B-b-but I'm a middle-class granny...

Or, from pillar of respectability to homeless old harridan in just 6 weeks. 

Try it yourself. Stare for a while
and this middle-class matron
will turn into a
homeless old harridan




You don't have to have an honours degree in Sociology* to figure out why the face of homelessness is looking more female and wrinkly.

Women still earn less than men. Our careers are often interrupted by child-rearing and caring, thus our earning capacity is further lowered. Single women in rented accommodation have very little left over for savings. 

If we're over 50 and lose our jobs, our chances of re-employment can be computed by an algorithm involving Buckley's times the number of snowflakes in hell less our chances of marrying a terrorist trying to hijack our bus to Centrelink.  

With Newstart set at an appalling $235 a week, it's not long before we're in rent arrears. After just 2 weeks rent arrears, (unless our landlord is some kind of bleedin' heart traitor to their class), there'll be a termination notice in the mail. It's possible to hang on for a another couple of weeks by appealing to the CTTT (the Tribunal), but if you can't demonstrate your ability to pay up, you're out on your ear, old dear!

Nice way to treat the nation's mothers! And that's just if you are a mother. If not, you won't even be able to experience the joy of couch-surfing at the kids' place trying not to look like a mother-in-law joke.

* Of course, if you particularly want to be an older unemployed person, DH can certainly recommend an  honours degree in sociology. That's exactly how she got where she is today.

BMW cavalcade to escort Tripodi from parliament



If like DH, you own a black BMW, join her in a cavalcade to escort ex-Housing Minister, Joe Tripodi, from Parliament and make sure he never returns. Please spread the word to all the other BMW owners on the estate.

In 2005, Tripodi presided over the disastrous "Reshaping Public Housing" policy, engineered by Ben Keneally, Kristina's husband, which increased the stigma and ghettoisation of public housing by further concentrating disadvantage, by dumping more mentally ill people in public housing, when the necessary supports were not, (and are still not*!)  in place. By way of amelioration, it was a response to John Howard's cutting a couple of $ billion from the then Commonwealth State Housing Agreement which funded public housing, and putting it into the pockets of private landlords via rental assistance, thus increasing inflation, and contributing to the current housing crisis.*

Whatever the exigencies were that created the policy, what was galling was the gutter tactics Tripodi resorted to in order to sell it to the NSW public. He chose to attack the public housing tenants who were under his protection, by the famous claim that the car parks of public housing estates were full of BMW's. This started a trend then trumpeted by every right-wing Housing Minister thereafter: his hapless proteges Cherie Burton and Matt Brown. See The BMW's that ate Public Housing in the SMH for more.

It fell to David Borger, who had a genuine vision for urban regeneration, to begin to undo the shoddy work and it was pleasing to note that the BMW claims have not resurfaced since.

... more on Tripodi

* See NCOSS press release: Still no guarantee of service for tenants with mental health needs

* Worried am only the faceless man's nameless troll. Must get facts right! Rental assistance begun by Hawke govt. Labor used to claim that Howard ripped $3 billion out of CSHA over 10 years. Later the figure quoted became a mere $1 billion. Am settling for a fuzzy "couple" of billion. DH.

David Hicks: Martyrdom Lite or "Better Read than Dead"

[Wonder how many low-rent types have been housed since the stimulus and the NRAS (National Housing Affordability Scheme)? While awaiting results, pls allow DH the pleasure of pontificating on national security.]\

Move over Mary McKillop. David Hicks is our First Aussie Martyr.

David, Islamic martyrs are supposed to die for their cause. You're doing Martyrdom Lite, or is it Martyrdom, Aussie style?. Martydom lite's credo:  "better read than dead"

DH never thought she'd agree with John Howard on anything,  but Hicks is no hero. He chose to learn to kill and go against Australia's national interest. There's a name for people who do that, and it's severely punished by even the most enlightened nations. Hicks paid the price for being a traitor. It's meant to be food for thought for any hot-heads who want to follow in his footsteps. Sadly for him, he was made an example of.


Correction

Clearly, DH should stop pontificating on national security without doing more research. Let no-one say she is rigid in her beliefs, for ...  as "Himself" points out (in comments below):

This is nonsense. Hicks 'learnt to kill' yes, but only in the context of being a soldier. He never trained as a terrorist. He was involved in a civil war in the Balkans and a civil war in Afghanistan. The Taliban were at this time the defacto government of Afghanistan, not a terrorist organisation in the strict sense. It was only with September 11 that Hicks's association with the Taliban became a point where he could be accused of criminal association, and this preposterously given that the Taliban have never been directly linked to September 11 by anyone.

