Daily Telegraph planning Houso Beat-up?

DH has just had advance notice that the Daily Telegraph is planning a beat-up on housos for New Year's Day.

She just got a breathless call from Telegraph reporter David Barrett, a young man in a hurry. Apologising for the short notice, he wanted to enlist her aid in a proposed panegyric on houso "fraudsters" who are to be blamed for the long waiting lists for public housing. No obvious mention of government policy failure was foreshadowed.

No doubt there are fraudsters out there (ye shall know them by the BMWs parked ostentatiously in the lean-to, if our late unlamented Housing Minister, and examplar of the modest lifestyle, Joe Tripodi, is to be believed). But it's nothing like the con perpetrated on the Aussie public by the Howard Government which ripped $3 billion dollars out of public housing and put it into the pockets of private landlords to no useful effect. What young David wanted was for DH to put him, pronto, onto any poor homeless sods languishing on the waiting list. DH was about to give David a piece of her mind on how she was not about to abet the Daily Telegraph's despicable policy of sooling the plebs onto each other to sell more papers, and perhaps even suggest he might like to do an indepth piece on housing policy, instead. But the poor little thing hurriedly apologised and hung up. DH indulged herself in the distinctly pleasurable reflection that the lad was probably getting the bum's rush all over Sydney from wised-up housos who were not about to be divided and ruled. So if the piece fails to materialise tomorrow, you'll know why.

PS: ... Not to put too paranoid a spin on it, but when is the first round of evictions of short-term leased tenants due? ... and what's the lead-time for softening up the public to accept it?

DOH's Christmas Gift. Don't blink or you'll miss it.

DH hears on the grapevine that tenant activists are somewhat cynical about DOH's new EcoWise and Community Development Resourcing Grants 2007/ 08

Announced in mid December, and with a closing date at the end of January, just when no tenant groups are active, it's down to individual local heroes with nothing better to do over the Christmas holidays than to sweat over a grant submission. And demonstrate that their project will "promote community awareness and skills development and can demonstrate through practical examples innovative ways to increase environmental sustainability within social housing communities". As the song says,

Dashing to the post, on EOI closing day
O what fun it is to write an expression of interest demonstrating that your project meets the following selection criteria, and its goals, objectives and KPIs *

*(not to mention either incorporate as an organisation, or find one to
sponsor you. If one is open over Christmas of course).

The usual tenant suspects who care about these things have been heard to wonder aloud whether DOH is hoping nobody noticed.

Still keen to do something for your community between now and the 31st?

On your laptops, Get ready, Steady. Go!

See the full list of criteria and the application form

Oh and dont forget to have ready the following snippets of information (p4 of 5)

Please attach the following documentation to your application:

photocopies of 3 written quotes for the purchase of any equipment costing $1000 or more

photocopies of insurance quotes

a photocopy of incorporation certificate

a copy of the most recent audited statement for 12 months of your group (or your sponsor, where relevant) showing income, including all sources of funding, and expenditure

the current constitution or articles of association of your group or sponsor

the most recent annual report, or the chairperson’s and treasurer’s reports from the last annual general meeting of your organisation or your sponsor. (Note: if the applicant is an unincorporated group but has an annual report or reports from its last annual general meeting, these should also be attached.)

a letter of authorisation regarding financial or in-kind contributions that will be made to the project by the applicant or sponsor

any other information to support your application.

Selection Criteria
Selection for Eco-Wise Community grants is a statewide, merit-based process. Eligible applications will be assessed by an Assessment Panel against the following selection criteria:
• Consistency with program aims and objectives: demonstrated alignment of project outcomes with the aims and objectives of the Eco-Wise Community Grants pilot, clear explanation of how the project addresses one or more of the program objectives.
• Demonstrated ability to deliver the project to a high standard: sound project planning and methodology, access to appropriate expertise in relevant field, demonstrated project management skills and experience of working in the housing sector and with social housing mmunities.
• Efficiency and effectiveness: stated outcomes are measurable, both qualitatively and quantitatively, extent of participation by social housing residents and other key stakeholder groups, demonstrated assessment of risk factors and identification of risk management approach, inclusion of realistic and achievable objectives and deliverables.
• Value for money: Extent to which the budget is viable for the project, sustainable outcomes of the project relative to the amount of funding sought.

We wish you a NARI Xmas and a HASI New Year

And may the Federal Labor's National Affordable Rental Incentive* and DOH's Housing and Accommodation Support Initiative, be speedily implemented and bring salvation and peace to suffering tenants throughout the land.

* Ok, so it turns out they call it NRAS (National Rental Affordability Scheme) not NARI. What do we care as long as it happens anytime soon?

Brother Kevin, for God's sake, consider the lilies...

Dear Brother Kevin,

DH has had to speak to you about this before, when you endorsed Howard's tough Welfare to Workhouse rules for the disabled. Which you announced, incredibly, the day after the Christmas holiday, 27th Dec 2006!

Let DH remind you of Christ's words, and God knows, she's an atheist, so this should really not be necessary.

Consider the lilies of the field, they toil not, neither do the spin, but Solomon, in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. (Matthew, 6:28)

Do you think Jesus might have been saying something about respecting each human's true nature, and allowing creation to take care of itself, without necessary flogging each creature to death to increase their production of beauty?

And didn't God also admonish us to

Remember the Sabbath Day and keep it Holy

Don't work your Ministers too hard,

Lest they become taskmasters over us all

The idea, Brother Kevin, was to lead Australia out of bondage, and free us from Howard's cruel Welfare-to-Workhouse taskmasters, not to lead us into bondage.

The idea of a Labor party, was not to make workers labour more. It was to make their labours easier.

So take a moment to breathe deeply, and notice that progressives and humanists have won the election. There is no need to kowtow to the most punitive and retrograde elements of society!

Now please make sure our MP's and Ministers get adequate rest over Christmas, and set an example to all of us.

Read DH's Christmas 2006 Message to Brother Kevin

Tanya Plibersek, Federal Housing Minister

Congratulations to DH's local member Tanya Plibersek, for her selection to the Ministry.

Tanya is a dream politician: highly intelligent, balanced, sensible and competent, an excellent communicator, hardworking and conscientious, utterly reliable, approachable, friendly, unpretentious, and importantly truly compassionate and devoted to social justice.

