Onehunga News - September
Despite the awful weather I thoroughly enjoyed meeting so many of you at both the Onehunga Heritage Festival and the Te Papapa School Pacific Festival. What a great way to enjoy the heritage of Onehunga and the Pacific. A highlight for me was seeing all the children having fun and enjoying the day out with their family.
Many families in state houses in and around Onehunga aspire to achieve home ownership. Over the next few weeks, Housing New Zealand will be approaching about 3,800 state tenants who pay market rent and live in a home that is available for purchase, to make them aware of the opportunity. Tenants wishing to buy will need to approach banks about obtaining finance. Housing New Zealand’s Welcome Home Loan, which is a mortgage insurance scheme that underwrites home loans, and the Corporation’s free home ownership education programme, are available to assist those tenants.
This month I was excited to have the opportunity to go on the “Young Guns” segment on TVNZ’s Breakfast programme. I was also honoured to represent Minister Judith Collins at a powhiri to welcome police graduates to Counties Manukau, and to represent Minister Stephen Joyce at the NZ Telecommunication Users Association annual innovation awards.
Latest figures show over 8,000 New Zealand homes have been retrofitted in the first eight weeks of the government’s insulation scheme. I am delighted with the latest data which shows the popularity of the government scheme. It’s also pleasing to see who is taking up the scheme; the figures show that 57% of those who had their houses retrofitted in August were low income earners. The government has committed to spend $323 million over four years to insulate 180,000 homes.
I had a fantastic time attending the Sanitarium annual staff ambassador awards with the Prime Minister. What a great way to celebrate the success of one of Maungakiekie’s and New Zealand’s most successful companies. Congratulations to all the recipients. Sanitarium continues to be a large employer of our community.