DH is hanging her head in shame, and will leave this post up as an ongoing testament to her folly.

Let DH make one thing perfecty clear, Guantanamo was itself a war crime with many innocents incarcerated, and Bush and his henchmen should be indicted. Terrorists are also war criminals and should be treated the same way.

But DH is sorry for assuming David Hicks was guilty on the basis of lies emanating from the Bush administration.

Just because he was a stupid d*ckhead conspiracy theorist who said vile racist things about Jews, and aided and abetted that enlightened band of proto-feminists, the Taliban, does not justify 5 years in hell. Public contempt and perhaps some Shariah justice would suffice - say a light stoning, cutting off his trigger finger, two years in isolation in a hole in the ground in Beirut, if not a beheading for being unfortunate enough to be an unconverted Anglo straying into the wrong territory.

OK, OK, two wrongs dont make a right... the end.

Aux Armes, Citoyens Anglos Toothlesses, the French aren't taking it lying down.

Mark Weisbrot, the Guardian: By taking
to the streets to defend their pension
rights from regressive cuts,the French
are fighting for all our benefits*

George Monbiot comments in the Guardian: For the Conservatives, this is not a financial crisis but a long-awaited opportunity: In a classic example of 'disaster capitalism', the cuts are being used to reshape the economy in the interests of business – and to trash the public sector.

At least the French aren't falling for it. Mon dieu,  they're not going gently into the good night of eternal Newstart as the retirement horizon recedes forever into the distance. While Lily-livered Labor does nothing to prosecute age discrimination.

By gum, by DH's toothless old gum (we lost universal dental care in 1996 under Howard, and never got it back, remember?) we Aussies have become a nation of whipped and toothless curs by comparison.

The Marseillaise still says it all (freely translated by DH):

Que veut cette horde d'esclaves,	What does this horde of toadies,
De traîtres, de rois conjurés ?	Of traitors and spinned up political pretenders want?
Pour qui ces ignobles entraves,	For whom are these ignoble shackles,
Ces fers dès longtemps préparés ? (bis)	These long-prepared fetters? (repeat)
Français, pour nous, ah ! quel outrage	Ordinary Aussies, that's who, ah! what outrage
Quels transports il doit exciter !	What fury it should arouse!
C'est nous qu'on ose méditer	It is we whom they dare plan
De rendre à l'antique esclavage !	To return to ancient slavery!



* Photograph: Pascal Guyot/AFP/Getty Images. From Sarkozy Should Resign by Mark Weisbrot, The Guardian

Let them eat Cert IV's: recipes for make celebrate Anti-Poverty Week in Glorious Lucky Nation of Australia

It's no wonder that Australia's charities are calling for urgent government subsidies to help Australians struggling with hunger  ... oops... don't mention the "H" word ... that only happens in the USA... In Glorious Lucky Country food insecurity much more reassuring and not frighten horses.

According to Australia's largest hunger relief organisation, Food Bank, an estimated 2 million Australians do not have enough food to eat, while one million children go to school without breakfast, or to bed without dinner! If you find this hard to believe, check it out on ABC News.

Meanwhile, talking about 2 million, a report just released by the Salvos shows that  2 million Australians are living in poverty.  Wonder if it's the same 2 million?

No wonder, when Lily-livered Labor has done bugger-all for the 610,000 unemployed and 837,000 underemployed Australian citizens on Newstart, John Howard's miserable Oldidea for plenty of stick and never you mind the carrot.

The Newstart benefit for a married couple with two children is $97.00 per week below the poverty line, whilst for a single person it's $118.00 per week below.  That's just $235 a week, and maybe $50 rent assistance, folks.

But if the remnants of the Labor Left get any wet, wimpy, big-hearted ideas, Tony Abbott just has to start pounding his hairy simian chest: "Bom Bom Bom,  A Great Big Tax", and Labor goes all limp at the knees.

The best response Mary-Antoinette Macklin's  Ministry for Social Inclusion seems able to come up with is "Let them eat Cert IVs".   Just what we need: Mickey Mouse training courses for non-existent jobs.

Maybe someone should tell Mary-Antoinette that there are 4 people looking for every job available.

Mark Arbib: Senator for Bread and Circuses.. (and Fergedabout-da-Homeless?)

Winners are grinners while homeless
queues grow.  Pic lifted from
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/

The ABC's Q&A which,  in this infotainment age, appears to be our most prominent arbiter of what's important to the nation, features this Monday, Senator Mark Arbib, denoted simply as the "Minister for Sport". 

