Merry Christmas from HousoLink

So what's to be so happy about already?

Some New Year!

with these Merry Gentlemen about to have their way with us...

...

Anyhow while Western Civilisation as we know it goes down the gurgler

you might as well have a free game of Monopoly on me

http://home.iprimus.com.au/jsinger/houso.htm

and here's a tale to frighten the kiddies with...

A Christmas Carol for Our Times

or

What the Dickens is this country coming to?

Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, and

Best Wishes for the New Year under the circumstances

DH

Who voted for these people?

Today the Abbot and Costello government is pushing its welfare to work legislation through the upper house.

 

And in their arrogance, they are guillotining the motion through - ie gagging debate and spitting in the eye of democracy.

 

Some of the charming provisions of this bill.

• Under the Government’s welfare changes the income support paid to a single mother with two children will be cut by nearly $1,500 a year as a way of somehow ‘encouraging’ her to seek work and give up full-time care of her children as young as eight years old. That is over $28 a week less to feed her children, even if she meets the Government’s new work search test.

  At the same time, the non-working partners of millionaires are eligible to receive up to $3,300 in welfare in return for them not seeking work and instead staying at home to care for their children.

• According to the latest Brotherhood of St Laurence report, there are now 10-15% of Australian children living in poverty. Nice one for an economy that Peter Costello continues to grin about as never having been "stronger".  Well now the mothers of these children will have $28 less a week to feed them. 

• The 708000 people on Disability Support pensions will get no additional support for training. If they are pushed from the Disability Support Pension onto Newstart, they will suffer a $46 per week cut in benefits. Welcome to America! And we all know how they treat their poor.

• Lets not even mention how those who do get work and are in public housing will find themselves paying over 30% of their income in rent for largely ill-designed substandard housing, so that they can't possibly hope to save a cent, and then being asked to give up their homes despite having no savings with which to make the move. NICE ONE, NSW Labour!

WHO ARE THESE PEOPLE? AND WHO VOTED FOR THEM?

 

Heigh ho, heigh ho...

DH had to go back to work! Too tired to blog for now.

DH eyes the future of public housing

Just to prove that DH is not a complete whinger, she has to give full marks to the organisers of the 2005 Social Housing Tenants Conference: an Eye to the Future – The Shape of Social Housing in 2015, and not just because she was brought off by all the blooody looxury.

While it was great to be swanning around the foyer of Sir Stamford's, tossing back mocktails like there was no tomorrow back on the estate, elbow deep in raw prawns, delicately picking over petits fours, choosing judiciously from 4 kinds of cooked meats, 6 kinds of cold meats, and a truckload of pasta, and marble bath tubs yet!, no, she has no intention of selling out the renting class, and she spent the time buttonholing anyone who would listen to her tale of woe about DoH's Rental Disincentive Scheme for Aspirational Sole Parent/ Carers.

But to be perfectly serious, it was a wonderfully imaginitive program designed to spark creative thinking about the future. There were lots of laughs as housing statistics were made palatable in a rigged "Quiz Show", and a panel of welfare and housing luminaries proved that they had a future in stand up comedy, even if the housing sector looked bleak. Fast forward to 2015, and the panel playing assorted officials of the newly name "Department of Offstreet Living", tenants and advocates, acted out various hypothetical scenarios from nightmare through welfare paradise. After each session tenants brainstormed their way through topic groups addressing the key issues facing them.

.

It will be interesting to see the post-modern project in action - will multiple voices empowered to speak in their own language in an atmosphere of play and optimism achieve what traditional leftist politics couldnt? Or will the nastier Malthusian realities lurking beneath the Lucullan feasting tables prevail in the end? Will all the abundant good ideas generated by the process actually go anywhere?

.

DH doesnt know, but it was telling that she found herself irresistibly drawn to the small group working on "Exit Strategies"....

.

These tensions surfaced halfway through the second day, when some in the audience wanted to haul Mike Allen, the Deputy Director of Housing over the coals. It was all very well to play stimulating little games, they said, but when were we going to get down to the realities of life in poorly maintained estates, with constant governmental gouging of ever-declining incomes, ruthless evictions happening already, rent raises to come when family budgets are stretched to the limit already, insecurity about tenure, neighbourhood tensions, disrespectful maintenance contractors if they showed up at all, insulting put-downs from a succession of Housing Ministers and more.

.

