Monday, July 26, 2021



Profiteering politicians delegitimise parliament

Why aren't politicians interested in actually solving the housing crisis? Because virtually the entire political class is making massive profits from it:

MPs have pocketed $50 million in capital gains from their property interests in the last year amid a growing housing affordability crisis, a Stuff analysis has found.

It represents a significant increase in wealth for many elected representatives, around 95 per cent of whom have land or property interests. The vast majority of MPs are accumulating more wealth from their properties than from their salaries.

Pretty obviously, this is a conflict of interest on a massive scale. But its also a direct threat to the legitimacy of parliament and of our system of government in general, making it look like its really just a tool for the landed gentry to enrich themselves by fucking everybody else over. And the deeper the crisis gets, and the more people are excluded from safe and secure housing, the more illegitimate it will seem. Over on The Spinoff, Bernard Hickey is talking about the housing crisis driving a Rogernomics-Ruthanasia-MMP-scale political reckoning. Politicians nakedly profiting from everyone else's misery is only going to strengthen that push, and make the backlash harsher.