John MacDonald: Does National really care about tenants?

Congratulations to the National Party because it will be over the moon that people are in the news today saying that it’s the political party for landlords. It’s come after National’s housing spokesperson Chris Bishop jumped on a plane yesterday and screamed down to Queenstown to announce the party’s housing policy - which would allow all sorts of things, one of them being the right for landlords to evict tenants without any reason. 90 days notice. That’s all that would be required. At the moment, thanks to Labour, landlords have to have a pretty good or genuine reason to kick tenants out of their properties. National thinks that’s nuts and wants to go back to how things used to be with 90 days notice being the only requirement. I remember when things used to be that way - the way National wants things to be again - and we had a couple living next door in a property they were renting from the owners who had moved up north. From everything I saw, they were great tenants. But then the earthquakes happened, and the owners of the place saw a chance to make a truckload of money renting it out to people who had to find somewhere to live while they had earthquake repairs done on their own homes. So these landlords came up with some cock and bull story about wanting to move back to Christchurch to help with the rebuild - what a load of old nonsense - and so this lovely couple had to pack their bags and leave. I say “load of old nonsense” because that’s exactly what it was. These landlords had no intention at all of moving back to Christchurch - and they didn’t - and they just rented it out to insurance companies for Lord knows how much money. Now I’m not begrudging them for making a buck. Good on them. But the way they treated their tenants, I thought, was pretty shoddy. The National Party obviously thinks differently. And, on the face of it, its policy announcement yesterday was a disaster. Because, if you’re a politician and you want to come across as being the saviour for people desperately trying to rent somewhere to live, and people turn around and say you’re actually just in the pockets of the dirty landlords, then - on the face of it - it’s a political disaster. Well, it would be if National really wanted us to think that it’s the Great White Hope when it comes to sorting out the shortage of rental properties. But it doesn’t want that at all. It will be loving the headlines today saying that it’s the party for the landlords. There was Chris Bishop yesterday being the sheep in wolf's clothing telling struggling hospo workers in Queenstown that ‘vote National and we’ll make sure you’ve got a roof over your head”. But that wasn’t what he was saying at all. What he was saying was “hey landlords, vote National and you won’t need to jump through all the hoops you have to jump through now because of the socialist Labour Party”. So well done National. Congratulations. Now the problem it claims to want to fix, is this situation where landlords aren’t even bothering renting out their properties because they think that if they can’t kick someone out with just 90 days notice, then it’s easier for them to rent it out on Air B n B. Which is very similar to what was happening back in the days after the quakes where tenants were being kicked out of rental properties because of all the money landlords could make from short-term rentals. Like the situation I talked about earlier. National thinks that if landlords had more freedom, then they’d be more inclined to go with long-term rentals and less inclined to go down the short-term rental route through Air B n B and outfits like that. But I don’t buy that at all. Because even if landlords suddenly did have the right to kick tenants out with just 90 days notice, do you think they’d also suddenly want to have the hassle of chasing rent from tenants, dealing with every Tom, Dick and Harry who might turn up looking for a place and all that? Of course, they wouldn’t. They’d stick with Air B n B thanks very much. Bookings done by the Air B n B crowd. Money straight into the bank account. Easy. And if every other landlord only had to give 90 days notice with no good reason, they’d be jumping on the Air B n B bandwagon as well. Which just goes to show that National doesn’t actually give two-hoots about renters and all Chris Bishop with his serious face on in Queenstown yesterday was doing, was trying to get the response the party actually wanted - which is being trotted out in the news today - and that’s that National is the political party for landlords.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.