There, it seems, if you are well enough liked, you can get away with anything.

This is disgraceful on the part of Jacinda and her party, who should be doing everything possible to make their staff feel safe at work. And it seems that finally, the tide has turned. Some of the journalists who generally support this government cannot support this behaviour. Nor should they. Now it remains to be seen if the media keep the pressure on Labour to take the right action, or if it will just be swept under the carpet, like so many other dodgy things done by this government.

 

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The Spinoff MSN News today: 

A Labour volunteer alleged a violent sexual assault by a Labour staffer. This is her story

A woman who says she was subject of a sustained sexual assault by a Labour staffer has for the first time described the harrowing events and the botched internal investigation which followed. Alex Casey reports.

Content warning: This feature contains distressing descriptions of sexual assault, along with its mental health implications, which may be triggering to survivors.

A Labour party staffer is alleged to have committed a serious and sustained sexual assault on a 19-year-old volunteer early in 2018. The volunteer told the Spinoff the assault was compounded by the resulting inquiry, during which the alleged perpetrator was not stood down from any duties, which included the supervision of Young Labour volunteers. The complaint process, undertaken entirely by people within the Labour Party, has left her feeling “angry, quite fearful and desperate”. 

The alleged perpetrator has ties throughout the party hierarchy. The woman, who remains a member of the Labour Party, said the man’s level of influence left her constantly frightened of the impact of speaking out.

Over the course of numerous in-depth interviews with The Spinoff, Sarah – whose name has been changed to protect her identity – detailed how she was pinned down and sexually assaulted at the man’s home during a private meeting to discuss party business in early 2018. The process that followed, beginning in April 2018 during the post-Labour Camp review undertaken by Maria Berryman, has completely eroded her faith in the party.

Sarah is one of at least seven people who made formal complaints in relation to the individual, ranging from bullying, intimidation and sexual harassment through to sexual assault. She described him as having a “pretty senior and active” role in the party, and being well-connected with several high profile Labour MPs. The Spinoff understands that he remains working in parliament.

 

Sarah said she raised the allegations during an internal inquiry, with the investigating panel comprising three members of the New Zealand Council, the Labour Party’s governing body. Sarah and the other complainants were invited to appear before the panel at a meeting held at the Labour Party’s offices in Wellington. At the conclusion of the inquiry, after months with scant communication, the seven complainants all received an email from party president Nigel Haworth detailing the outcome of the internal investigation. “The recommendation was that no disciplinary action be taken in this case,” he wrote. “The New Zealand Council has accepted this recommendation.”

Across a series of interviews over recent weeks, Sarah laid out her experience with the staffer, and detailed the process that she and the other complainants underwent. The Spinoff has spoken at length to another of the complainants and viewed more than 100 documents, screengrabs and pieces of correspondence.

A lawyer acting for the Labour staffer did not respond to a request for comment. Detailed questions put to the Labour Party president and the prime minister’s office were not answered, but a statement was provided in the name of Haworth.

There is an appeal under way, being led by an experienced Queen’s Counsel, that is reviewing the original investigation and its findings. That is the appropriate place for these issues to be considered,” he said.

“It’s important to be clear that none of the complaints the party investigated related to sexual assault. The person leading the original review made it clear to the complainants that the party would never be the appropriate body to handle allegations of that nature and that they would need to be investigated by the police.

“Given all these matters are subject to a current appeal process it isn’t appropriate to comment further on them until the appeal is complete.” 

Told that the party denied hearing a complaint during its investigation, Sarah was adamant that both in documents supplied and her testimony that they were. What follows is a full description of her experience.

Sarah told The Spinoff that the central incident took place during a work meeting at a private residence in early 2018. A month later allegations of sexual assault at a Labour summer camp surfaced. Labour announced it would conduct a review into the youth camp complaints, to be led by lawyer Maria Berryman. 