She is a star in what has to be the strongest Ministerial team this country has ever seen. What an extraordinary array of talent, and how good to see the factions swept away and unable to install their bad apples into key positions.

A whole new world

What extraordinary tectonic shifts in the Australian political scene!

DH has always put her faith in the view that where the people lead, the politicians will follow. The people showed they had risen above responding to the panic buttons that Howard and the Liberal Party had used so successfully in the last century. They have swept aside the ugly polarisation of the last decade, and now we see that the both Labor and Liberals have reconstellated around the middle path. Both parties appear to be moving in a very positive way to dealing with the challenges of the 21st century. The old fogeys of the right are gone with their ancient hatreds and prejudices. The left have been forced to get down off their hobby horses of pure theory and face practical reality.

Just one week, and the hatreds and brown fugg of the Howard era seem like light years away.

It appears that Australia has had a peaceful revolution and it's difficult to imagine the country being hijacked again by extremists in any foreseeable future.

May it ever be thus.

DH's Housing Policy Shopping List

Federal

• Reversing the Howard Government's removal of $3 billion from the public housing system into the pockets of private landlords via inflationary rental subsidies
  
• Following the advice of organisations like Shelter and ACOSS to reduce rental stress across the board and ease the pressure on public housing

State

Keep up the Good Work

• Environment
  DOH has very impressive plans for upgrading old stock and implementing regular maintenance programs, and for building new stock to sustainable standards
  
• Transfer to Community Housing
  Proceeding apace and despite misgivings of old lefties promises to decentralise DOH and provide more flexible and responsive housing options

Local Department of Housing Offices

Omigod!!!!

Only God and Schrodinger know what goes on inside the black box known as your average NSW Department of Housing Local Office. Is there an administrative system in there, or just some kind of cat that, at any given moment, may be alive or dead?

The remaining notes are accordingly speculative only...

So far, the cat must be more or less alive, because everytime the box is pried open (the only way is to complain to your local member), there appears to be some feeble thumping in response but it all soon dies down again ...

• Communications
  
  We can deduce that there is some kind of primitive communications going on in there because rent arrears precipitate an instant response. Sadly, every other form of communication from the outside world is directly funnelled into the Bermuda Triangle, which we now know hovers over DOH Broadway, and is never heard of again. There has to be a better way than post-it notes!
  
  DOH could try keeping tenants in the loop. Should avoid making grand promises like the 20 day maintenance guarantee, as disappointment does tend to set in after the first 6 months. And in official correspondence should attempt to sound less like Miss Dorothea McGillicuddy, DH's old Head Mistress, whose disciplinary style went out with Queen Victoria.
  
• Performance
  Acesss to the league table of maintenance backlogs by local office would be a great step towards accountability. We know DOH has them. What are they doing with them?
  
• Investment in administrative support
  Perhaps it's not Schrodinger's Cat in the Broadway Black Box, but a couple of Schrodinger's Chooks-with-Their-Heads-Chopped-off? The quality of output suggests understaffing and administrative mayhem.
  
• Tenant Participation
  There's a long way to go. For instance, a person not entirely unknown to DH, found herself propelled to the heady heights of representative of all the public housing tenants in a large section of the inner city, without a single soul having voted for her, her neighbours hating her, and noone else so much as ever having sighted her. All because she accidentally sleepwalked into the general election and there was noone else there.
  
• Safety and Security of Tenants
  A political minefield. More on this later.
  

.... that's it for now. More bright ideas following

Why DH has quit F/T work: Spreadsheet of a disincentive

HOW TO EARN MORE FOR 3 DAYS WORK THAN FOR 4

The pincers in action: DOH and Centrelink between them manage to create the mother of all disincentives to work and education.

DH has quit F/T work. It just wasn't worth it. Tired all the time, no money, her daughter is a stranger, she hasn't visited her mother in yonks, the house is a mess, no money for repairs or maintenance, and not even enough money leftover for the all important lattes.

Spreadsheet based on DH's weekly payslips
over the past 6 months, by hours worked.*

The blue line shows DH's net weekly income after rent, for 21 hours work.

As you can see, her net actually gets LOWER with every additional hour worked until she hits 29 hours, or an extra day.

Consider her poor employers, a NSW Govt Department. She made them give her a raise as a matter of pride*, but while the difference between her minimum and maximum gross income is $490 she only ends up with $92 in her pocket

Given that $400 must cover: groceries, private health insurance, prescription meds ($100 a month), rising costs of public transport, gas and electricity, communications costs, more expensive work clothes (the old grey trackies would hardly do), repairs, outings, gifts, memberships, holidays (what holidays???), replacement of white goods (which are now 30 years old)...

Wait, there are more disincentives ...
DH actually pays more rent than she should, ie she pays more than the amounts on the spreadsheet. The amounts shown are what she should be paying. But DOH averages earnings over the past 6 months. As DH's income has been steadily dropping, she doesn't have the energy to go through the rigmarole of filling in the subsidy forms every time her rent drops, since it involves much frenzied faxing between herself, her employment agency, and DOH. She'd rather just pay the extra and have a life ...

... it's not much of an incentive, is it?

* Amounts rounded to nearest integer. Hours rounded to nearest 1/2 hour. DH's family income is augmented by her child's disability pension, which is about $150 a week, and on which about $13 extra rent is charged. DOH deems about $600 to be an average income. Even when DH earns over $1000, she finds she has to get charity help to make ends meet. Still, its better than living in most of Africa, South America, the Middle East, Bangladesh, so mustn't complain too much.

Election's over: Back on your heads!

Before the election, carrying water, hewing wood

After the election, carrying water, hewing wood

(Old Buddhist Saying)

Party's over. Back to reality. In the case of DH and her neighbours, this means

• Having been foolhardy enough to ignore DOH and Centrelink's inbuilt Disincentives to Work and Education by getting a higher education, having more takehome pay for working 21 hours a week than for working 28 (thanks to escalating HECS, SPSS and DOH rent)
  
• Giving up fulltime work because despite earning over a $1000 a week with the above disincentives, plus the additional costs of unsubsidised medication and transport, she is only a few dollars better off than on the pension, while her health suffers from the added stress, the time poverty, the chaotic life of being a carer, trying to keep a household running with no money for repairs or refurbishing.
  
