Housing Minister Matt Brown talks tough (to small fry)

Mild-mannered NSW Housing Minister Matt Brown is the the latest in a long line of Labor Housing Ministers (think the "Honorable" Joe "Mr Clean" Tripodi, and Cherie "Trust Me, I was a Houso" Burton) who get off on talking tough to small fry.



Referring to the new Tenant Fraud Amendments to the Housing Act 2001 tabled in Parliament last week, which will see draconian measures to combat public housing tenant fraud, Matt Brown told the Daily Telegraph "We won't cop anyone ripping off those most in need".

And BMW owners have had a wake-up call too from our fearless Minister. They can forget about applying for public housing now. They'll just have to go back to the North Shore where they belong.

This inflammatory language is certain to rebound on the vast majority of honest tenants scratching to get by in poorly maintained housing stock, thanks to combined Howard Government parsimony and lack of commitment and imagination from NSW Labor.

Like the renowned Strong Man of NSW, Morris Iemma, (oh, please, don't frighten us!), young Matt has taken to talking big, in language he wouldn't dare use if he was targetting the major perpetrators of fraud in this country, big business tax "minimizers".

Think Kerry Packer, who got a State Funeral for his services to Tax Evasion. That parasite is still getting increasingly moist-eyed obituaries lamenting the "good old days", when the bugger paid practically no tax, and then gambled away the hard labor of Australians in overseas casinos and horse races.

Private housing dwellers rip off public by $700,000,000

A recent report in the "The Australian" estimates that a number of Australia's wealthiest millionaires are defrauding the Australian public by at least $700,000,000 in tax evasion schemes. According to a figures based on an unrelated press release (see below), from NSW Housing Minister Matt Brown, this massive amount would purchase 3000 public housing dwellings. We can only hope that our indefatigable parliamentarians will put as much legislative effort into naming, shaming and prosecuting their wealthy scrounger business mates, as they do to "protecting" all us "good tenants" who do not currently have a pied-a-terre in Liechtenstein.

If only our Housing Ministers could figure out a better way of being "fair" to us housos than bringing calumny on all our heads with press releases catchily titled "Crackdown on rip-offs to create fairer public housing in NSW "...

Perhaps its time to call these these private housing tax cheats by a new name: AntiSocial Housos.

Whatever happened to the good ole' Class Struggle? Bring back the good old days...

Disclaimer: In principle DH supports exposing wealthy cheats no matter where they live. She does not currently have any assets in Liechtenstein.

"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

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