We failed the young people who told us they had been hurt – this failure left them feeling abandoned and I am deeply sorry for that. It’s not good enough, we let them down,” Jacinda Ardern, prime minister and Labour Party leader, said at the time. “We handled this very, very badly as a party … Ultimately our focus as a party must be those young people. That’s our focus, rather than focusing simply on the future of individual employees.” 

The party appealed to any other victims who had experienced historical harassment or abuse at other Labour Party events. “We are open to taking up any of those complaints in a serious and effective manner,” Nigel Haworth told media. “I want this to be a safe party where everyone can go to any event and be sure they won’t be harassed or subjected to any of this treatment. It is utterly unacceptable.” 

Encouraged by the invitation, Sarah began to weigh up whether to go through the process of sharing her own story with the inquiry. While the prospect filled her with dread, she decided to make contact. 

Her connection to the party had begun two years earlier, when she joined the Labour Party at university. “I felt like I was a part of a movement,” she said. “It felt exciting, like I had found a place in alignment with my values.” An ambitious young feminist, she was impressed by the strong women within Young Labour, leading the charge on abortion reform and advocating for survivors of sexual assault.

“I saw them as putting people first,” she said. “There were a lot of good people doing a lot of good things.”

Over the next year, Sarah immersed herself in the party as a volunteer, quickly gaining more recognition and responsibility. It was during this period that she first came into contact with the alleged perpetrator, who is several years her senior, and started to have correspondence and regular meetings with him. He was already established in a leadership position at Young Labour, and his star continued to rise in the party proper. 

It was soon clear his interest in her was not purely political or professional, she said. On a party trip in 2017, after a night of drinking, he spent time “coming up behind me, hugging me, grabbing me”, she wrote in an April 2018 email to Maria Berryman, the lawyer leading the review. He also sent Sarah screenshots of explicit private messages exchanged with another party member, seen by The Spinoff, in which the pair fantasised about having sex with her. “I would feel manly if she was on her knees,” he wrote. 

Early in 2018 he invited her to a private meeting at his home to prepare for an upcoming regional conference. “He said it was really important that I came,” she said. “He made it feel like it was a part of my duties.” She arrived around six o’clock, and sat in the lounge to watch television with the rest of the household. After the others went to bed, the pair were left alone and moved to work on party documents ona computer in the adjoining office. 

It was then that Sarah felt the mood start to shift. 

“I remember I was looking at the screen and I felt him lean down over me onto my shoulder.” She initially ignored it and continued to ask questions about the documents they were looking at, keen to stay focussed on the work. Standing behind her, he placed one hand on her thigh, and the other under her shirt, she said. Feeling both his arms tightening around her body, she began to panic. 

“I tried to knock him off but he put me in a hold across here,” she recounted, gesturing to her collarbone. He pulled her off the chair and onto the floor, keeping his arm and his body weight on top of her as she struggled, he said. “I remember him just saying, ‘shhh,’ and shushing me or telling me to be quiet without explicitly telling me, or he’d press his arm down on my windpipe.”

Desperate to attract the attention of the rest of the household, Sarah banged her feet against the hardwood floors, she said. She recounted him pulling down her jeans, and the coldness of the floorboards against her bare skin. He aggressively groped her breasts, she said, before pulling her underwear down and violently penetrating her with his fingers. 

“I was just in total disbelief, struggling a lot and still trying to bang on the floor,” she said, taking long pauses in her recollection. She continued to hit her feet on the ground through the attack, hoping to make as much noise as possible. “I just wanted someone to come upstairs. Anyone.”

The assault lasted between 10 and 20 minutes, she said, before he rolled off her. “I was just lying there for ages and then tried to frantically put everything on. I grabbed my phone, I grabbed my USB [from] the computer. I was shaking, I couldn’t speak.” She told him that she had to go home. He asked her if she wanted to stay the night.

