KEY POINTS:
Current residents of two state houses have racked up debts for damage and vandalism of over $10,000 each, Parliament was told yesterday.
National Party housing spokesman Phil Heatley said damage to Housing New Zealand Corporation houses had increased by more than 40 per cent over the past two years to $23.3 million.
He said current tenants at properties in Henderson and Waitakere owed damage bills of $11,762 and $10,439 respectively. He released figures which showed 40 tenants owed more than $2000 each.
"What does he [Housing Minister Chris Carter] say to those 10,000 people languishing on the waiting list who would value the state homes that these vandals still live in?" Mr Heatley asked.
Mr Carter said overall damage was not high and averaged $370 a tenant. "The two cases the member has plucked out to try and demonstrate his argument actually show how incredibly small, in the context of Housing New Zealand's 200,000 tenants, this issue is."
His answer to Mr Heatley's written question said that current tenant damage was mainly debt incurred by the tenants at previous properties.
"Before these tenants were rehoused by the corporation they were required to arrange a repayment of this debt and where appropriate they are subject to intensive tenancy management," the answer said.
Mr Heatley questioned why the corporation housed such tenants when there was such a long waiting list.
He said the corporation had written off nearly $2.5 million in damage debt.
Mr Carter said it often cost less to write off debts than pursue them.
"We take all reasonable steps to recover this debt but it needs to be pointed out that it's rare among our tenants - only 9 per cent of properties have any damage to them."
He said one reason the bill was higher was because the corporation was reacting faster to repair damage.
"I remind the House again that the most common damage is actually broken windows which can be caused by the most minor thing."
Mr Carter said Mr Heatley talked about waiting lists when his party was responsible for selling off 13,000 state houses when it was in power.
The Government had increased social housing stock by 1923 homes, housed nearly 3000 more tenants, and retrofitted 2000 homes, he said.
Mr Carter later released a statement explaining the two examples of damage Mr Heatley highlighted were caused by fire.
"In one of the cases the fire was accidentally started by a child and in the other an electric blanket caught fire."
Mr Carter said the tenants were repaying the cost of the fire damage.
He said Mr Heatley had shown prejudice against state house tenants by portraying the damage as vandalism.
- NZPA