• Looking forward to a summer in a house designed by an idiot. With the house facing west with 70% of the western wall made of glass, no insulation in the roof, no eaves to protect against the sun, windows that open outward at a slight angle and allow no air to circulate so the house cannot cool down, with her daughter's brains frying in the eastern bedroom in the morning, and the main western bedroom unlivable in the afternoon, and the room not cooling till about 5 in the morning. Nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. No rest in this house over the Christmas break.
  
• DH's entire block of 8 houses put in an application to DOH at the beginning of the year to get some heat relief measures put in place. Despite calling half a dozen times, as is the case with DOH's own Siberia, the Broadway DOH, (see Bermuda triangle over Broadway) messages get lost, never to be seen again. There has been no response so far.
  
• Elsewhere in the more crumbling regions of DH's precinct, elderly residents complain of being terrorised by the increasingly targetted population of mentally ill men, drug addicts and criminals. While DOH and other government departments are having a great time signing of high level agreements on mental health supports and bristle with acronyms HASIs and JGOS come and go while nothing happens on the ground

HellChoices: Epitaph to the Howard Years

If satire is the housing of last resort for the politically homeless, then let us pray that the Labor victory will put Diary of A Desperate Houso out of business.

In the meantime, DH thinks it fitting to resurrect this Lazarus of All Jokes in tribute to the era tha has passed

John Howard goes to hell and is met by the Devil, who says "There are 3 rooms here and you can choose which one you want to spend eternity in".

The Devil takes him to the first room which has the seedy appearance of a government funded dental hospital waiting room. An endless queue of lost souls clutching their jaws and writhing in agony are hopping from foot to foot in front of a door that says "reopening just as soon as hell freezes over". The Devil explains that this room is reserved for Moloch Worshippers who believed that Market Forces would look after the Meek (in the long term).

The Devil takes him to next room, "Mistress Miranda DeVine's Dungeon", where abject souls are being made to drink Lattes till their eyes pop out of their heads under the merciless tongue lashing of the hell kitten herself, all the whiles listening to a droning commentary from a quivering mass of ectoplasm going under the name of Gerard Henderson.

Finally the Devil ushers him into a third room and while it's true that everyone appears to be up to their knees in dreck, nevertheless they're all standing around quite sociably, drinking cups of tea and chatting.John Howards chuckles to himself, "Well, this is not too bad considering the swifties I pulled on the the mug battlers. I reckon I can handle this". So he helps himself to a cuppa and an iced vovo and prepares to meet and greet.

Just as he is about to take a sip, the loudspeaker suddenly blares. "A special announcement. The management would like to extend an especially warm welcome to former Australian PM, John Howard, the inspiration for our new industrial relations policy, Hellchoices. We are sure that he has made the right choice in accepting our offer of an iced vovo as a tradeoff on his annual teabreak.

OK punters, time's up. Everybody back on your heads!"

The Most Desperate Houso of All facing eviction

May it come to pass

Union or Billionaires Row. Which one will you join, come the election result?

Paul Sheehan, of the SMH, whose major impact on DH;s life to date was getting her to spend several $100 hard-earned on Silly Water (how could one of the the SMH's most senior journalists be wrong about this miracle panacea for all ills??*) read with interest his ominous article in today's SMH.

In purple prose reminiscent of the words of the fascist poet T.S. Eliot. "What slow beast lurches towards Bethlehem?" he reckons that there's no real difference between the parties, that the election is really about Union Power, and ends his rant with the following.

"Everything is in place. With Labor so close to the holy grail of power - every government in Australia - the machine, and the Labor left, are maintaining an iron discipline, and a patient silence"

Before voting, working punters should ask themselves "If I'm unhappy with the election result, and want to change things, which am I more likely to be able to join and influence: My Union, or the Billionaires Club?"

And vote accordingly.

*And how come the SMH still hires someone who has so little credibility?.

Meet the National Aspirationalist Candidate for the Seat of Sydney

At a "Meet the Candidates" held recently in Sydney, the Liberal Candidate, (her name was as memorable as the list of platitudes she read from) enthusiastically endorsed her party's new rebadging as the party of "National Aspirationalism".

DH has long suspected that this policy arises from a simple typographical error perpetrated by some Liberal Party staffer, steeped in that party's noble tradition of knowing as little as possible about history in case it turns out to be upsetting. Perhaps, having been told to research Globalisation, our staffer accidentally researching Goebbalisation instead, and couldn't tell the difference.

To check her hunch, DH asked Miss Liberal afterwards whether "National Aspirationalism" meant things like "Strength through Joy" and "Hard Work gives us Free Choice"*, to which the candidate enthusiastically agreed.

Sigh.

OTOH, if the Liberals threw in a free Mateswagen Beetle for every battler, and promised to get the trains and buses running on time, it could be a goer!

Translation: Relax...
Strength Through Joy

* Historical Notes

Work'Choices' gone Feral

• Kraft Durch Freude - Nazi campaign to build the National Will via cheap holidays. Included a savings plan towards the KDF Wagen, later rebadged as the Volkswagen
  
• Arbeit Macht Frei: WorkChoices gone Feral. Emblazoned on the main gates of the Auschwitz, it translates roughly as "Work will set us Free". It didn't then. It won't now. Australia is already the hardest working nation in the world. Calculate the social costs for yourselves.

Asperger's and the Mother of all Disincentives to Work, Education and Having a Life

DH strung out trying to survive as parent of young adult with Asperger's

Thanks to the interplay of the irrational policies of Centrelink and DOH, DH is staring down the barrel of unemployment again with maximum nuisance not only to herself but to her employers.

To get a grip on this saga of policy folly, you need to understand that DH is the parent of a young adult with Asperger Syndrome, aka Autistic Spectrum "Disorder", or AS. AS can be thought of as primarily a disorder of social communication. It is neither a physical or intellectual disability, nor a mental illness, though for people with AS, depression and anxiety go hand in hand with the strains of being "odd people out" in a demanding world that doesn't understand their limitations. Parents of people with AS are carers by virtue of the constant psychological strain of dealing with their demanding, "loner" offspring, of advocating for them, of constantly being on call to troubleshoot from cradle to ... well, the totally inadequate Disability Support Pension. While both Labor and the Libs now recognise AS and are beginning to fund support programs for children, the first wave of AS children (AS was only recognised by the medical profession in the late 80's) are now in their early twenties. They need a lot of specialised support in employment, education and housing, but so far this is barely on governmental radar.