When she turned the corner of his street, Sarah started to cry. “I just broke down. I was too scared to stop moving, I just wanted to get out of there.” Walking home in the dark, she tried to call a handful of people, but nobody answered. It was around 10pm.

She didn’t stop once on the 25 minute walk. Her vagina felt “scratched up and in pain”, her chest “swollen and bruised”. She didn’t tell her flatmates what happened, why she was unable to sleep that night. “I didn’t shower until the next morning, which was absolutely awful. I felt really uncomfortable with my body. It didn’t feel like it was mine.”

The Spinoff has spoken to a source to whom Sarah related the experience a week after the attack. “She looked very stressed and I could tell she was quite tired,” said the confidant. Sarah had broken down as she told the story. “She was pretty scared, she said she didn’t want to talk to Labour. I started crying too. I didn’t know how to comfort her and there was nothing that I could say to help her with what she was going through.” 

Sarah didn’t want to go to the police. She knew people who had been through the process and had told her how difficult it was, she said. “I thought about the amount of people who come forward and then the number who actually get convictions, and it just felt like it was going to be really hard.” In the aftermath, she felt herself becoming more withdrawn and isolated, a shadow of the young, confident leader she used to be.

A month after the alleged assault, the Berryman review into the Labour camp assaults invited others who had experiences of sexual misconduct to come forward. “I thought I might as well deal with it with people I know and trust, and that was through the party.”

She made contact with Berryman in April 2018, and, in an email shown to The Spinoff, described the incident on the party trip in detail. “There’s more stuff that’s happened since the Young Labour camp,” Sarah wrote. She chose not to detail the more serious allegation, explaining in the email that she was “unsure how to process it or tell people” because of his power within the party. Sarah chose to detail a more “low-level” allegation, she told The Spinoff, because she was worried about who might see the email. “I was pretty paranoid and still trying to process what had happened.” 

After a few brief exchanges, communication with Berryman dropped off until the following month, when she came back to Sarah explaining that she was working through the Labour summer camp before attending to any other complaints. 

Meanwhile the man who she says assaulted her continued to attend Labour meetings and events, which prompted several panic attacks and even bouts of nausea and vomiting. He was known to be a volatile personality, according to another Young Labour member spoken to by The Spinoff. During one particularly heated meeting, he shouted at her and later attempted to block the exit of the room, she said, prompting her to email concerns about what she saw as “predatory behaviour” directly to Nigel Haworth. She didn’t detail the assault in the email to the Labour president, but alluded to being in severe distress. 

“I am struggling to be able to cope,” she wrote.

Haworth responded the following day, and a meeting was arranged. In a private room at Wellington Central Library, Sarah told Haworth and the party’s assistant general secretary, Dianna Lacy, about her encounters with the man, including the full extent of the sexual assault allegations, she said. “I got the sense that [Haworth] was pretty uncomfortable,” she said, though Lacy seemed deeply concerned, and subsequently became the one person within Labour she felt able to rely on.

As Haworth’s response to The Spinoff makes clear, however, the party strongly disputed that they were at any point told sexual assault was being alleged.

In the aftermath, a panel was set up by the NZ Council, Labour’s highest governing body, to investigate the claims. The panel comprised three members of the NZ Council, chaired by an Auckland-based lawyer. Sarah and six other party members who had lodged complaints were later asked to attend a hearing in March. Each interview slot was an hour long, despite the claims frequently involving incidents and observations of behaviour spanning years. 

On the morning of the investigation hearings, conducted in early March at Labour’s Wellington HQ, Fraser House on Willis Street, Sarah sent her pre-interview notes through to both a member of the panel and Lacy, who was opening up the building that day but did not attend the interviews. Sarah asked the panel member to print them out, a task he delegated to Lacy, who, Sarah said, printed four copies. 

