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News of Zealand

Meth Testing in New Zealand Officially Revealed as a Sham

A Housing New Zealand report reveals the tenant evictions and millions of dollars of testing was all for nothing.
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Remember when tenants who “contaminated” houses with meth were evicted? Losing their houses, suspended from state-housing waiting lists, having their credit ratings ruined, with some even left homeless? Well, a new Housing New Zealand (HNZ) report into the incorrect use of methamphetamine testing has revealed it was all for nothing.

The damning report, released this morning, shows HNZ spent $100 million on the mostly unnecessary testing and “decontamination” of these houses, wrongfully penalising 800 households and an estimated 2400 Kiwis. It also left hundreds of homes empty for no reason, resulting in unnecessarily long waiting lists.

HNZ will formally apologise to all the tenants affected, and “plan to put things right" by reimbursing them and providing "other forms of assistance". HNZ expects payments will "be in the order of $2500 to $3000 per tenancy”. Green Party co-leader Marama Davidson said compensation should be "fair and sufficient” and also “acknowledge emotional distress caused."

Housing Minister Phil Twyford said there was never any evidence third-hand exposure to meth posed a health risk and that the Government’s approach to this “fiasco” was a “moral and fiscal failure”. Twyford said the people he holds accountable have "lost their jobs already, they are no longer ministers". But no one at HNZ will be fired.

The report recognises that HNZ’s “policy of zero tolerance” for illegal activity in its homes was “wrong” and they way they dealt with the situation failed to follow principles of natural justice. HNZ's blacklist of tenants banned from going into state houses because of meth contamination issues has also been wiped.

National's Housing Spokesperson Judith Collins disagreed that the Government should be compensating tenants. “[Twyford] is paying out millions of dollars including to people who were smoking or cooking P in state houses while deserving, law-abiding families waited on the list,” she said. “If they broke the law, or their agreement and were smoking P in their state house they should not receive money from the taxpayer.”