Oy!?!! What about his other portfolios: housing, homelessness, aboriginal employment and community development?  Don't these rate anymore?

But why worry? The stimulus package fixed all that, didn't it?  Didn't you listen to Labor's subliminal election slogan "IT'S TIME TO MOVE ON"?   As long as there's flour, sugar, tea and sports spectaculars, who cares? After all, most people can still afford bread, or at least get a serve at a soup kitchen. And the middle classes, or what's left of them,  couldn't give a damn, so well are they pandered to by Q&A which bowdlerises public discourse and turns politicians into lovable buffoons, 

What does it mean that the Ministry of Housing under the Left's Tanya Plibersek has been subsumed back into Jenny Macklin's FAHCSIA, while the Right's Mark Arbib takes up the rump: social housing? Should we start worrying? Having proved successful in chopping off the fingers of any asylum seekers still clinging to lifeboats, is the current management of Fortress Australia  now turning its attention to casting adrift its own underclass?

Lizards, they say, cast off their own tails to save their skins when pursued by predators. Is Australia, pursued by the predatory practices of globalisation throwing off its own underclasses? Has trying to house the masses proved to be too difficult?

DH has not been able to unearth a single pronouncement yet by Mark Arbib about the direction of Social Housing. 

Tanya Plibersek meanwhile has given birth to baby Louis, and will be out of action for 3 weeks before resuming her roles as Minister for Human Services (eg Centrelink) and Social Inclusion. Can hardly wait to ask Tanya how people paid just $235 a week unemployment benefits are going to be "included" in anything when they can't even get out of the house. Tanya, people on unemployment benefits are effectively under financial house arrest, which is what happens when you spend everything on rent, flour, sugar, tea and utilities in the first week and run out of money for a bus fare (which NSW doesn't even subsidise for unemployed people).

Question for QandA      

DH has submitted the following to Q&A:                                                                                                



Senator Arbib, has Federal Labor downgraded social housing and Aboriginal employment by putting them below sport in your list of portfolios? Can we relax and assume the housing crisis is over, and should the homeless be content with bread and circuses?

Open Letter to Scott Morrison

DH is a regular recipient of Cookmail, the newsletter of Scott Morrison, currently Shadow Minister for all things immigration and population control. She met him on the historic occasion when she popped into Canberra during his stint as Shadow Housing Minister. She found him lacking in knowledge or understanding of housing issues, but personable and willing to listen. Perhaps his lack of understanding was due to his newness in the role. Besides, at that time, the Liberals were wedded to a very simplistic line on the housing crisis that they had so miserably failed to foresee or prevent during their decade of power. The Lib's simple mantra: blame the states for not releasing more land...  

Morrison to the rescue!
Safeguarding our borders

Mr Morrison's newsletter solicited  feedback, so DH couldn't resist the opportunity to influence Liberal Party policy. Here is her advice:

----------------

Dear Scott Morrison,

Thank you for sending me your newsletter and request for feedback. As I consider you to be one of the more balanced members of the Liberal Party, I am pleased to give you a response.

Let me say that I was very disappointed by the Liberal Party's election tactics. In fairness though it was the Australian public who shocked me for responding so strongly to the negative campaign run by Tony Abbott.

From my perspective, the campaign pandered to the most ignorant and resentful members of the public. It lacked all substance, with figures in billions of $$$ plucked out of thin air, and a mish-mash of back-to-the-future and wild-leaps-into-the-unknown policies, chopped and changed to suit the moment.

I am now appalled to find that the Liberal Pary has switched from the nonsensical enough idea of being "kind and gentle" to an all out determination to destabilise the Australian government. We need an effective opposition to raise important, well-researched questions on the feasibility of the NBN, on a continuation of efforts to create affordable public and private housing. We need a serious debate about sustainable population growth and humane treatment of asylum seekers. We need to make up our minds whether people on welfare benefits should be at least lifted to the poverty line, or whether we should jettison them into a new caste of untouchables. And as a former Home Sustainability Assessor (unemployed), I am keen to see that an effective opposition keeps tabs on Labor's management of ambitious projects.

Instead, what we are hearing from people like Messrs Abbott, Hockey and Pine, is a barrage of sledging, wrecking and personal attacks reminiscent of the tactics of the mean girls at my high school.

I hope you will be a force for an Opposition committed to the long-term good of the nation rather than a short-term grab for power at any price.

Regards

DH

Welcome to Social Housing, Ya Arbibi... And where's Tanya?

Trust me on this. A housing
offer you can't refuse.

Ummm... is this a demotion for Arbib, Housos, or both?

Does it mean mo' betta social housing, or the opposite? 