It was clear that despite the pleasantries and the laughter, the conference participants, at least all those that DH spoke to, were deeply mistrustful of the Department and of the Housing Minister's promises of a rosy future of consolidated housing stock, and interdepartmental agreements for service delivery (or was it interservice delivery of departmental agreements? Don't you just love the lingo? ) for those-most-in-need ...

.

While there was room for many voices, there was certainly no room for "speaking bitterness". And since the prevailing structure valued positivity, even a gripemeister like DH found herself being restructured into positivity and feeling tetchy with humans who wanted to be human and have emotions and tell their personal stories and "speak truth to power", and found herself wishing that people would just confine themselves to incisive sound bites and get on with it, whatever "it" was.

.

So while she likes to have a go at the powers-that-be, she needs to say a few words to admonish the rank-and-file.

.

It's a waste of time grievancing at the department and saying the "Department" should do this, and they should do that, and also the other. Where's the fun in handing power over to the bureaucracy?

.

Dont you know that Department's gotta do what Departments gotta do, and politicians gotta do what politicians gotta do?

.

But what we tenants gotta do is get a representative body of our own where we can get a piece of the action, and a seat at every bargaining table, and that "peak" body is already in the pipeline, and its going to be called "The Social Housing Tenants Alliance" and if you havent got involved contact Garry Mallard at the national Tenant Support Network: http://www.blogger.com/

.

It was also dispiriting to hear Cherie Burton being described as a "blonde bimbo" by a politically savvy housing activist who should know better than to resort to sexist stereotyping as a form of argument. DH doesn't approve of personal attacks on individuals, unless it is done with with tongue in cheek.

.

It's not about whether Cherie Burton makes hay out of of being a former houso, (when rumor has it that her family came into a motza and moved to Drummoyne, in which case she should come clean). That's her job.

.

It's about whether more tenants are going to get in and take over the Labor Party for instance.

.

It's about whether tenants and the 70,000 people on the waiting lists realise that they have a hell of a lot of voting power.

.

It's about whether tenants have the sense to realise that united we bargain, divided we beg, and get serious about forming our own peak organisation.

An eye to the future

Report on 2005 Social Housing Tenants Conference:  "An Eye to the Future – The Shape of Social Housing in 2015" coming soon.

DH pays extra $100 parking fine penalty thanks to CentreLink

In honour of NCOSS' important initiative below, DH has magnanimously decided to finally pay her parking fine, which now stands at $160.

 

You will recall that as she had no income for 12 weeks thanks to Centrelink incompetence and government indifference, she barely had money for food let alone money to pay her parking fine.

 

Oh alright so it wasnt magnanimity, but the arrival of a notice cancelling her licence that did it.

 

Time to commandeer her mum's old age pension again for this task. Poor old mum has not been able to get her teeth fixed this year thanks to DH's bludging off her... So does government money circulate..

 

 

 

 

FORUM TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPACT

OF FINES ON POOR IN NSW

 

The Council of Social Service of NSW (NCOSS) has organised a forum for today on “Fines and Poverty” to coincide with National Anti-Poverty Week 2005.

 

“This forum will feature specialist workers who will talk about the fines issues affecting low income people across NSW,” said Director, Gary Moore.

 

“The forum will highlight the dramatic impact of fines for young people, people with intellectual disability, people living in rural and regional areas, and Aboriginal communities.”

 

“For some people fines can lead to a spiral of debt, affecting their ability to access transport, jobs, education and services.”

 

“The forum will look at a range of options for reform of the Fines system in NSW to get a better deal for low income fine recipients.”

 

“NCOSS believes that a viable reform option is for the Government to offer reduced fines for low income people.”

 

NCOSS believes that the NSW Government could implement a system in NSW that allows Centrelink beneficiaries to receive reductions in on-the-spot fine amounts, particularly for traffic infringements and CityRail fines."

 

“The key message of today’s forum is that it is simply unfair for a low income person to face a proportionately higher burden than anyone else when they are hit with a fine.”

 

“As well, the impacts of fines when combined with the above inflation level price increases in essentials like water, energy, rail and bus, child care and health expenses are seriously hurting low income households.”

 

Grilled Minister

Since Desperate Houso can't afford the theatre anymore, she reckons you can't go past a good Budget Estimates Committee Hearing for affordable high farce and drama.