But in the meantime, parents of AS children are having a hard time being recognised as carers for the purposes of Centrelink. AS people do not need constant supervision, they love being alone!, and they don't need personal care, (if you don't mind being totally embarassed in public in the company of a normal, often very good-looking young adult who lacks the co-ordination to brush their teeth or their hair properly). The only trouble is that while they may love being alone, aloneness is detrimental to their wellbeing, they actually need social interaction same as anyone else, and thus their parents are carers by virtue of needing to be their sole friends, by needing to constantly be on hand to fight fires, to explain odd behaviours, to deal with official business, to explain a bewildering world,

Thus it was that DH gave up trying to stay on the Carer's Pension, which prohibited her from working more than 15 hours, (and GET THIS! that 15 hours included travel time), while not giving her enough money to live on. NEvertheless, it was an important safety net for herself and child, allowing her reduced taxation, subsidised medication and transport costs.

However, she was then put on Newstart, and 'assessed' (nice way to talk about a human being BTW. In DH's youth, the only thing that got assessed was an insurance claim). Anyhow, she was assessed as being capable of 30 hours work and forced to find it. How many jobs are there that employ someone for 30 hours??? In short, DH was forced to find fulltime work, despite the extraordinary strains she lives under as an unrecognised carer.

So now we see that with fulltime work,

• no concessions on medications or transport,
• DOH throwing her straight into rental stress by dropping her in the deep end at 30% of her gross wages (despite the fact that she never sees 10% of that as it goes to HECS, HELP, SPSS (Educational Supplement)

not only is DH only a few dollars a week better off than on the disgracefully, miserably low Carers Pension, but her employers are suffering as well.

With the constant stress, DH;s immune system is up the creek. She has been coughing her lungs out for several months, and if this blog was an Opera, she'd be singing her final deathbed aria by the end of this post. Not only that, her life is a constant round of visits to psychiatrists, councillors, employment agencies, social workers on behalf of her daughter. She only averages about 3-4 days a week. She is constantly tired, the work is not getting done. Being a responsible worker, she feels constantly guilty, she is stressed out constantly by the decision of whether to take a day off and lose pay (she's on an hourly rate, no holiday pay, sick pay).

DH, like many of her friends who are educated, working sole parents or carers, and live in public housing are finding it almost impossible to make ends meet.

No joke, folks.

Carer's Week is over, and this is still not a life.

"Public Housing not a Right" says Labor (!) Minister

Responding to the news that the Islamic Council has been caught placing cronies in community housing, rather than refugees, Housing Minister Matt Brown apparently ended an otherwise sensible press release detailing plans to stop the rort, with State Labor's new mantra:

"Social housing is a privilege not a right."*

Source: COMMUNITY HOUSING BEING
USED FOR FRIENDS NOT REFUGEES
Friday, 02 November, 2007
By Edwina Bartholomew

as relayed by National TSN (see below)

While the majority of voters in this country are desperate to see Howard and Co thrown out, comments like the above from the new generation of rightwing Labor careerists, who seem to be totally ignorant of Labor history, are not making it easy for Labor supporter to keep it together.

One effect of the long election year is that the ALP left are sitting on their hands, zipping their mouths, and barely holding back the torrent of reckoning that will come to this bunch of big-talking amateurs running the state, (who, DH is sure, are at this moment, quivering in their white shoes at the thought of the challenge from the handful of relics of the sixties who still hang on in their ineffectual branches)

Proving again why he is Public Houso No 1, Garry Mallard, PBIC (Pooh-bah in Chief) of the National Tenant Support Network comments:

Comment from Garry Mallard:

Yes folks, the Minister has uttered the magic sentence. Took longer than expected, sure, but there it is above, NSW Labor's official mantra for all social housing occasions - "Social housing is a privilege, not a right".

Carl Scully said it first, betraying the depth of his ignorance.

Jo Tripody followed Scully. He said it often and in that way that is peculiar to arrogant bullies.

Cherie Burton she said it too... but then, it is said she sought the assistance of an American television medium to contact her dead grandfather to see if he could recommend a good date for the Minister and her partner to marry (Daily Telegraph). Speaks volumes, doesn't it!

Now Matthew Brown has said it, and as the word spreads across NSW, our sector heaves a collective sigh that is shorthand for, "The honeymoon is over. Here we go again!"

The human right to housing is explicitly set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and other international human rights treaties and Declarations.

The Human Right to Adequate Housing guarantees all people the right to live in security, peace and dignity. It involves more than the right to access to shelter and includes the following indivisible, interdependent and interrelated human rights:

• The human right to adequate shelter.
  
• The human right to an adequate standard of living.
  
• The human right to access to safe drinking water and sanitation.
  
• The human right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.
  
• The human right to a safe and healthy environment.
  
• The human right of the child to an environment appropriate for physical and mental development.
  
• The human right to access to resources, including energy for cooking, heating, and lighting.
  
• The human right of access to basic services, schools, transportation and employment options.
  
• The human right to affordability in housing so that other basic needs are not threatened or compromised.
  
• The human right to freedom from discrimination in access to housing and related services based on sex, race, or any other status.
  
• The human right to choose one's residence, to determine where and how to live and to freedom of movement.
  
• The human right to freedom from arbitrary interference with one's privacy, family or home.
  
• The human right to security, including legal security of tenure.
  
• The human right to protection from forced evictions and the destruction or demolition of one's home including in situations of military occupation, international and civil armed conflict, establishment and construction of alien settlements, population transfer, and development projects.
  
• The human right to equal protection of the law and judicial remedies for the redress of violations of the human right to adequate housing.

Oh well, maybe we'll do better next time....or the time after, or.....?

Garry Mallard

Coordinator

The National TSN

TSN@thenexus.org.au

TSN Bulletins ©The National Tenant Support Network

Public housing tenants at risk of losing home under re-elected Howard government

Highlights of a press release from DH's favorite politician: Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Human Services, Housing, Women and Youth

Australians living in public housing will be at risk of losing their homes if the Howard government is re-elected. Minister Mal Brough plans to tender out existing public housing dollars to the private sector. There are more than 300,000 families who live in public housing across Australia – all whose residency will be at risk if the Coalition is re-elected. Labor supports private sector involvement in affordable housing initiatives but not at the expense of existing public housing funding.

Without Commonwealth investment in the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement States will be forced to cannibalise their stock.

