How did it get so bad?

• Ele Ludemann writes –

That Kāinga Ora is a mess is no surprise, but the size of the mess is.

There have been many reports of unruly tenants given licence to terrorise neighbours, properties bought and left vacant, and the state agency paying above market rates in competition with private would-be buyers.

Bishop scores headlines with crackdown on unwelcome tenants – but Peters scores, too, as tub-thumper and diplomat

Buzz from the Beehive

Housing Minister Chris Bishop delivered news – packed with the ingredients to enflame political passions – worthy of supplanting Winston Peters in headline writers’ priorities.

He popped up at the post-Cabinet press conference to promise a crackdown on unruly and antisocial state housing tenants.

Haste is urged to repeal tax legislation – and to stymie publication of the first IRD report on tax system’s fairness

Buzz from the Beehive

Political journalists working for the mainstream media have demonstrated since the election that they need scant prompting to go looking for muck to fling at a coalition government they make no secret of disdaining.

On No Right Turn, Idiot/Savant has given them a prompt anyway.

He says he expects they will be putting the Official Information Act to good use to learn what might have gone into a report on the effectiveness, efficiency, and equity of the tax system,  against a specified set of measurements and principles.