EDITOR'S COMMENT: Your response on St Michael's Gate was not good enough minister

No right-minded person - or politician - can think it’s right that people have been evicted from their homes to make way for homeless people.

As Mr Jackson said... ‘We are in a crazy Alice in Wonderland World’. But the Housing Minister declined to do anything about landlords who behave in that way saying simply that... “It’s legitimate for a landlord to decide what to do with an asset. If you pass a law to stop that far fewer landlords will rent out their homes.”

But the minister misses the point... A careful analysis would allow the Government to adjust the law to prevent such mass evictions.

It is not beyond the wit of civil servants to draft legislation that protects landlords’ rights but prevents wholesale evictions, that stops companies profiting from the homeless problem, that prevents the threat of wholesale importing of families from other parts of the country, and gives loyal tenants some protection.

Protecting innocent citizens and reacting to public concerns, after all, is what we pay civil servants to do and it’s what politicians are elected to deliver.

Just because it’s difficult or complex shouldn’t mean we just give up. The people of St Michael’s Gate deserve better and anyone in that position deserves better - that’s why the PT’s campaign continues - your response was not good enough minister.