The States and territories have made substantial efforts to maintain or increase their public housing stock - including hundreds of millions of dollars recently committed by Victoria, Queensland and NSW in particular.

In contrast, the Howard Government has ripped $3 billion out of public housing over the last decade in the last three CSHAs.

Under Mal Brough's plan, States may be forced to sell off a portion of public housing stock in order to maintain the rest. With housing affordability at record lows it is more important than ever to maintain a strong housing safety net for the most disadvantaged Australians. With vacancy rates plummeting and rents projected to increase on average by 28 per cent across the country by the end of the decade, more Australians are at risk of becoming homeless.

Only Labor has put forward serious solutions to address the housing affordability crisis.

Labor has committed to investing $600 million in a National Rental Affordability Scheme to stimulate the construction of up to 50,000 new affordable rental properties across Australia, for rent to low-income households at 20 per cent below market rates.

A Rudd Labor government will also protect existing public housing funding levels when it replaces the CSHA with a National Affordable Housing Agreement in July 2008 and work with the states and territories to boost the supply of public, community and crisis housing.

A One Way Street called "Mutual Obligation"

What a disgusting sham!

While the poor are monitored, goaded, and shamed for a pittance, the government fails in its obligation to provide a livable income support payment, not to mention affordable housing, decent health care, and all the rest of it.

While the onus is on individuals to account for their every movement, to to educated in their entitlement, there is no onus on government to provide clear and simple policies.

While the onus is on individuals to pay back erroneous claims, there is no onus on the government to backdate claims that people dont know they are entitled to, or apply for in the mistaken belief that there is natural justice operating somewhere.

Not only drowning, but raging

Rent-hoppers

DH has coined a new word for our troubled times:

Renthoppers (n): people who hop from rental fryingpan to fire and back again, trying to minimise the pain. Small dispossessed bands begin to roam from state to state searching for affordable housing, eventually turning into a mighty plague of itinerant workers heading for Canberra, hopefully there to settle on the Howard goverment till it sinks under their weight, but only after having chewed NSW Labor out to shreds for its mismanagement of public housing. And who knows, the terrain left fallow may yet undergo a greening.

Origin of the term: Inspired by South African writer Can Themba's memorable phrase about shanty town workers who spend their lives "Jumping like fleas from contingency to contingency". .

Image: Lifted from the CSIRO http://www.csiro.au/images/mediaReleases/Locust_plaguesml.jpg

Turnbull leak: Product differentiation between rat and sinking ship?

You gotta wonder whether Turnbull sprung the leak as an early product differentiation marketing strategy for next time round

Malthus rules OK

Give living things an inch and they will take a mile. Think locusts. (See also Renthoppers, below).

Whoever we vote for, the better they make things, the more we'll imagine it's a licence to consume, and the bigger the final crash will be.

Perhaps it's already too later.

Megafires in California. TWISTERS? In NSW!!!???

We are the only species that can choose whether to emulate locusts or gods.

We appear to have chosen locusts as our role models.

Ignorance and greed rule.

Given the choice between self-regulation to ease pressure on resources, or the scapegoating and destruction of vulnerable populations, humans have not chosen wisely in the past.

Behind the successes of agriculture and medicine come the grim reaper, new epidemics at best, genocide at worst.

Compassion fatigue is one of the first symptoms. Thanks to the efforts of a small heroic minority of activists, journalists and thinkers, there will continue to be lip service to minority rightsfor groups like us housos, the disabled, "foreigners", housing latecomers, the aged, the sick, the unlucky, the farmers, the list goes on, but the stronger majority will turn a blind eye to the crumbling of the infrastructure that supports us. We're all looking to lifeboats now.

It's really up to us minorities to get our acts together because no one else will do it for us. From what DH has seen of her neighbours, there's little cause for optimism here either.

Oh, why bother...

Fergeddabout da election already

Being heartily sick of all the infantile blather, the scare campaigns, the desperate grinning, teeth baring and teeth sucking from the 3 stooges, DH urges readers to forget about the election, get on with their lives, vote for Labor, and especially, if you're lucky enough to live in Sydney, the brilliant Tanya Plibersek would make a knockout first female Prime Minister of Australia.

Then, once we have Labor in in the Canberra, will come the next fun part, getting the gloves off and getting stuck into NSW Labor.

Howard's Poison Chalice

Has anyone noticed that now that Lazarus has run out of bypass options, he is planning to run the country from beyond the grave?

By committing the next Federal Government, which is bound to be Labor now, to massive and irresponsible tax cuts and misapplied spending, he is handing over a poisoned chalice from which he and his ilk can blame labor for inflationary spending over the life of the next few governments.

Let us hope that Labor for once will do the pragmatic thing and make its own distinctions about core and non-core promises when it comes to taxation policy.

It's all very well to blame politicians, but when the swinging voters are arguably, very arguably, greedy morons, whaddayagonnado?

Ask not for whom the Worm Turns, it turns for Thee

As the Bishop said to Lazarus, "Ask not etc ".

There was poor Johnny, chewing his cud, sucking at his teeth and looking miserable, banging on and on about the unions in the absence of a decent argument, taunting Kevin Rudd with tactics that DH hasn't seen in action since primary school. Meanwhile Kevin ran rings around him in flexibility, in thinking on his feet, in marshalling facts, in deflecting Howard's increasingly desperate personal attacks. A great effort given the enormous hopes of the majority of the population riding on his performance.

And what about Howard's vision for the future of education: it's all fast forward to the past.

And what about the sight of Peter Costello and Lord Downer of Baghdad grinning like fools in the audience?

COME BACK CHANNEL NINE.
THREE DECADES OF LOUSY PROGRAMMING ARE FORGIVEN!

You did yourself proud and struck a blow for free speech!

Sick day dilemma

DH has been struggling with an URTI for the last couple of weeks. The antibiotics are not working, and though she could go to work as she is not feverish, her body is crying "Please take me back to bed"

DH is reluctant to take a sickie. She likes her job, being assistant co-ordinator of a team which provides an important service to the public. Due to chronic under-staffing and under-resourcing in the Public Service, there is a lot of pressure on everyone in her team to do their jobs, and on her boss especially as he coordinates the whole shebang. DH considers him to be a hero, and hates to leave the team in the lurch. Nevertheless it is scandalous that our important services are being run on shoestrings. DH has worked in the past year at several government departments, a politician's electorate officer, and a university department, and its always the same story.