Seen by The Spinoff, her notes clearly state that she experienced a sexual assault in February 2018 after being invited to his home under the guise of a private, work-related meeting. “I relaxed, I let my guard down, I thought I was safe,” her notes read, before detailing how he grabbed at her breasts and pulled down her pants. She was nervous about her interview, and read from the notes verbatim, she said, relating her sexual assault “about a quarter of the way through”.

The notes anticipated questions about why she had not come forward previously or gone to the police. “As for why I didn’t report,” she wrote in her notes, “I did.” She had attempted to raise the individual’s behaviour with members of her party branch, she said, but he had responded angrily, it had “fizzled out”. 

“I was scared,” she wrote. “I still am scared. This man holds a large amount of influence within the party.” He would boast, she added, about “his close relationship” with a Cabinet minister. 

A senior Labour Party source has told The Spinoff that the panel members are emphatic that they at no point heard any of the complainants make an allegation of having been subject to sexual assault – and that they would not have ignored it had anyone done so. Sarah, however, insists that she read her notes aloud to the panel, and that included the allegation of sexual assault. 

The proceedings felt rushed, Sarah said, and the questions seemed to focus on who knew about the allegations, rather than what happened. “It was like it was more liability management than investigation into claims,” she said. The panel said there would be an opportunity for follow-up interviews, but there was no mention of how or when, she said. 

Another of the complainants interviewed that day, Jamie – not his real name – summarised the panel process as “completely inadequate”. His allegation centred on an attempted physical assault by the same man at a Young Labour function, an outburst which he said led him to quit the party the following day, after being a committed member for four years. 

Of the investigation, Jamie said: “I felt like I was being rushed out of the room.” 

He would later write to Haworth: “It is like the party has learned nothing in the wake of the Young Labour Summer School … The party has let down every single person who decided to come forward with their story, an experience which seems to repeat itself time and time again.”

The complainants had been told they would be able to look at the investigating panel’s notes on the interviews, described as “testimony” by the party, to check for accuracy.

On April 26, a month and a half after the interviews, Sarah wrote to the three members of the panel saying that the staffer at the centre of the allegations had approached her and said he had read the testimonies. Sarah was unnerved, as she had still yet to receive hers. On May 22 she asked again to see the “testimony”. The chair of the panel wrote back: “I am happy to provide a copy.”. Again, she did not receive her notes, and eventually the panel made its decision without her having had a chance to check that they accurately represented her experience.

Had Sarah had an opportunity to review the notes, which are handwritten, in sometimes-ambiguous bullet points, she would have told them what was missing: any reference to the sexual assault she said she had suffered. Instead, she did not receive the notes until July 15 – a full 10 days after Haworth had written saying there would be no action taken against the man, and that there was no appeals process.

Throughout the process, the man at the centre of the allegations continued to appear at party events that Sarah was required to attend due to her role within the party. At a party conference, she experienced another panic attack in the bathroom after being in the same room as both him and Nigel Haworth. “It made me wish I wasn’t involved in the party, it made me feel like I wanted to leave,” she said. “It felt like it wasn’t my place any more. It felt like it was his place.”

In late April, Sarah sent an email to the three members of the investigating panel seeking an update on the inquiry. In the email – receipt of which was acknowledged by one of the panel – she stressed “the seriousness of the situation here, an accusation of sexual assault, manipulation, bullying and emotional abuse of several young women in the party. All revolving around his power over women at Labour events.”

She also flagged his expected presence at a Young Labour event that night, where he would be holding a swipe card to provide entry for participants. Some members, she said, were “freaking out and scared to attend”. She added: “Really hoping this isn’t a party thing that fizzles away without response or action.”

Seventy-one days after the interviews at the Labour offices, Sarah received an email from Haworth announcing that a conclusion to the investigation had been reached, and a report was to be delivered to the NZ Council on June 15. 

Sarah was alarmed at the news that they were nearing a conclusion, especially given she was still waiting for a copy of her own testimony. “I’m just completely lost at the lack of communication,” she replied by email on May 21. “I feel threatened. I feel insecure. I feel unsafe.” 