DH arrived late at State Parliament, just in time to hear the excellent and conscientious Sylvia Hale (Greens), grilling the hapless Cherie Burton, (former Houso, now Minister for Housing) who has the humiliating task of selling out her houso forebears and defending Labor's new "Reshaping Public Housing" policy.

This is a policy that's shaping up to be the social engineering equivalent of the Titanic (where if you recall, the lower orders sank first, but most of the upper classes went not long after. Apparently management had thought to save money by failing to supply sufficient housi... err.. boating stock...).

"Misshaping Public Housing", as the new policy is affectionately known in houso circles, is apparently dedicated to 3R's

1. Raising the average IQ of housos
   What on earth were the policy wonkers thinking when they introduced short term leases based on income?
   
   Desperate Houso scratched her head about this for a long time.
   
   Till it finally dawned that anyone brainless enough to trade in secure housing for an insecure wage in today's casualised workforce will end up leaving. Leaving behind those of us with half a brain left. Thus creating a better class of public housing tenant.
   
   Note to Howard and Patterson: Here's a perfect opportunity to strengthen Commonwealth/ State relations while cutting more people off the Centrelink payload. How about threatening to turf any public housing tenant accepting low paid or part-time work off the dole???
   

• Reducing state revenue
  Us remaining brainy housos will need to be subsidised to the hilt. Especially as we wont be able to afford to maintain our properties.
  
• Recouping lost revenue by hiking the rent and calling it "responsible water management"
  since most houses are not metered, there is no incentive to save water whatever.

[DH has just received the transcripts of the meeting she attended. While she matches up her recollections with what was actually said, she is pulling her comments about the performance of the housing minister in case they were unfair.]

OK, so now DH knows what happens at Budget Estimates Committees. Government policy gets to face some pretty canny scrutiny, and ministers can end up with egg on their face. But what happens next? Not a lot as far as DH can make out. Despite Reshaping Public Housing being a counter-productive lose-lose policy full of more holes than a sieve, the Jumblies of State Parliament are intending to set sail in it anyhow.

DH has to live off $195.20 per FORTNIGHT

The dust has settled, and here's how DOH and Centrelink have DH caught between their pincers... 

 

 

Per fortnight ...

 

Carer Payment                    488.90

Pharmaceutical                       5.80

DOH rent and repayment      231.10

Debt to Centrelink                  68.40

 

Total fortnightly income $195.20

 

These debts ... Centrelink gives and and then Centrelink takes away. Who can understand how or why? Any actuaries out there?  Why have the Federal Liberals made everything so complicated???    Apart from wanting to remake the whole nation into stunted accountants in their own image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Call Centre Legends

For the past few weeks, DH has been terrorised by 2 milk cartons of paperwork lurking in the corner of her bedroom/office. It's not that she is lazy or resistant to the patriotic notion of being remade in the image of an accountant to appease "The Taxpayer" (of which she was one, if you'll recall, until the D'oH 'reforms' made her position untenable). It's just that she is afraid that if she shifts the paperwork she may find a grinning little bandy-legged gremlin with an uncanny resemblance to John Howard under the pile, which if unleashed will run around wreaking who knows what further havoc.

 

But Energy Australia could not be put off any longer, so with sinking heart, made heavy by the thought of the imminent trip to smelly old Vinnies to eat humble pie, be patronised by reformed alcoholics, and beg for a few EAPA vouchers, she dialled Energy Australia and settled in for the long wait

 

Now DH has had quite a whinge about the state of this country's institutions, but she is always overawed by the sheer goodness of the call centre staff who have to pick up the pieces, and so it proved today, so thank you to the lovely young woman at Energy Australia, Leanne, who made an unpleasant chore friendly and bearable! 

 

These people are the front line troops doing the dirty work of Howard, his miserable crew, and their bloated CEO mates. DH reckons they're all heros and legends, and their front line work absorbing all the anger and frustration that's out there may well be all that's holding this country together.

 

So DH reckon nobody should be allowed to make social policy without being forced to spend at least one day a week in a call centre answering calls from desperados like herself.

 

Does New Orleans have anything to teach us?