If Arbibi is poll-driven, he'll be wanting to get rid of us all, such is the general hatred whipped up against housos by a succession of the luminaries of the NSW Right: Housing Ministers of the calibre of Joe Tripodi, Cherie Burton, and the Right Honourable Mr Fancy Pants.

DH excludes David Borger, and was sorry to see him go, for he had a genuine vision for social housing and urban regeneration.

The current minister Terenzini remains an unknown quantity, as measured by the flatlining of excitement levels generated in the housing sector.

But back to Mark Arbib. If he want to get rid of us, though, surely he can't knife all of us in the back, can he? Not here in Australia?

DH proposes a protest cavalcade of BMW's stretching all the way from Airds to Canberra, to nip in the bud any plans to ship us all off to Christmas Island.

And where's Tanya?

And has the Ministering Angel of Housing,  Tanya Plibersek, been kicked, cajoled, nudged, or invited, upstairs, downstairs, or sideways?

Can anyone who understand the workings of the constant ministry renamings and rebadgings enlighten us?

Some vignettes of working class life.

Just a couple of stories DH heard this week.

Case 1.

Started chatting with a saleswoman at one our biggest electronic retailers, who shall remain unnamed. Let's call them HN. On her feet from 10.30 till 7pm, with just 30 mins off work and no tea break. She has just left an abusive husband, and moved into a flat at $280 a week with her two primary school aged kids.
Has a 1.5 hour commute each way.

Her wages? $15.75 and hour.

Case 2.

A building worker in his 50's. No job security. Contracting. Very fit for his age, but worried about what will happen if he can't keep going. Would like to be more involved in his community but too exhausted at the end of the day. Does a lot of driving. Is terrorised by speed cameras, and now mobile cameras. Can't relax - a momentary lapse or two, and he could lose his livelihood.

Meanwhile over there in the Ministry of Social Inclusion, Tanya Plibersek's new portfolio, you might think that it's all about being nice to people, and designing brochures about how not to diss people with disabilities. Not at all. It's all about how to pressgang Aussies into similar low paid stressful jobs.

Apparently, the underlying principle of Social Inclusion is "Arbeit Macht Frei"

Mark Arbib, Minister for Social Housing... he can't knife all of us in the back ... can he?

If Arbibi is as poll-driven as they say, he'll be doing his darndest to get rid of social housing ... DH has recently been exposed to a live specimen of the Resentful Classes, who has obviously majored in Political Economy at the University of Late Night Talkback. According to Ms Resentful's guru.  Emeritless Prof Jock Shocker, the housing shortage is caused by housos, and the people who are in public housing should be out, while those who are waiting should be in, until they are in, of course, in which case they should be out on their ears again.  All replete with the slogans dreamed up by the NSW Right, Tripodi, Burton, and Fancy Pants. "A hand-up, not a hand-out", "A privilege, not a right".

Wonder what slogans Arbibi will dream up for us?

Fred Nile, pull another!

Oh come on. It's the oldest story in the DMS-IV. Scratch any anti-sex crusader and you'll find a closet perv. It's called projection.. The beauty of being an anti-sex crusader is that you get to think about porn 24/7 while blissfully ignorant of your own lust. You're merely monitoring the evil "other".

OMIGOD, if this is true, given her close watch on Howard and his evil seed, DH may be a closet free-marketeering venture capitalist.  Or worse yet a budgie fetishist.

All the world loves a lover.. except Housing NSW

Caveat Houso! If you acquire a lover watch out! You could end up with all your possessions on the street, waiting for the removalist van to nowhere.

The first thing to note is that if someone sleeps over, don’t imagine that it’s OK as long as they are paying rent elsewhere.

Having recently joined RSVP, naturally DH’s first thought was to get HNSW’s approval for any romantic developments that might ensue.

DH rang the HNSW Tenants Hotline, and in the first instance was immensely relieved to hear that it would not be necessary to invite her CSO to chaperone the first date.


However, the call centre advised that should a guest stay for more than 3 weeks, the department must be notified. Further, to be "on the safe side" it is advisable to let the Dept know after two weeks.

Scratching around for a loophole DH then posed the following question, not mincing any words: “But, what if, say, you have a lover, and you send them home for just one night every 3 weeks for a shower and a shave?”.


Back came the answer to gladden the giddiest romantic's heart: “Legally, that is acceptable”.

But DH’s fantasy of languorous Chateau Houso days lengthening into weeks didn’t last long. And not only because she’s never had any luck whatsoever with RSVP (where desperate housos are not in great demand…)

For that's when the thought struck!

IT’S TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!

