Who'll get the "Dogs" Out?: the Pomare Gang House Evictions

Abstract

Three tenants of Housing New Zealand Corporation (the Corporation) lived in their three Lower Hutt residences with their partners, who were members of the Mongrel Mob. The Mongrel Mob members, known as “Dogs” to other gang-members, had disturbed other Corporation tenants in the area; so the Corporation decided to evict their partners to get the “Dogs” out. The Corporation inadvertently indicated that their reasons for the evictions were the actions of the tenants’ partners. The tenants alleged that they had been discriminated against on the basis of their relationship status and their association with their partners, and appealed to the Tenancy Tribunal to have the eviction notices set aside. They alleged that the discrimination breached the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990 (Bill of Rights Act) and the Human Rights Act 1993 (Human Rights Act), and was an unlawful act as defined in the Residential Tenancies Act 1986 (Residential Tenancies Act). The validity of the eviction notice was upheld by the Tenancy Tribunal and by the District Court and High Court in the subsequent appeals.1 In this paper, I argue that these decisions are flawed in failing to place proper weight on the public nature of the Corporation and its acts. The main points of the decisions are summarised below. The decisions, particularly the High Court decision, are then critically analysed. I argue that Wild J should not have dismissed the possibility of a public law ‘collateral challenge’ to the Corporation’s acts; that he failed to interpret the Residential Tenancies Act in light of the Bill of Rights Act; and that some of the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act were incorrectly interpreted.