We need to understand what the costs are if the welfare state is dismantled

Dreams unrealized
By Billy Sothern

www.salon.com

[excerpt]

While it may be easy for American tourists to turn a blind eye to their own third world, a steady stream of young Australians and Europeans have been coming to Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas and the rest of the deep South for years to serve the needs of the indigent people throughout these states. [Snip] it is always mildly surprising and embarrassing to me to hear these bright and passionate people explain that they are applying either to work for the poor in the criminal justice system in Texas or to help build shelters in Guatemala, and are unable to determine where the needs are greater. What seems most shocking to our volunteers is the complete disregard that the U.S. government has paid our clients throughout their lives, failing to provide housing, healthcare, education and other basic needs.

Given that our government, the richest in the world, has failed to provide the basic tools for its citizens for generations, we should not now be surprised that the poor and stranded in New Orleans have no reasonable expectation that the government will do anything to serve them and have taken things into their own hands. Perhaps if the government had made adequate investment in our citizens and our city's infrastructure in the first place, we could have avoided this mess.

Dont Worry, John Brogden

But never mind, if you do hit rock bottom, and never quite recover, and your family and friends desert you, you can always go on the public housing waiting list!

Could take a while, but...

A wake up call to all politicans who lose sight of why public housing is important, and how easy it really is for anyone to slip off the tightrope.

With the greatest sympathy for your awful ordeal, when cold fish like Howard and Ruddock prosper by using racism as a finely honed wedge. Your disgrace is nothing compared to theirs. Pity you didnt wait for them to resign first.

Well, its always sad to see a Balmain Boy gone wrong. You shdda satisfied your amibitions by staying in the Labor Party. You could have followed in the footsteps of Bob Hawke and no-one wd have batted an eyelid.

Paid at last!

That shd keep DH quiet for the time being, though she reserves the right to find other things to complain about from time to time as required.

 

She's off to live it up and deliriously blow the lot on ... who knows ... overseas travel.  Once she has paid back the borrowed money, the $200 on bank overdrawing fees and late fees, the credit card interest on the 10 weeks, she reckons she'll definitely have enough for the slow boat to Manly, with fish and chips at the other end.

 

And she's not complaining - what more do you need for true happiness, but a sunny day, a picnic, and some reasonable shelter, hopefully without an eviction notice,  when you get back home.

Now they want DH's citizenship papers! Again!

First up, DH was informed that legislation says that after her last
complaint, CentreLink had to respond within 3 hours.
They didnt. Surprise.
So having made the trek to Centrelink again, (without, you will recall,
having a transport concession card to pay for the bus trip) she was
astonished to find that there, on her file was. "We cannot process your
claim till we get your citizenship papers".
This is BRAND new, 10 weeks after her initial application.
"But I GAVE you my citizenship papers already".
So out comes a very nice young woman from back office who explains that
because her citizenship papers date back to the 60's and because for some
arcane bureaucratic reason that completely went over DH's head, someone had
to fill in 1988 somewhere because who knows why??? So therefore, DH has to
show her citizenship papers.
DH is worried because she doesnt know where her citizenship papers are
anymore. She is absentminded because of depression brought on by carer
stress, being painted by the Right of both Liberal and Labor as the
"Devalued Other", and she has taken her papers on so many outings , that she
fears they maybe lost.
So today will be spent at Chateau D'oH ransacking the joint for her
certificate of citizenship.
DH came to Australia as a reffo, and she doesnt have a birth certificate.
The way things are going, and not wishing to be total drama queen, much,
she's thinking... "Hmmm, maybe I cd be deported back to Eastern Europe. The
way things are going here, I cd have a higher standard of living over there.

Guess what? Carers are not entitled to emergency payments!!!!

DH went down to Centrelink at 4 to collect her emergency payment.
But guess what? Newstart recipients who have been messed around by
Centrelink
are entitled to emergency payment. So are applicants for Disability Pension.
But apparently Carers do not have to pay bills or eat or anything.
OK, so DH still has some acquaintances she can hit on for a loan to buy the
groceries.
But what about say older people, or people who are disabled themselves, or
are totall disempowered by years of poverty and isolation?
What are they supposed to do?

WHAT IS AUSTRALIA COMING TO???

Time to ring up HREOC and the Welfare Rights Centre. And maybe Tanya
Plibersek cd ask a question or two in Parliament?

Hallelujah! Emergency payment promised

DH has been promised an emergency payment from Centrelink by the end of
today.

Will be able to roast the fatted mung bean tonight!