Running this past a lawyerly acquaintance with some familiarity with the Housing Act, DH came down to earth with a walloping thud.


Yes, opined the lawyerly type, it may be legally true, but if you have a malicious neighbour say, and they dob you in, guess what? You will not be presumed innocent until proven guilty. No, you have to prove your innocence. In the case of the Family Kaphoops next door, it might be their word against yours.

Ah yes, you ask, but what about the Tribunal, the CTTT, surely they will declare on the side of love?

Well maybe.  But HNSW has ways of getting around those old softies.  HNSW will simply cancel your subsidy and demand the back rent. And if you can’t pay, you can be evicted on failing to pay arrears. 

The Stepford Prime Minister... or do the ends justify the means?

Um... DH feels bad about yesterday's comment. We gotta have hope that Julia Gillard's remote-controlled robotic performance is specifically designed to appeal to those resentful ignorami, the swinging voters, and she doesn't mean all the nasty bashing of unemployed people, or the sickening self-righteous palaver about hard-working Australian families.

Perhaps the ends do justify the means when it comes to keeping the awful Libs out.

Remember,, the Libs allowed the current housing crisis to develop. They had 10 years to do something about housing. Yet they did not provide for a single unit of social housing to be built to take the heat out of the housing market. Instead they put billions into private landlord's pockets via rent assistance... thus contributing to the inflation of rents.

Election comment

Gillard is a disgusting sell-out and repellent scab on the body politic. Who tf is she anyway?

Abbott and Hockey are clowns, and the smelly barrel-scrapings of the Liberal Party (which never had much in the barrel except pork for the fatso end of town)

Here in the Sydney electorate, Tanya Plibersek is smart, compassionate and hard-working, can't ask for a better politician. I wonder what she really thinks. I hope she's agonising over the moral dilemma of whether there's anything useful that can be done from within this bankrupt "Labor" party.

The local  Greens would rollover if confronted by 3 men and a dog wearing a Socialist Alliance T-shirt.

Gordon Weiss is quite a nice sensible man, but must be judged by the company he keeps.

Tanya is our only hope now in the Sydney electorate.

We've hit rock bottom folks. Happy voting on Saturday!

Lest we forget: Why we voted the Liberals out

OK, so this is a shameless referral to outdated content in the right sidebar, but DH has little heart for blogging, with Labor so craven, and the media preoccupied with gossip and drivel. It's disheartening to listen to smart women like Fran Kelly on Radio National carrying on like a bunch of hens at a pecking party. Who cares about Julia or Tony's clothes when, frinstance, grannies are sleeping rough. The best argument against voting liberal is to remember some of the awful things they did.

Not that Labor has reversed many of these policies. They're too busy still dancing to the tune of Howard's divisive, free market, racist, class warfare agenda. What a pity they were too gutless to chart a new course while they had the chance. Looks like they'll be turfed out anyway.

Darwinism masquerading as Christianity

• Jesus would turn in his grave to see how Howard and Co created a dog-eat-dog,
  survival of the fittest, the-strong-shall-inherit-the-lot Australia,
  all in His name, meanwhile ...
• Hypocrisy - Abbott's "Right to Life" for disabled people did not extend to the Right to a Good Life, which would have required a decent level of disability funding

Adhockery

• They never spend money on planning or research, the plan was to dream something up overnight when the polls dipped, then send in the army to back it up

The NT intervention

• 
  
  See above

Robbing the Poor to give to the Rich

• the transfer of $3 BILLION from public housing into the pockets of private
  landlords: result: inflation
• the "budget surplus" extracted from the nation's rotting teeth
• the transfer of funding from the poorest schools to the richest based on the sham of postcode

Pandering to religious extremists

• for blurring the hard won boundaries between church and state
• no worries about fundamentalist extremist lunatics if they're Exclusive Brethren adding to election coffers
• inviting Hillsong to rip off the welfare system

Pandering to racists

• thick as thieves with the loony anti-semites of the League of Rights
• Nazi Croat propagandist Lyenko Urbancic leading light of the Liberal party
• playing the Muslim card when it suits them

Robbing Women and Children

• gutting the childcare system set up by Labor. Remember how it came to fruition with the collapse of ABC childcare

Robbing workers of hard won rights

• Serfchoices
• Welfare to Workhouse
• fining individuals for striking
• using the services of a a repressive Muslim state to secretly train strike breakers
• the time-wasting conscription of disabled Australians into pointless low paid
  jobs

The Wedgie Portfolio

• taking every opportunity to “divide and rule” by appealing to resentment, fear, downward envy, xenophobia
• the harassment and villification of battlers via Centrelink while pretending to be on their side

