GRORUD (Dagbladet): Raymond Johansen is at home. Steinbra café is located directly below Grorud centre. Here, his grandfather Bertrand Berntsen was a stonemason. He is raised only a few tall stone throw away.
– Bertrand helped build the foundations of Grorud church, says Raymond and greets everyone in the room.
The election campaign is well under way and it is felt well for Oslo. FRP leader Sylvi Listhaug (from Ørskog outside Ålesund, but lives in Oslo), Erna Solberg (from Bergen and lives in Bergen) have been out and about and saying things about Oslo.
Crime, differences, care for the elderly, privatisation, immigration and integration, housing policy, school policy – Oslo is used as a starting point.
– We just have to live with the fact that, as the capital, everyone has an opinion about the city, regardless of how much knowledge they have. That’s how it’s always been. You may remember “Johnny from Stovner”? asks Raymond Johansen, recalling Crown Prince Haakon’s attempt at anonymity.
– With all due respect to Bergen and Trondheim. We only have one big city in Norway. The others also have their own struggles, but Oslo has “special challenges”.
Worst of all
Raymond Johansen cites the government’s notification to the Storting “Good urban communities with small differences” in Nynorsk, which came on Friday.
The message was immediately butchered by SV and Rødt for not containing new policies. But as a kind of summary of the situation in the big city of Oslo, it at least contains a lot:
In Oslo, there is in particular the largest difference between neighbourhoods. Segregation according to immigrant and socio-economic background is strong. Large difference in life expectancy between the districts, at most seven years. 15 per cent of families with children in Norway live in cramped conditions. In Oslo, it is 30 per cent – 60 per cent in the districts where it is highest. The cramped households are not surprisingly greatly overrepresented as recipients of housing benefit and/or social assistance. They also have several children.
– The differences in living conditions between east and west have always been there. Everything that is in the report to the Storting is a good starting point for doing more to even them out, says Raymond Johansen.
Several of the points about Oslo deal directly with the proportion of immigrants in districts and sub-districts, which mean that living conditions are worse on average in those areas.
– Before, it was only about class, then the working class got colour. There has now been more talk of immigration and integration, but that must not overshadow the main challenge. There are questions about social classessays Johansen.
– It’s not that often we hear the word “class” from Ap-toppers during the day?
– I’m still talking about classes. We have built a society where those in the middle are a very large group, fortunately. But in the Labor Party we must include the middle class. We depend on broad support to pay tax and be part of the splicing team, says Johansen.
Høre’s two billion
Oslo’s city council leader for the past eight years has no problem bragging about what has been done on his watch. The Oslo model for more orderly conditions in working life has already been exported to other municipalities and the state. Free AKS has been rolled out district by district and is now gradually being introduced nationally.
Here, too, Raymond Johansen is the most vehement against the Right, who is flying high in the 30s in the polls in Oslo.
– Yes, the Conservative Party is also in favor of as many people as possible going to kindergarten and to AKS. But they want to means test it without saying how “little” a family has to earn to have to pay. When we introduced free AKS, 33 per cent went to AKS at Furuset, now it is 92 per cent!
– It is clear that many people in Oslo who now receive free AKS have parents with good advice, but the middle class must also feel that they are getting value for their tax money. Nor is it the case that a family with two good incomes in Oslo can necessarily afford the increases in food prices and interest rates.
– If everything is needs-tested, only private solutions will emerge. There is an ideological difference between us and the Right. I hope the election campaign going forward is about the Conservative Party having to find the two billion kroner they want to cut in property tax. It is quite real that they want it, but they almost have to tell where they are going to take the money from.
Will not manage relocation
Young Conservative leader Ola Svenneby accelerated the immigration debate this summer when he proposed a freeze on immigration. The background was a mother in Groruddalen who took her child out of the public school because of challenges with too many immigrants.
Oslo does not settle refugees in the districts with the highest proportion of immigrants today, but nevertheless experiences a high influx of people with short periods of residence in Norway.
As stated in the government’s statement to the Storting:
“Some refugees like to move from the resettlement municipality during the first years after the resettlement. This is referred to as secondary migration. Those who become residents in Oslo, to the greatest extent stay in the living room. It is also Oslo that experiences the most migration. The largest emigration occurs from the northernmost counties.”
The FRP has long proposed that secondary settlement be limited in order to spread the settlement further across the country.
– If you interpret Ola Svenneby and Frp in the very best sense, aren’t you worried about the same?
– We are getting into some pretty nasty things if we prevent people from having the right to live where they want. Then nobody says that moving people from outside to Oslo who are not in work and can support themselves is a desired situation. Oslo welcomes a lot of people. We also receive many people who struggle with drug addiction from the rest of Norway, which burdens our budgets. Then we stand up, it is our obligation as a city and fellow human beings.
– Housing prices in Oslo closely follow the school district’s immigrant share, how should it be evened out more?
– In schools where the knowledge of Norwegian is poor, we must have acceptance to deploy the community’s resources. It is very demanding and there is no quick fix other than that we have to define it as our problem if the children do not learn what they are supposed to at school. We have put considerable resources into exactly this, says Raymond Johansen.
– A bourgeois politician would perhaps say that it is also the parents’ problem?
– There is no one who does not say that. I am crystal clear about that in all contexts. I am very strict with parental responsibility. When a 13-year-old takes a knife out the door in the morning, it is the parents’ responsibility. Then we know that it happens anyway. Then we also have to have a policy on it, says Johansen, and adds.
– There are a lot of people who are having a hard time.
Believe in victory
When Støre and Vedum launched the electrification of Melkøya, it was followed by a long list of brags about what the government has done for Northern Norway.
Raymond Johansen laughs off the question from Dagbladet if he can manage a similar list of brags about what the government has done for the big city of Oslo.
– The government has no wind in its sails, but we cannot whine. I will contribute as best I can in the last four weeks and then there is a stock count on the night of 12 September, says Raymond.
– Has the government delivered on what are Oslo’s “special challenges”?
– Neither this nor the previous government has succeeded. Now I hope we will have discussions about the challenges that are particular to us as a big city.
– Will it be 12 years with Raymond?
– The Conservative Party had 37 per cent in a poll this spring and we were at 16 per cent. Then they led by one mandate. It is possible to win for the third time, but it will be tough. I think it means a lot to Erna to take back the capital, so she will be here a lot. But I am very optimistic.
2023-08-14 20:34:44
#delivered #Oslo