Meanwhile, 76 millionaires have no probs getting $65 pw FTB

Last year, 76 single-income families who earned at least $1 million a year
received Family Tax Benefit part B, introduced in 2000 by the Howard
Government to assist sole parents and stay-at-home mums. A year earlier,
only 31 recipients earned at least $1 million. www.smh.com.au

Dont you just LOVE the Howard Govt up the comfortable end of town!!!

Centrelink has Aha! moment

Finally someone at Centrelink has figured out the mystery.

People applying for Disability Pension can go on Newstart.

People applying for Carer's Pension can not!

Families on Carer's Pension dont have to eat????

This is novel!!!

The poor guy in the Customer Service infantry explains that the rationale for this masterpiece of cost saving is that people on Carers Pension are allowed to work for up to 20 hours. So they can go out and get a job.

 

HUH????

 

Shdnt it be the people who are looking for work who get Newstart?

 

It's all a puzzlement to poor DH.

 

 

DH becomes hot potato tossed betw Disab services and Newstart

DH is on the phone to Disability Services at Centrelink as she types.

New information that she has not heard before. It cd take another 42 days
from receipt of documentation no-one told her she needed to send in before
her application can be processed.

She asks the poor frontline foot soldier what she is supposed to buy food,
medications and bus tickets with till then.

He says, well, we tell everyone to register for Newstart.

DH explains to him gently, that she has already applied for Newstart, sat
through the amateur video afternoon that they subject you to, only to be
told that since she has an application in progress for Carer's payment. that
she is not eligible.

He has put her on hold while he confabulates with his superiors on this
unexpected turn of events.

Normally, DH loves Mozart, (she used to be one of the middle class elites,
there but for fortune go you, dear reader) but there might be a Clockwork
Orange moment coming on if she has to listen to 10 more rounds of the Sonata
in D, K514 or whatever.

It is now 10 weeks since DH has had any income except for $82.40 per ftnight

How has she been surviving?

Credit card

Borrowing from her mother's overseas pension. Her mother doesnt mind.
Unfortunately it means her mother cant get her dentures fixed.

Her mother's overseas pension is now exhausted.

DH has had to ask friends.

Most of DH's friends are single women.

They dont have money either.

So she has to ask more distant acquaintances. .

Humiliating in a materialistic culture like ours.

Welcome Cherie Burton, new Minister for Housing

Cherie is an ex houso herself, so hopefully she will have the understanding and the will to reverse the Reshaping Public Housing "reform" package, before she finds herself the Minister for Short-Term Hostels...

The long trek back to CentreLink

Despite being there yesterday, DH has to go in to her local office again. Unfortunately, since she hasnt been able to afford anti-depressants this month, she is having withdrawal symptoms, and is too dizzy to drive. Which makes her feel even more depressed. This will cost the taxpayer dearly in the the long term via Medicare rebates to GPs and shrinks. But I guess this is all rocket science to Howards Razor...

Centrelink just called!

Apparently they needed a bank statement from DH, but since DH didnt know, and nobody bothered to notify her, there the matter stood.

 

Meanwhile, she has not been entitled to a concession card or a health care card for 8 weeks, though she has no real income, and still has to travel and buy medications.

 

She remembers palmy days when you used to get interim concession cards, but obviously, this must have cost Canberra hundreds of dollars from the 2 or 3 people per annum who were later deemed ineligible. 

Its 8 weeks since DH had a wage, and Centrelink STILL hasnt processed her Carers Pension Claim.

She went in yesterday to Centrelink, as the people on the phone knew n-n-nothing about her claim lodged 8 weeks ago for Carer's Payment. She was told that someone would contact her today from Redfern Office.

 

Nothing so far.

 

She has now used up her mother's pension as well, and only has 30 dollars left in the world till next Tuesday when she can seize upon her daughter's Student Allowance ($214) to buy some more groceries for the next fortnight.

 

And lets not forget the massive sum of $82.40 for her Carer's allowance, which the Federal government in its generosity hands out per fortnight to pay for the extra expenses of raising a child with a disabilitiy.

 

She cant begin to imagine what people who have children with high medication and nursing needs do with this princely sum. Blow it all on champagne and caviar no doubt.

 

Its all getting a bit serious folks.

$2000 rent arrears

DH went into shock to hear that she is  3 pay periods in arrears. That's a cool $1800 folks. She has been frantically searching for this year's rent receipts in the hope that something went amiss between Australia Post and DOH. How hard it is to earn money like that, how easy it is to lose track. But if not, well there goes this years tax refund... What the Govt gives with one hand, the Govt takes with the other. 

