Editorial: Surely there is a better way?

Andrew Austin, Editor of Hawke's Bay Today.

I reckon $1600 per week would enable you to buy a pretty flash house in the Bay - probably somewhere with rural charm and a great view.

If you were renting a house for that amount, I would tell you that you would be better off buying a place.

It just makes sense. If you were paying that sort of your own money to live in a motel, I would think you had seriously lost the plot.

So, why is okay for taxpayers' hard-earned money to be spent in this way?

We all know about the social housing problems and the fact that desperate families are being put up in motels for periods of time by the Ministry of Social Development until they can find state houses for them to move in to.

The problem in Hawke's Bay, and I am sure most of the regional centres around the country, there is a lot going on and visitors and tourists need the accommodation.

Therefore, as we report today, dozens of people are being squeezed out of emergency motel accommodation due to pre-bookings for harvest workers, Art Deco Weekend and the national kappa haka championships.

Labour's Ikaroa-Rawhiti MP Meka Whaitiri visited some motels housing families under MSD's emergency accommodation scheme and she called what she saw "shocking and distressing". Some of the people told her that they (or rather we the taxpayers) were paying between $700 and $1600 per week.

This is not the fault of the families or even the moteliers, but the government, which should have a better plan in place.

This should be one that has the best interests of the families (especially the children) at heart, as well as a greater respect for taxpayer money.

The current system appears to have neither.