Who did the Crusaders

OUR VIEW

Make the playing field even

There’s a storm brewing in the accommodation sector, one that could never have been predicted even five years ago.

And that storm has everything to do with what has become a very uneven playing field when it comes to providing a place for short-term visitors to stay.

On one side there are the traditional accommodators – hotels, motels and camping grounds. They’re businesses.

They pay commercial rates, they must comply with a host of regulations and for most there are licences they must obtain and keep renewing. For them, playing by the rules is not an option.

On the other side there are the Airbnb operators. Most often these are families or individuals

Sue Newman SENIOR REPORTER

who might have a spare room, a bach or a farm cottage that’s sitting idle. They pay residential rates and that’s it. No regulations to abide by, no licences to obtain. It’s simple and it’s a very attractive way of making a few extra bob.

Whether Airbnb operators declare their sideline business is unknown, but at a guess, most probably don’t and for the good operators that could mean a

TODAY IN HISTORY

Today is Monday, February 10, the 41st day of 2020. There are 325 days left in the year.

Today’s highlight in history: On February 10, 1967, the

25th Amendment to the US Constitution, dealing with presidential disability and succession, was ratified as Minnesota and Nevada adopted it. On this date: In 1840, Britain’s Queen Victoria married Prince Albert of SaxeCoburg and Gotha. In 1936, Nazi Germany’s Reichstag passed a law investing the Gestapo secret police with absolute authority, exempt from any legal review. In 1959, a major tornado tore

through the St. Louis area, killing 21 people and causing heavy damage. In 1967, New Zealand schoolchildren received free milk between 1937 and 1967. Each day, milk monitors supplied a half-pint of milk to each pupil. By 1940 the milk was available to over 80 per cent of schoolchildren. The scheme lasted until 1967, when the government dropped it because of the cost – and because some were starting to question the health benefits of milk. In 1962, the Soviet Union exchanged captured American U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers for Rudolf Abel, a Soviet spy held by the United States. In 1992, boxer Mike Tyson was convicted in Indianapolis of raping Desiree Washington, a Miss Black America contestant. Roots author Alex Haley died in Seattle at age 70. In 1997, a civil jury heaped 25 million dollars in punitive damages on OJ Simpson for the slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, on top of eight-point-five million dollars in compensatory damages awarded earlier. In 2001, the space shuttle Atlantis’ astronauts installed the $1.4 billion Destiny laboratory on the international space station. In 2004, the White House, trying to end doubts about President George W Bush’s Vietnamera military service, released documents it said proved he had met his requirements in the Texas Air National Guard. In 2005, Britain’s Prince Charles announced he would marry his divorced lover, Camilla Parker Bowles, in April. North Korea boasted publicly for the first time that it possessed nuclear weapons. In 2006, Dr Norman Shumway, who performed the first successful US steady flow of tax-free cash. Do the sums. If you have a halfway decent room to rent and you charge $100 a night for three nights of the week, even for 40 weeks of the year, that’s $12,000 tax-free cash in your back pocket. Yes if the IRD wanted to trawl through Airbnb websites they could create a database of property owners offering shortterm accommodation whom they could pursue for potential unclaimed income, but odds on bet there are not the resources available to do that.

It would seem, if you get caught with undeclared accommodation income you’d be incredibly unlucky.

Understandably this is firing up commercial operators. They’ve watched Airbnb grow, they’ve watched their guest nights drop and with that their income and they’ve had enough. They’re not anti competition, all they’re wanting is an even playing field where every player plays by the same set of rules.

Paying guests in private homes is not new.

The foundations were laid years ago. Airbnb is just home stay and farm stay on steroids. That doesn’t make it right, but it does show how something can get out of hand very quickly. Unfortunately, there’s no simple fix. Moteliers are calling for local authorities to get tough on property owners who rent out all or part of their homes, but in most cases they will have no idea who’s in the rent-a-room game. And that means the only way they could investigate – and that’s if they had the by laws and policies in place that covered such an activity – would be relying on people to dob in their neighbour.

The fair way is developing regulatory requirements for visitor accommodation providers that include private homes. But unless those regulations are enforced, they’ll be worthless. And as any local authority will say who’ll do the work and who’ll meet the costs?

Inevitably that fall back on ratepayers.

Clearly it’s a central government job. Good luck with that one.

heart transplant, died in Palo Alto, California, at age 83. Ten years ago: Shuttle Endeavour arrived to a warm welcome at the International Space Station, delivering a new room and observation deck. Five years ago: The parents of Kayla Jean Mueller and US officials confirmed the death of the 26-year-old aid worker who had been held captive by the Islamic State group. N One year ago: Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar joined the growing group of Democrats jostling for the party’s presidential

nomination. Today’s birthdays: Opera singer Leontyne Price is 93. Actor Robert Wagner is 90. Rock musician Don Wilson is 87. Singer Roberta Flack is 83. Singer Jimmy Merchant is 80. Rock musician Bob Spalding is 73. Olympic gold-medal swimmer Mark Spitz is 70. Walt Disney Co chairman and chief executive Robert Iger is 69. Rock musician and composer Cory Lerios is 69. World Golf Hall of Famer Greg Norman is 65. Country singer Lionel Cartwright is 60. Movie director Alexander Payne is 59. Actress Laura Dern is 53. Writerproducer-director Vince Gilligan is 53. Country singer Dude Mowrey is 48. Actor Jason Olive is 48. Actress Elizabeth Banks is 46. Pop singer Rosanna Taverez is 43. Actress Julia Pace Mitchell is 42. Reggaeton singer Don Omar is 42. Country musician Jeremy Baxter is 40. ock musician Ben Romans is 38. Actor Trevante Rhodes is 30. Actress Emma Roberts is 29. Thought for today: “Morality is moral only when it is voluntary.” — Lincoln Steffens, American journalist (1866-1936). – AP