Jamie wrote to Haworth separately after learning the investigating panel had completed their work. “I’m sorry but it is completely unacceptable. It has been over a month since we came to submit on this issue and there hasn’t been a single follow-up to us as a group,” he said.

“We haven’t received a single update from the panel. No support has been offered throughout this process… I have had no one reach out to me from the party since making my submission to the committee.”

Just over a month later, another email from Haworth appeared in their inboxes. 

“I am writing to let you know that NZ Council, at its latest meeting, received and endorsed a report from the investigating panel,” he wrote. “The recommendation was that no disciplinary action was to be taken in this case. Council accepts this recommendation.” 

a screenshot of a social media post: Screengrab of the email sent out by Howarth. Highlighting a result of the search function. (image: supplied)© The Spinoff Screengrab of the email sent out by Howarth. Highlighting a result of the search function. (image: supplied)

Screengrab of the email sent out by Howarth. Highlighting a result of the search function. (image: supplied)

Sarah said she was “broken” by the verdict. “We went through this whole thing, saying over and over again the stories of what happened, his abuse of power, and we were just stuck,” she said. “There was this whole room of people that were just acting like they were all family members again and nobody wants to talk about the guy who has been accused of sexual assault.”

A month after they were told of the investigation’s conclusion, Sarah received the panel’s notes, which were taken during their meeting and she understands were the only official record of her complaint. She was “frustrated and disappointed” by what they contained. “I was annoyed, there were a lot of mistakes and things that hadn’t been followed up – this was our one chance to be heard and listened to and they screwed up.” 

The three pages of handwritten notes, seen by The Spinoff, mentioned her “relationship” with the man multiple times. “Those wouldn’t have been the words I would have used,” said Sarah. “We never dated, we were never intimate, there was nothing.”

When it was put to Sarah that those involved in the investigation didn’t believe she was making an allegation of sexual assault, she said she found that impossible to fathom. “I opened the interview reading through my timeline and my testimony.” 

Reading the panel’s handwritten version of her “testimony” back, said Sarah, she failed to see any reflection of her experience. “No way they could have found anything from this,” she said. “It doesn’t cover anything.”

News of the allegations related to the Labour staffer first became public in early August, after one of the complainants decided to take their story to opposition MP Paula Bennett. “The woman has taken the extraordinary step of contacting me because they are not being listened to,” she told Newstalk ZB. “They are having panic attacks and are anxious.”

Neither Jamie nor Sarah was involved in the approach to Bennett. Her involvement made a difference, however, said Jamie. They all wanted to see the silence broken, and “the deputy leader of the opposition asking questions and making a story out of it was a good way of it happening.” 

Following a study of the process undertaken by the party solicitor, Haworth told the complainants the NZ Council had decided to “offer the opportunity to appeal the outcome of the recent conduct investigation”. Just over a month after writing to say that no disciplinary action would be taken and there was no appeals process offered in the party constitution, the NZ Council had “decided that, in all of the circumstances, natural justice supports the provision of such an opportunity”.

The appeal would be conducted, he said, by Maria Dew QC. The complainants were given nine days to decide whether they would opt in. 

For Sarah, the offer felt too little, too late. “Even now that the appeal has been offered, we’re so exhausted,” she said. “It felt like we had turned to all the right people but nobody was backing us up.” 

Since the offer of an opportunity to appeal, the group of complainants has engaged an independent lawyer who has sought an extension to the nine day deadline and is working on their behalf to retrieve key documents from the initial investigation. “We want to make sure the first investigation was fully concluded and we have all the information to make the right decision,” said Sarah.

The process, which began with an approach to Berryman in April of 2018, is ongoing. The alleged perpetrator is believed to remain at work at parliament, in the Labour leader’s office.