The reason none of these workplaces collapse is because everyone who works there is giving 150% of their time and energy, in overtime, in patience under extreme duress, even to the extent of dipping into their own pockets to pay for things like office supplies, phone calls, taxis etc.

There is, needless to say, no slack in the system for people to get sick.

DH gets paid by the hour. Given that she is on a subsistence income, she needs to think very carefully about whether she can afford to take a rest if she is not actually at death's door.

While temp rates are meant to yield a higher rate than permanent rates for the same job to cover the loss of sick pay, that is simply not true anymore, if it ever was. DH is still being paid $30 an hour as a project officer, same as she was 10 years ago.

Oh, except that last week she managed to extract a $5 an hour increase from her employer, who, due to chronic understaffing, insufficient funding for proper administrative backup, is dependant on her.

Under the circumstances, she has been slinking around ever since, feeling like a blackmailer, and wondering if she deserves it. (Another one of unspoken pressures of individual bargaining, btw). Not conducive to the feelings of high-self esteem that we know are necessary for a strong immune system.

In short, between the guilt of letting the team down, worry about how to pay for next week's bills with a loss of a day's wage, and what if she doesn't feel better tomorrow????? and the time taken for unburdening herself on this blog, which is a better and more healing outlet than lying in bed and weeping, it is now 10 oclock, DH has finally taken the decision to have a day off.

And so to bed...

Go, Kevin, Go

... all our hopes for a fair and just Australia are riding on you.

 

OTOH, if you blow it, or if Labor doesn't win the election,  the shame will be on the electors who are prepared to sell out our democratic heritage and our public infrastructure for a mess of pottage, or a few extra quid in their pockets

Carers Week Special! Check these health costs

Weekly Net Income for 2 people $886, Rent $320, Health Costs $305, Gas and Elect $50, Weekly Bus Tickets $49.50, Alcohol units consumed, cigarettes smoked, illicit drugs consumed, savings lost at the pokies: Are you kidding? Where do you think you are? Bridget Jones Diary?

What's left for food, phonebills, insurance, union fees, clothes, groceries, cleaning aids, gardening supplies, insect killer, holiday and Xmas gift savings,: $186.00

So how come DH's health costs were so great this week? Given that she's got nothing much wrong with her except depression, (and what carer isn't depressed?, plus the drugs needed to control the side-effects of the anti-depressants. DH is basically being drugged to be a happy little worker.
Note to Tony Abbott: The cost of giving carers a decent carer's pension, might be less than the PBS costs of drugging them to work. )

Family health insce 106.10
Prescription (Regular Monthly) 98.90
Prescription (Quarterly) 11.90

DH had the flu this week so other costs were

GP Gap fees 25.00
Antibiotic 15.99
Analgesic 5.99
Cough suppressant lozenges 7.99

While at the GPs, DH, being a seniorish citizen also complained that her feet were killing her, and so the GP recommended

Anti-inflammatory ointment 8.95
Arch supports 29.95
TOTAL 319.78

Medication tips for the Working Poor

IS THIS YOU?

• Disabled?
• Chronically ill?
• Hounded back to work by Welfare-to-Workhouse?
• Lost your pharmaceutical benefit?
• Can't afford your prescription meds any more?

DON'T DESPAIR!

On behalf of her fellow working poor, DH has volunteered her body for a medical experiment, a delicate clinical wallet-relining procedure, and the results so far are positive: She is still alive.

And the good news is:

Your only financial outlay is a good sharp razor

No, not like that, silly people.

You also need a bit of acting talent and a fair bit of chutzpah

Here's what you do

1. Go visit your local GP, (Finding one who still bulk bills is good)
2. Tell them your symptoms have dramatically escalated
3. Apply liberally any of: graphically clutching your side, limping, downcast gaze, wild-eyed, suspicious gaze, or similar extemporisations
4. Convince them you need a larger dose of your meds. (Go for 4 times, but even 2 times larger is good)
5. Voila! Your medication costs have just halved or quartered per month!
6. Simply apply the razor as exactly as you can. (Avoid pill-cutters, one of the greatest minor frauds practised on the gullible citizenry. Unless you take triangular pills, of course)

Its very important to follow this procedure. Simply going to your GP and asking for a double dose because you can't afford your meds anymore will be met with frowns of disapproval and nonsense about how, "This is not good clinical practise, because you cannot deliver a stable dose"

DH has been doing this for a couple of months now, and she's still more or less OK, if somewhat woozy, erratic, and unpredictable from time to time. On the other hand, she can apply the savings to other health improvers like better food, and gym fees, thus doing a favor to herself and long term health benefits to the taxpayer

Happy Carer's Week, one and all!

$268.50 a week!

That's what the Howard Govt expects sole parent carers to survive on

__________________________________________________________

To Tony Abbott and all your good Christian Right-to-Life mates,

Put your money where your mouths are, you hypocritical hounds!
If you can't guarantee disabled people a life equivalent to that of an average middle class Australian, you'd be kinder to kill them at birth.

___________________________________________________________


The appalling statistics:

56% of carers suffer moderate depression*
40% of carers suffer severe depression

2,600,000 Australians are carers
500,000 are on call 24 hrs a day.
104,000 are dependant on the Carer's Pension

* Cf 6% of the general population

Shocking rates of depression in carers

High rates of depression in carers
Adele Horin October 15, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/high-rates-of-depression-in-carers/2007/10/14/1192300600633.html