 

And somewhere, while the same $2000 endlessly changed hands, in the interstices, we managed to eat, buy some work clothes, pay for medical insurance that doesnt meet the gap anymore so you cant get sick anyway, paid for the dentist and some new glasses,  reregistered the old '84 Toyota warhorse for another year.

 

But DH hears that even non-housos are far from relaxed and comfortable.

 

Anyhow, DH admires the frontline troops on the counters of CentreLink and DOH... They're the ones that cop the flak for draconian government policies. Today's lot were subjected to a top volume haranguing from a dead drunk yobbo for the whole hour that DH was there. They remained unfailingly polite, where DH would have liked to bundle the poor sod into a taxi and dispatch him to Kirribilli House to harass the real guilty party.

 

I wonder if that party is also paying 30% of his salary for his Government Housing. The relevant authorities should sell of the property and send him to live in Campbelltown, where he would be closer to work.

DH buttonholes the Minister for Workforce Participation

Getting a bit Orwellian, isnt it???

A Ministry of Workforce Participation already!!!. Ve hef veys of making you vork....

Or, carrots for the rich and sticks for the poor...

The Minister. Peter Dutton, is a bright young thing and speaks glowingly of the benefits of workplace participation, and all the incentives the Libs offer.

DH tells him that despite earning 1500 a week as a contractor, no holiday pay, sick leave or anything of crse, she is only $80 a week better off than she was on the carer's pension.

"What kind of incentive is THAT?" she inquires triumphantly.

Both he and minder visibly blanch. They havent thought that one through. It cd upset the middle classes.

He recovers quickly, "Well, I dont know anything about that. I'd have to see the spreadsheet first".

"NOT A PROBLEM :-) ! ! !" DH triumphs again, diving into her briefcase. "I happen to have one right here."

The rest of you can see this at www.aspar.klattu.com.au/housospread

At Question time, DH also asked the Minister how Industrial Relations "Reforms" (oh please) especially changes to unfair dismissal laws will impact people with disabilities who may not be able to perform to benchmarks.

Not a problem, says Peter Dutton, because they will still be protected by Disability Discrimination Laws...

Yeah, but, it takes several years to establish a discrimination claim, Peter, but if you were dismissed unfairly, how you gonna pay for the legal fees....

That's the trouble with the Libs. Grand ideological new brooms all over the place. No clue about how its all going to fit together...

DH gatecrashes Aust Social Policy Conference ...

... cant quite afford the $220 a day ...

The Disability Rights movement has a motto "Nothing about us, without us". In other words, "dont research us, make decisions about us without our participation".

DH found herself wondering if ASPC's motto was:

ALL ABOUT "THEM"
WITHOUT THEM!

Certainly she heard some wonderful papers about how terrible our lives were, which made her feel quite depressed. And State Apparatchiks need these papers because its the only way of actually rubbing their noses in the obvious they might otherwise step over...

But she was scratching her head when, at one session on how terrible the lives of housos were, she invited all present to see her after class if they were interested in the EXCITING new initiatives housos were engaging in to help themselves. She couldnt believe it when the whole audience filed past her with EYES AVERTED at the end of the session.

Is there some stigma attached to being a Houso that is too scary for "professional" helpers???

DH hasnt had income for 6 WEEKS now....

... except her daughter's Student Allowance of $169 per fortnight.

UNBELIEVABLE!!!

How is DH surviving you ask?

CREDIT. What ELSE?

Her mother's pension.

Her life savings are gone.

And if you're one of DH's best friends, and she conned you into reading this, be very afraid... She's about to put the hard word on you :-)

Centrelink gives $600 & takes away $1000...

The good news. $600 to CentreLink recipients of Carer's Allowance.

The bad news. DH misses out on the $1000 for recipients of Carer's Payment, since she wasnt deemed to be on it on the nth of May.

Although she wd have been technically if they hadnt moved the goalpost (see below)

State Govt runs out of Gambling Revenue! Counselling services forced to close!

Oh GREAT!

The State Government has decided to rationalise the free counselling service it offers via church based community centres. This means that if DH wants to continue to receive this counselling, she will have to go to Hornsby. HORNSBY!!! And she lives in Rozelle.