Kafkalink

• the deliverance of the effective CES (Commonwealth Employment Service) into
  the hands of unscrupulous private operators
• Centrelink's punitive and humiliating regimes
• the gutting of Centrelink’s administrative infrastructure subjecting welfare
  recipients to bungle after bungle and desperation-inducing delays in
  payment
• miserable pensions that don’t keep up with the cost of living
• breaching the weakest

The big lie, spin, propaganda

• Is it $1 BILLION dollars of taxpayers money spent on Liberal Party
  advertising since they got in?
• non-core promises
• successfully slandering people with a social conscience as the “elites”, while the real
  elites have never been richer

Muzzling the press

• stacking the ABC board with Howard’s cronies
• Draconian Anti-Terrorism Act 2005
• prosecution of whistleblowers McManus, Harvey, Kelly, check out the details http://www.alliance.org.au/resources/reports_%26_submissions/

Shaming Australia

• Toadying to the imbecile Bush
• Children Overboard
• Christmas Island
• detention centres run like concentration camps
• incarcerating children in detention centres
• Siev-x
• the Tampa

Cricket

• It just wasn't...

Mark Latham: A vignette from Balmain

It was a dark and lonely Sunday night in Balmain, the most depressing time of the week, not long after Mark Latham lost the election.

Think before you speak, Mark

The streets were largely deserted, but there was one pool of light from a cafe in the most prominent spot in the shopping strip, where Darling St crosses Rowntree. The cafe was empty, but for one table right out on the street, where no passer-by could fail to notice Mark Latham, his wife and children. They had Tigers gear on, there'd been a match, but all the other fans had long gone home.

Now this is something you can't prove, but DH likes to think she is highly intuitive, and in the instant she sashayed past,  she thought she caught a whiff of absolute desolation and despair. And a sense of a sad, worried wife determined to stand by her man. The children too were subdued.  It felt sad, sad, sad.

Now at that time, DH really liked Mark Latham, and she thought of backtracking to offer him a bit of human cheer and support. For Balmain still had a tradition of hating a lousy Liberal, and loving a Labor trier. But she was afraid of intruding, and maybe there was a note of "look at me, but don't look at me" in the display, the kind more familiar in teenage rebels with rings through their noses. Again, who knows?

But it's sad to see a big brave man with good ideas and a grand vision broken.

These are not times that honour "characters", eccentrics,  gutsy speech or grand gestures. But perhaps we do understand and care more now about people struggling with mental imbalances, mood swings, and poor judgment.  What to do when people go visibly off the rails, or when their passion for a single truth trumps their effectiveness in a complex world?

For a start, how about not giving them any media rope to hang themselves with?  Let's hope Mark Latham pulls a rabbit out of the hat during his appearance on 9.  For his sake and ours. 

He's right that Labor is absolutely on the nose, but the alternative is too horrible to contemplate.

Other Balmain vignettes on this blog eg:

When Barry met Nathan at the Sackville Remembering Paddy McGuiness 

Federal election: write to your local candidate now

This is an edited appeal from Shelter NSW the peak body advocating for people disadvantaged in housing markets.

Keep housing issues for low-income and disadvantaged Australians in the spotlight ! Write or email your local candidates now, seeking a commitment to ensuring that low-income households are adequately housed.

In your letter you may wish to use the following list from National Shelter's policy document Housing Australia Affordably

1. improved and expanded affordable rental housing – with a minimum target of 220,000 new affordable dwellings by 2020

2. the development of national standards for tenants’ rights

3. increased support to vulnerable households including people experiencing homelessness

4. the development and implementation of a comprehensive National Indigenous Housing Strategy to address the needs of Aboriginal households in urban, regional and remote areas

5. increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 30%

6. utilising the tax system to provide more targeted assistance to low to moderate income households in housing need – to improve access to homeownership and to minimise house price inflation, especially at the lower end of the market

7. an improved planning and regulatory environment

8. a fairer tax system

9. better integration between housing policy and other housing-related policy areas.

Read National Shelter's Federal Election page for comments on election issues, links to websites of the major political parties, and a range of election resources.

1000 apologies for DH's Facebook Snafu

So sorry to the 600 of you who received a Facebook invitation to join Desperate Houso. She only intended to invite 10 of her nearest and dearest fellow battlers.

DH is a trusting soul, and couldn't believe that such high profile company would entrap members so sneakily. Most ethical businesses act on an opt-in system before they riffle thru your address book spamming as they go.