CARERS who look after frail, disabled or mentally ill relatives suffer "extraordinary" rates of depression and have the lowest level of wellbeing of any group in society, a study reveals.
Their dissatisfaction with all aspects of life is more pronounced than other marginalised groups surveyed, such as unemployed people who live alone and people on very low incomes.
"This is truly sad stuff," said Robert Cummins, of the school of psychology at Deakin University, who will present the findings today at the launch of Carers' Week.
"We have been doing research in this area for more than six years … and I'm not aware of any group that has ever been found to have a wellbeing score as low as carers."
The study, based on the responses of 3750 carers to a detailed questionnaire, showed 56 per cent would be classified as moderately depressed compared with 6 per cent of the general population.
"This is an extraordinary result," said Professor Cummins, who publishes the Australian Unity Wellbeing Index, a regular measure of how satisfied people are with their lives.
Almost 40 per cent of the carers were estimated to fall in the "severe" to "extremely severe" range of depression. The average carer also experienced moderate levels of stress.
The special report on carers compares their wellbeing in July 2007 with that of the general population. It shows high levels of life dissatisfaction among carers even in the presence of mitigating factors such as having a higher income and being in a relationship.
Among the 83 per cent of carers who live with the person they are looking after, the level of wellbeing was the lowest ever measured for any group in 17 wellbeing surveys since 2001.
Professor Cummins said the average wellbeing score for Australians sat between 73 and 76, while the average score for carers was 58.5; for those who resided with their frail, disabled or mentally ill spouse, parent or child, the score was 58.4.
The wellbeing score is calculated from responses to questions about health, relationships, safety and community involvement.
Joan Hughes, chief executive officer of Carers Australia, said: "I know the feelings of anger and frustration among carers, and many of the things that could help them have been spoken about for long enough."
She said 2.6 million Australians were carers, and half a million were in particular distress from being on call 24 hours a day. As well, 104,000 were dependent on a Centrelink carer pension and a further 400,000 received a small fortnightly Centrelink allowance.
"This means a substantial group of carers lives on incomes well below the minimum wage," she said. "The Federal Government has given one-off bonuses of $1000 or $600 in three budgets but what we need is a doubling of the carer allowance and the establishment of a carer superannuation scheme."
The study revealed sole parents to be the most distressed carers. Carers who looked after children were worse off than those who looked after a spouse, and women were much less satisfied than men.
Professor Cummins said there was no evidence carers adapted to their situation if their duties continued for longer than two years.

St John Howard, Saviour of the Aborigines, Patron Saint of Pre-election Spinners, Duckers and Weavers

Nuff said...

Misery: Where to now?

DH reports a sad rite of passage. The passing of her TEIS

 

This week she pays $16 more rent then her net wage.

 

And she's sure she's not alone.

 

Yesterday, even on full rent subsidy,  she couldnt afford the $32 weekly bus ticket, and had to spend her last $5.80 on the full fare to and from work.

 

What profligacy brought her to that state, you may ask? She blew her last weeks salary on $120 worth of work clothes for summer weather

 

Where to now?

 

Quit her job?

Misery

D-DAY: DH begins to pay rent at 30% of gross salary

Net salary received today (weekly). . . . 618.00
Rent + water due today (fortnightly). . . 634.00
Going out backwards by . . . . . . . . . . . 16.00

Only art and literature can express DH's feelings now.

Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure rent nineteen nineteen six, result
happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure rent twenty pounds ought and six, result
misery. (Charles Dickens' Micawber Principle)

Picasso: Weeping woman

For Gorsake, what are they waiting for?

Jump, man, jump







John Howard as we will always remember him.

Clinging on to power right down to the last finger nail.

DREADING next week

DH is DREADING next week.

From then on, nearly half her take home pay will be rent. As she is paid weekly, but rent is fortnightly, this means that every second week, she will have between $30 - $40 a week left after rent.

That's when TEIS, the 3 month grace period ends during which tenants who have not worked for 12 months pay the the old subsidised rate, to give them a chance to catch up. It's a DOH version of Centrelink's Working Credit Scheme.

DH appreciates how fortunate she is compared to renters in the private market of course. Let us hope that populist politicians will not use this to divide and rule by siccing the lower classes, (which now includes the middle class) against each other to fight for housing which should not be this scarce in a wealthy country like Australia.

Here's another thing. She can't afford her medications and has been razorblading them by half, which means she is not in the best of shape, and to make matters worse, she has to take a new drug which is not on the PBS, as the old one has been withdrawn from the US market for its risk of heart and lung damage. The new drug would cost her $150 a month.

Not complaining for her own sake, but as an indicator of the GODAWFUL housing, and health, mess 10 years of Howard has left for the country.

It's not just Royal North Shore Hospital

• Pressure on staff
• Not enough hands on deck
• Dedicated workers giving 200% overworked, overtired
• Work is much more intense
• Technological complexity
• No time for training
• Administrative overload
• Lack of specialised staff
• Political footballs
• No time for listening, reflection,
• Lack of money
• Demoralised staff
• No time to do the job properly

DH is typing this list while listening to Fran Kelly on the ABC discussing the background to the tragic miscarriage at RNSH

It's not just RNSH.
As a temp, DH has worked recently at several State Govt departments, a politicians office, several peak NGO's, and a University department.
These problems are endemic to all.

It is a miracle that the vital provision of the states' services and infrastructure of the state get done at all, and its only because the majority of workers give 200%, often even dipping into their own pockets, their own time, to hold it all together.

DH wonders if our state institutions are suffering from a rapidly progressing internal haemmorhagic fever, and one day we'll wake up and find that our institutions have collapsed around us.

DH reckons one culprit is technological change that is happening faster than our institutions can cope with, or absorb. While we are paying heavily for all this expensive technology, it's actually slowing us down.

But no time to develop a major thesis. Heigh, ho, heigh ho, late for work again, while pontificating... DH will have an exciting day today. She has been encouraged by the staff to challenge the management to make major changes with herself leading the charge.

Guess why?

Because DH has secure housing, she need not fear losing her job, and can speak her mind, and do what's right.

And this leads us to this interesting political point.

The best way to control a population is to keep them in fear of homelessness.

If Shelter was a right, if everyone had Land Rights, or at least Pied-a-Terre Rights, imagine ...

Thesis to be continued...

Urgent philosophical query for blog readers

Applying "Beginners' Mind" to the apparently insoluble question of why a wealthy country like Australia can't afford to house its citizens so that they can put down some roots and get their lives into some kind of order, DH realises that she doesn't even understand the basics.

 

So please help her to get a grip on first principles 

 

Can anyone remind DH why it is that such a huge deposit is required to climb up the slippery slope to home ownership in the first place?.

 

Is there a genuine economic reason for this,  inscribed in the Laws of Nature, or is this simply some kind of moral hurdle / rationing device dreamed up by the same miserable wretches who brought us the Protestant Work Ethic and its horrible corollary, John Howard? 

 

Why can't everyone simply stake out a claim on a property, promise faithfully to love, honour and be responsible for it for ever and ever amen, and then start paying the builders.  