DH has a great counsellor who really has been one of the cornerstones of her stability.

This service is actually paid for out of revenue gained from GAMBLING. Casinos. Pokeys.

The State Government doesnt make enough money from gambling to support a few lousy counselling services for gamblers???

Where is the money going then?

DH is not a gambler BTW, nor does she drink, smoke or take drugs, stereotypes abt housos notwithstanding, but ended up in this service because she needed financial counselling.

Later on DH will explain just how Centrelink and DOH's combined mercies leave people without family support to live off credit cards.

Want to know how come the Lucky Country has huge levels of credit card debt? Look no further than this diary. With incomes dropping and every single formerly-free public service now on the gouge, how else do families make ends meet?

Anyhow, this is a huge blow for DH, because there is no way she can afford to keep seeing her counsellor privately.

There is a medicare fund for low income earners for 6 sessions a year. A YEAR!!! And all you get back is abt $30 - $40 dollars a session. Heaps of read tape and forms to fill in. A joke.

And HCF, (another great little contributor to bankruptcy in this state, I bet) to whom DH pays $100 dollars a month, gives NOTHING for counscelling.

ESPECIALLY hard as DH need her counsellors independant support more than ever now that she is in unemployment free fall.

Centrelink moves goalposts on Carer's Pension

When DH went back to work she was told that she wouldnt have to reapply for the Carer's Pension unless she worked for longer than 6 months.

But wouldnt you know it, they've gone and moved the goalposts again!

So now she has to reapply. Reapplying means filling out a swatch of forms, and having a medico fill out a detailed form listing the criteria for disability that Centrelink currently recognises.

Centrelink's idea of disability is either physical, intellectual or "psychiatric", whereas DH's child has a neurological disorder (Asperger Syndrome) which doesnt easily fit the criteria but is every bit as stressful to family lifes. So establishing the claim is always difficult.

But nevertheless DH can handle filling out the forms despite the tedium.

But going back to the shrink means more $$$. The young one has a neurological disorder for heaven's sake! It's not going to change in 6 months!

The Liberals were supposed to stand for less Government. But their real agenda is to turn us into a nation of accountants.

A resentful nation of whipped dogs, more like it, remade in the image of nasty little Johnny Howard.

Eeeeeuuuuuuuughhhhhhhhhhh!!!!

First stop Centrelink to re-register for Carer's Pension

DH learned a bitter lesson last time she stopped work. She was exhausted and didnt register for two weeks on the assumption that natural justice would prevail, and her pension would be backdated to the date she finished. Foolish mortal! The tender-hearted Liberals believein the letter of the law, not the spirit. DH lost out badly and since she live from week to week it was quite a hit. So she is off to Centrelink like a shot today to notify her intention to regain the Carer's Payment.

Lose-Lose Housing Dept "Reforms"

WELCOME TO THE POVERTY TRAP, which just got worse thanks to Labor's Reforms.

Well, DH was on a good thing with the contract. But then NSW Labor in their never ending quest to outdo the Liberals when it comes to bashing the poor came up with a corker of a plan.

Deprive Housing Dept Tenants of their BMW.

Put up their rents.

DH's rent was going to go up to $400 dollars a week!

For a glasshouse facing west, that is too hot to inhabit in summer. That has walls so thin, that her neighbours are threating to take out a contract on her if she plays the Moonlight Sonata one more time.

This would leave DH, on a contract wage of $1350 a week (not so wonderful if you remember that she doesnt get sick leave or carer's leave or holidays) only abt $80 a week better off than shs was on the pension.

For the most boring pointless job on earth developing telcom products for a mobile phone market oversaturated with bewildering choice as it is.

So now DH gets back to doing what she loves - working in community groups and being a relayer of information on the web.

The new rent hike is financially a lose-lose situation for both motivated tenants and the State Govt alike. This is a massive disincentive to study and work.

In DH's case, the state loses the $290 a week rent she was paying before.

And there's NO HOPE whatever of her ever saving anything to get out of this place.

There is NO WAY she can jeopardise the only secure accommation she has ever known by accepting a well paid job.

Well, at least the Federal Government will pay for her increasing reliance on anti-depressants. But for how long?

Unemployed again!

Well, there went the lucrative 6 month contract. DH will be back on the Carer's Payment if she's lucky, or the tender mercies of Newstart if the worst happens. She'll definitely have to sell the BMW now.