I’d suggest we need to move away from the situation where “It is almost impossible to manage in Auckland without a car”. This isn’t the case in many world cities. Rather than perpetuate the problem by having government-subsidised cheap cars, we should put the money into better public transport and cheaper housing in the inner city.

Thus the alternative is to; open lending to these high risk lenders and as a nation avoid the costly social consequences of even more expensive catastrohpes on the tax paying public, costs like; car theft, burglary, suicide and addiction and supply, house eviction, stranded travel, or close these lenders down and let the tax payer pick up the pieces and all the clean up costs as well. and pay for the borrowers who would otherwise more or less support their own shortcomings. In reality in every major city, bottom of the heap lending exists and in every country that has sought to provide an all inclusive welfare system, we have seen an immediate transition to welfare fraud and welfare abuse.
For Catrionas benefit, Act Member Roger Douglas was close to the mark in his work “Closing the Circle” where he advocated community led measures of self sustainability. The most likely type of operation to succeed is if an organisation like Brian Tamaki’s church were to operate a membership subscribed emergency loan scheme. Under such a scheme the peer connection and religious ethics have a hope of mentoring control into the lives of the borrowers, something a commercial lender has no access to do. It is community attitude that makes for success, not regulation.

As for a government run used car yard, I can hear used car mechanics laughing so loud, their laughter could be bottled and sold for carbon credits.
What a eutopian farce, what a socialist daydream, what an academic boondoogle. It would be broke within a week, as the poorer elements, not one bit short of cunning, fraud and deceipt, took every opportunity to; swap bits, change plates, strip equipment, return carefully fabricated clunkers, writeoff registered wrecks, and every other form of scam and rort known to man.
The wiley and experienced used car dealers have every moment committed trying to stay on top of their game dealing with this element of the public, and still a good many are caught out. Only the availibility of near dying clunkers at cheap prices that can be made to go one more trip around the block and the prompt finance house payout, keeps their business alive, for it is sabotaged by nearly every purchaser. Remember also that this class of purchaser does never lift the hood to clean or check the mechanics, never inspects a brake or oils a moving part, never buys a new set of tyres for safety or keeps a good paid up insurance for protection, of their own will, these consumer types most generally borrow money to buy the gas and drive till it stops, then complain about the quality of the merchandise. There is little of the element of care and prudence in practice.
In every society since Christ walked the earth, we have had an element who are waiting. They waited for the flood, They waited for the flood to drain, They waited for the sun to come up, They were still waiting when their backs were burned deep with sunburn. They wait. Do you find these persons self educating at night school, NO, they are waiting in front of TV for life’s answers, do you find them evenings and weekends in the garden producing food for their families and communities, no they are waiting, mostly in the welfare queue, while state housing has thousands of barren backyards. Best choices are forethought and provisioning, these people dont make best choices. They wait for circumstances to befall them and then look for escapes. One convenient escape is the high interest lender. It is not the role of society to provide low interest loans representing low risk, with a built in subsidy by prudent taxpayers, to high risk borrowers who are in fact lifes low productivity “waiters”.

There are genuine people who are in need of welfare and a few who have a genuine need for emergency assitance, for which our welfare system, health care and Mps provide access. It is just ludicrous to imagine that a “car” is some form of necessity or right to people who only a decade ago were “waiting”, waiting for a bicycle or running water. Commodities are not rights nor their possesion and use, a right, it is a privilege of prudence and work, earned and cared for. What is a “right”, is the “opportunity” to use your God given abilities to work, and to produce, in order that you might save, repay, deploy and maintain that which you would wish, for some, a car.

Long John Silver

A similar alliance, community groups and financial watchdogs, could run a joint campaign against loansharks, if the government really wants them gone.