DH was mortified, horrified, and appalled to find herself getting invitations from herself to all her alter email addresses. That's when the penny dropped and she realised that she had unwittingly, with just one click, and with no warning from Facebook sent out invitations to her entire Outlook addressbook, people from all her different worlds, going back to 1996 when she first got online.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, and may Facebook burn in hell.

DH is shutting down her account. Apologies again for having bestirred anyone for no good reason.

Rudd's downfall explained

Drawing on her extensive network of unemployed layabouts, ie former Labor party high-flyers, oh alright, medium-flyers to flightless dodos, DH has pieced together the inside story on Rudd's downfall, and sadly for conspiracy theorists, it's pretty much the accepted view.

• Rudd had no factional backing. So he had no fallback once his personal popularity inevitably dived.



• His micromanaging ways created a bottleneck in his office , slowed down government business, and drove public servants to distraction



• Public servants used to wait for him to go on holiday or out of the country so they cd send stuff to Julia Gillard's office


• It's not cool to pare back the public service and then goad them to work harder



• Rudd relied too much on young staffers and had no grizzled political warhorses on his shoulder to keep it real



• Much as DH would like to blame Mark Arbib, it's not his fault. The downfall was cross-factionally engineered

BTW, If you only see one political spoof this year, it has to be Rudd's Downfall

Gillard walks backwards to Christmas (Island)

That Julia Gillard seemed like such a nice, intelligent, sensible, competent young woman, and now look!

Oh, Julia, Julia, wherefore art though Labor? Deny thy founding fathers and get a new name. Like the "New Liberals"

But why should us mugs be surprised that a Prime Minister who was elected by the people can get turfed out by a bunch of faceless hacks? It was all explained perfectly by Sir Humphrey in "Yes Minister"

MPs are not chosen by 'the people' - they are chosen by their local constituency parties: thirty-five men in grubby raincoats or thirty-five women in silly hats

DH can vouch for this personally, as you can see from this picture of her descending on parliament in her most sensible pre-selectors hat.

Rudd and Gillard: Things fall apart

The Second Coming

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

W.B. Yeats

Round and round in a circle the leaderless herd mills.

The world is too complex. How can any one human being know what to do? So we mill around, gossiping about Rudd, or Gillard, avidly searching for petty human flaws to explain systems breakdowns that are too complex and uncontrollable for anyone to fathom.

As for the experts who speak with authority and confidence, as if they're in the "know": all it means is that they hear their gossip fresh from the inner bunker. But nobody in the inner bunker knows how to unravel the mess either. None of the old ideologies hold anymore.

Meanwhile, unless a strong leader appears, the milling herd will trample itself to death.

And heaven help us, only Tony Abbott in his cardinal red cap and matching budgie smugglers is out there surfing the blood-dimmed tide. Only he has the passionate intensity of the Judas Goat. What hope for Australia, when the herd is so easily led?

And who knows what fascist beast, waiting for its hour to come at last, slouches towards Canberra to be born?

Canberra??? That's the least of our problems. Obama better hold.

... Only the socceroos can save us now.

Revealed: DH's political stance

Who'dda thought? DH is a far-left social moderate!



Left: 7.53, Authoritarian: 0.86

The slight leaning to authoritarianism is probably because DH opted heavily in favor of the proposition that the whoremasters of Masterchef should be hung, drawn and quartered and left to stew in their own jus.

Because why? They're willing taskmasters for hyper-capitalism. (Having been forced bythe Political Spectrum Quiz to face the dark depths of her own far-leftism, DH is learning to re-embrace the "C" word). Their job is to teach the masses never to fight back against exhausting demands or question the arbitrary rulings of their masters . They teach the masses to wear any humiliation that's dished out with a degrading smile. And all for the 1 in a 1000 chance for a lousy job in a sweatshop kitchen.

DH's quest for Holy Grail ends at Sydney Dental Hospital

DH grasps Holy Spitbowl at last!

Yes DH finally made it into the inner sanctum of the nation's excuse for a dental health system, Sydney Dental Hospital.

It's normally a 2 year waiting list, so it was with a sense of triumph that DH turned up at the Dental Hospital. Thanks to a toothache, she was put on the emergency (!) list, and only had to wait 3 weeks! Fortunately, antibiotics stopped the ache in the meantime.

See DH's seminal entry on the topic: Wake up and smell the bad breath! Something rotten in the state of Howard's Australia.

It doesn't appear to have got much better under Labor...

You can follow the story, and it's a very short one, on twitter #desperatehouso

Why Adhoc Abbott can steal a march on Detail Devil Rudd

Cos a lie can race around the world twice in the time it takes the truth to put its boots on.