Sarah is still healing. “This entire thing was just a mountain of trauma and left so many people incredibly bruised and vulnerable,” she said. If her experience results in anything, she hopes it will be for better support within the party for victims who come forward. “I don’t mean an 0800 therapy line and I don’t just mean providing legal support if the complainant agrees to incredibly stringent confidentiality rules within the party.

“What matters more to me is that the people who screwed this up are able to learn from their mistakes. People come and go but if the process isn’t set up right then in 20 years we’re still going to see this repeat. 

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An "Ambitious young feminist" has a male put his fingers in her vagina, without her permission and then doesn't report this attack to Police. Really??

What did she think would happen by keeping it "In house". Her employer are not Police, they likely know the fellow,, they don't have forensics etc etc.

"Dumb young feminist" I'd say.

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1 hour ago, Uriah Heap said:

An "Ambitious young feminist" has a male put his fingers in her vagina, without her permission and then doesn't report this attack to Police. Really??

What did she think would happen by keeping it "In house". Her employer are not Police, they likely know the fellow,, they don't have forensics etc etc.

"Dumb young feminist" I'd say.

I would say if everything claimed throughout all this is confirmed then it won't be the teenager who is shown up as the dumb one.   

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Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern's cynical Sunday 'policy' rollouts

Mike Hosking

 

What's with Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her proclivity to spend Sundays making minor announcements, dressed up as major announcements, so she can get some easy coverage on the television news?

The trouble with small countries like ours is very little happens on the weekends outside of sport and road accidents.

Media organisations know this and staff accordingly. Thus if you look closely on a Saturday or Sunday night on the news, it's the accident report, followed by international tape that's come in overnight, and the obligatory puff pieces to fill it all out, until the weather starts.

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Governments use this to their advantage, hence you will note this Government has, of late, started using Sundays to make headlines.

READ MORE:
Jacinda Ardern: 'Labour Party president will quit if failures are discovered'

First one was the day after that infamous National Party conference in which Simon Bridges, almost unbelievably, was able to announce a cancer agency despite the fact it was Labour policy. So having stolen Saturday's news, Labour rolled up on Sunday with an announcement of their own. This one involved moving cancer equipment to some of the regions.

In the grand scheme of things it meant nothing, did little, but served its purpose: it was on the news.

Then the other Sunday they rolled out their cancer service policy, this was the one they should have rolled out before National. But better late than never... or was it?

In reality, it was nothing more than intention. They would end the postcode nature of the disease, how? No one seemed to know, they still don't. I asked the Prime Minister last week, she told me to stand by for Heather Simpson's DHB report. I did, it came the next day, and it recommended nothing.

I also asked about the targets they talked of. They already have targets, they are not being met, half of the DHBs are failing to meet them. So what do they do about that? Nothing. What did the report recommend about doing about it? Nothing.

All that came out of that Sunday was $60 million for Pharmac, which isn't really $60 million, it's $20m per year over three years. Remembering of course that once you give someone a $20m pay rise to have them not go backwards next year it's another $20m, so in essence you're only getting $20 million more drugs.

 

And then last Sunday, mental health. A scheme whereby you can go to your doctor and get your warts seen to and some mental health as well. Good theory, except it's only at a handful of clinics. In other words, it's not a policy, it's an intention.

Which is what they did with the school lunches, the only difference being that wasn't announced on a Sunday (given schools aren't open). Lunch will be served at 30 schools, it may end up rolling out to 120, still a couple of thousand schools will miss out. Like hundreds of thousands of patients will miss out on mental health.

No one ever seems to point this out. Ardern is hardly ever held to account. She turns up, smiles, talks a big game, hugs one of the recipients of whatever the largesse involves, gets on the news, and is gone.

If there were votes for announcing stuff that may or may not ever happen it would be a landslide. Let's call it 'seed of an idea Sunday' or 'the policy that's not really a policy'.

It's a visual press release, where next to nothing changes, but you get your picture on the telly. If there are learnings, let's at least start seeing them for what they are.

 

 

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