 

Is this a way of saying that only people with inherited property, (and in the case of White Australia, we know exactly the lofty morality with which they acquired their property in the first place),  or those with a capacity for self-denial during the best years of their lives, deserve a home?

 

AHA!!! Is it because builders require some capital to start with, which the banks must provide?

 

Why can't our taxes provide this startup capital?

 

AHA!!! (2).  That's called Public Housing!!! Now DH gets it!

 

Yeah but,...  Public Housing is when the Government hires so-called architects deliberately selected on the basis of their loathing of humanity and their lack of a sense of design and beauty to go out of their way to create housing of such ugliness and disutility that it won't upset miserable wretches  who think the only way to a moral life is through self-flagellation and parsimony.

 

To be continued - DH is off to her one-stop self-flagellation shop aka "The Job" to save up for next months bus fare to "The Job"

 

 

Breaches of Mutual Reponsibility: Can an Ant sue a Herd of Elephants?

Are there any lawyers lurking about?

The Question

Can Centrelink Recipients mount a class action against the Howard Government for breaching its own much-trumpeted Doctrine of "Mutual Responsibility".

Definition of terms

• A state sanctioned band of reprobates who rob from the poor to give to the rich (hereinafter referred to as the 'Howard Government')
• The Howard Government and its legal heirs and descendants, (just in case Labor gets in and ends up doing bugger all for the lumpen-proletariat) (hereinafter referred to as ' the State')
• A poor sod trying to feed, clothe, transport, medicate, entertain and generally keep their family together on $200 a week after rent (hereinafter referred to as the "Centrelink Recipient" or "'the Individual"

Case Study

A school-leaver with Asperger's Syndrome (AS) began University in Semester 1, 2006. AS is characterised by high intelligence, but difficulties with executive function, eg the ability to self-start, prioritise and multi-task, as well as difficulties with social communication, eg naivety, an aversion to initiating contact. Often known as "Absent Minded Professor Syndrome", or "Nerd Syndrome".

The student, having a touching faith in the natural justice of the system, assumed that her Austudy Supplement would apply retrospectively to the beginning of the year. By the time the student had settled into her course and applied for the Supplement, she found she had missed out on 4 months' worth. Let's not get excited about the generosity of the State at this point, folks, we are only looking at $360 for the whole 12 weeks. The student was assured that appeal was pointless and left it at that.

After successfully finishing Semester 1 with Distinction, the Student realised that nevertheless University was too emotional demanding for her, and switched to TAFE. Alas, the student again made the wrong assumption. Knowing that as a Disability Pensioner, she was equally entitled to the Supplement at TAFE, and being disorganised, and finding it difficult to self-start, as well as to surmount the communication barrier by initiating contact with a government department, she just put her head in the sand and put off contacting Centrelink. She finished her TAFE course a year later, again with distinction.

Finally, having completed her education, the student, knowing she was no longer entitled to a subsidy, and being honest and lawabiding, overcame her fear of contact to notify Centrelink. It took her several weeks to get up the courage, but was perfect willing to pay back the overpayment, since the Austudy supplement is only $30 a week. She was shocked to discover, that the worst had happened. While she was entitled to the payment, by failing to report the change within 3 months, she had lost her entitlement, and now had an overpayment of something like $1800 to make, a huge amount for a person on a disability pension, and a sad way for a young person to embark on working life with a government debt.

Where is the mutual obligation?

While the student breached her responsibility to report within the statutory period, surely the State breached natural justice and fairness by depriving the student of her her rightful stipend on a mere technicality?

It sounds like State Chicanery.

Where is the reciprocity between a welfare recipient, operating with limited resources, and struggling with complex, difficult to access information, and the State, with all its organised resources and might?

Tickers...

DH wonders whether she is psychic after yesterday's entry, in which she apparently anticipated Howard's smear against yet another Labor Leader's "ticker".

Revealed! Howard Lacks the Pecker!

If there's one thing DH regrets about the demise of Kim Beazley, it's the lost opportunity for some top slogans.

 

Including the obvious counter above to "Beazley lacks the Ticker". He may have lacked the ticker, but any redblooded woman can tell you what Howard obviously lacks.

 

There's not enough said about unattractive men who substitute the pursuit of political power as compensation for their lack of success with more pleasurable manly pursuits. CF Nixon vs Kennedy, Hitler vs ... , oh never mind.

 

We have allowed Howard to do to the country what no self-respecting woman armed with a 10 foot pole, or even a paddle pop stick, would

tolerate for a moment.

 

 

PS: Not to mention: "Beazley vs Beastly: The Choice is Yours")

 

 

Labor refuses to nationalise Mum-and-Dad landlords!

Tanya Plibersek, Shadow Minister for Housing, last night ruled out nationalisation as a solution to Australia's rental crisis.

Speaking at a Forum on Affordable Housing at Glebe recently, Ms Plibersek made it plain that Labor would not be putting the middle classes out of their misery. Deaf to "mum-and-dad" landlords' cries of unprofitability and their horror stories of tenants who trash the property and abscond with the rent, Labor will instead be offering a raft of proposals to prolong the agony of the small-time property investor, including:

• A $603 million National Rental Affordability Scheme that will create 50 000 new affordable rental properties across Australia, for rent to low-income families at 20 per cent below market rates;
• A $500 million Housing Affordability Fund to tackle the undersupply of new residential housing and the cost of infrastructure, saving new home buyers up to $20 000;
• A National Housing Supply Research Council, to analyse the adequacy of land supply across the nation, as well as rates of construction;
• Infrastructure Australia – a statutory authority to oversee reform, planning, development and investment in priority infrastructure;
• A cabinet-level Minister responsible for federal policy on housing; and
• a $2.5 billion fund to provide all of Australia’s 2,650 secondary schools with vocational training facilities to help combat the skills shortage, including in the building trades.

What is "The Left" coming to? Why, young people these days don't even know what it is to quiver in their beds about the Nationalisation Bogey! Where is the joy of preparing shortlists of class traitors, to be dealt with after the revolution? Where is the promise of bovver and barricades in the streets? Instead, Labor asks us to settle for a basketload of responsible fiscal measures.

(Pictured above, Tanya Plibersek, Professor Bill Randolf - Director of the City Future Research Centre, Michael Coffey - Youth Accommodation Association NSW, Prof Julian Disney - Chair of the National Summit on Affordable Housing, addressing the Glebe forum)