Or more precisely, we live in a complex world, and it takes time to create change. While Abbott can put the boot in to some wretched scapegoat in 5 unscripted minutes, what can the truth do, except quote boring research and statistics. As if some swingbat voter is going to switch off MasterKapo to go fact-checking when its so much more fun to poke a scapegoat with a stick.

DH was in the audience for the ABC's inaugural Q&A with Kevin Rudd. (By invitation, don't y'know). She was on the edge of her seat cos she doesn't like seeing anyone humiliated, and would not like to see a newly elected PM fall flat on his face. And it all seemed like a terrible risk for Rudd to front up to a bunch of axegrinders like us who could hit him with anything.

But Rudd was right across it all. He has a huge head for detail. And he had a spontaneous sense of humor too. DH was dead impressed and came out thinking "What more can we expect of any human being for a Prime Minister".

Let's face it. It's all about the Geeks vs the Jocks. And it's time to declare open warfar. Now DH is a geek from way back, a brainy weakling who suffered at the hands of the popular girls. And she's cast this battle between Rudd and the Mean Girls, Abbott and Hockey.

Geeks rule. Or oughter, cause they can do more than slap backs and pose artfully in jockstraps at footy matches.

DH will be voting Labor, for all their mistakes.

Swan Budget: Unmentionable Unemployed Unpersons

Here's a list of missing words from Wayne Swan's budget speech

• welfare
• benefits
• unemployment
• newstart
• unworking families

At least "unemployment" was mentioned, if only in the context of the certainty that it would continue to fall. This is great news to the 600,000 Aussies who can't get work, no matter how often they rewrite their resumes. Unemployment will definitely fall, unless a butterfly's wing happens to flutter deep in a bank vault in Switzerland, in which case, it's anyone's guess which way the economy will flail.

Heigh ho and off to nonwork they'll go, another year on $235 a week, indexed to 3/5 of 5/8 of SFA.

Those pesky unmentionable words failed to appear in the SMH or Crikey. Is there any point in searching the Australian?

In short, the unemployed have become unpersons, unmentionable, and perhaps in the not too distant future, our very own caste of Untouchables.

Here's what ACOSS asked for on their behalf.

• paid work experience for the long term unemployed
• an increase of $45 per week

Sow's ears might fly with a raise like that which would still leave them about $80 short of the poverty line.

How is anyone to live on money like that?

The silence of and about the unemployed is truly deafening. But we're talking about the Labor Party, not the "Can't-even-sell-their-labor-for-$236-a-week Party". And it's no business of the Worker's Union, cos there's no Former Workers Union.

The Crocodile Tear Quadrille: Media takes turns to waltz with housos and mortgagees

Happy 2010 and it's on again for young and old!

Oh the crocodile tears being shed by the SMH over West Ryde whose property values are dropping because 9 houso families are trying to move in.

Meanwhile, the Daily Telegraph's crocodile tears are splashing all over the 50,000 people on Public Housing waiting lists

Tomorrow, no doubt, the Tele and the SMH will change lobsters, ... er, crocodiles... and dance to the opposite tune.

A few facts for the SMH:

• most housos can't afford cars and don't need car parking spaces
• research shows housing estate carparks are colonised by the surrounding private residents

So why should we housos subsidise parking for private residents with our rents?

And a reminder for the Telegraph, and the disingenuous Greg Pearce, Liberal Party housing spokesperson:

• waiting lists have blown out because the Evil Howard Liberals starved the states of funding for public housing for a decade
• Federal Labor is trying to do something about it fast. Greg, you do understand that eggs have to be broken for omelettes, don't you?
• And when did NSW Liberals ever give a damn about public housing? Can you trust 'em as far as you can throw 'em?

DH doesn't believe most of the private residents in NSW are necessarily evil nimbies. There is every reason to be concerned about the evolution of a ghetto culture in NSW. But the public does need to understand and educate themselves about the complex issues behind it all. Especially how the tax system promotes housing inequity. Just don't expect researching the tax system to be easy or as much fun as lynching the nearest houso scapegoatsBut just in case the Nimbies of NSW really do exist:

You'll think public housing is a great idea when granny gets evicted, when big brother gets schizophrenia, when brother-in-law deserts sis with the kids, when you get a chronic ailment and can't work; when you can no longer afford to live within 3 hours of your workplace. . .

But it will be too late

In case you've forgotten the steps of the Lobster Quadrille, you form 2 lines, advance twice, each with a Lobster as a partner of course, change sides, and then, if you're sensible, you throw the Lobsters as far out to sea as you can... (Alice in Wonderland).