Bad Tenants

Idiot posted something on this a while back and I thought I’d better throw in my ten cents. The government does need to fix the problem of bad tenants but having WINZ give away people's private information is not the way to do it, for all the reasons that Idiot has already mentioned. What they should do is empower the Tenancy Tribunal to set up a register of bad tenants and for that matter, bad landlords.

Also, they should have WINZ pay landlords directly and thus make sure that these people's rent is always paid. That means they can’t get into arrears and it also means that the tax we pay for social welfare is actually being spent on what it is supposed to be spent on - rather than on beer, cigarettes, poky machines, dak or whatever.

The way the system works at the moment means that tenants can get heavily into arrears before landlords are allowed to kick them out...the tenants can then up and leave leaving the poor landlord out of pocket and with no way of tracking them down. The Tenant will them move onto the next unsuspecting landlord and so the cycle continues. This is hardly ideal.

Even though I'm a card carrying, raving mad socialist with a deep affection for the welfare state... that doesn't mean I like seeing the welfare state being ripped off...I pay taxes to provide people less fortunate than myself with food and shelter...that means I really really want the money to be spent on food and shelter.