Housing is a significant issue in Australia. We do need to address affordability through removing tax breaks around negative gearing and capital gains tax as per Greens Policy. This is important for a number of reasons. It is a question of equity and of ensuring our monetary policy doesn’t widen the divide between the haves and the have-nots, between the landlords and the renters, between the young and the older members of our community. It is also important to ensure that an essential service (or even a right) such as housing is taken out of the hands of those who seek to profit from it (developers, investors and bankers) and put into the hands of end-users… people who actually want a nice affordable place to live. If it sounds like a pipe dream, it’s not. It’s already happening in Melbourne in an architect-driven project called Nightingale 1.0. You can read about it here. This development ensures a triple bottom line… of social, financial and environmental sustainability. It delivers affordable, quality house that meets the needs of occupiers, not other rent seekers. And it is very, very popular. The loser should such an initiative become more widespread would be the rent-seekers mentioned above. People do have a right to invest and to profit, but not on the misery of others and not is such a way that it 'ties up' money rather than allowing it to circulate and create wealth - which is how the current housing market is working. While this is surely enough reason to drive change, there is another more compelling reason… we are in danger of returning to a situation where large numbers are living in ‘Slum Housing’… a situation we haven’t seen for more than a century. Issues like overcrowding, houses in a poor state of repair, poor insulation, and insufficient heating and cooling are not just an issue for remote Aboriginal communities. Students and the unemployed (or under-employed) find themselves in similar situations. Not only is this unfair, it also means poorer health outcomes for these people… just as it did over a century ago. The scale of this issue was recently revealed by researchers from South Australia and Victoria, who applied the HILDA survey and found that more than 100,000 people were living in properties regarded as very poor or derelict. Many of the people living in this accommodation are already disadvantaged, and the state of their accommodation only increases their disadvantage. Unless Governments take steps to ensure the supply of affordable, good quality housing we will see the re-emergence of slums, and the associated reduced life chances and shortened lives. The well-meaning architects working on the Nightingale project can’t do it on their own. In Townsville we are suffering under an economic downturn, with high levels of youth and general unemployment. Some people have moved away, but others are still here suffering in relative silence. We have a responsibility to address these issues now. There is more we can do. There is more we need to do. These issues are preventable, waiting for a time when we have to resort to the slum-clearing of a century ago is not an approach we should even contemplate. by Wendy Tubman
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The attitude and the approach that both Scott Morrison and Peter Dutton have taken to the immigration portfolio is both insulting and undemocratic. Democracies function best when the voting public is properly informed, and government and especially outsourced government services become dysfunctional bordering on criminal when they are not held accountable and are not exposed to scrutiny in the media and the public domain. We are where we are at Don Dale, Nauru and Manus due to a lack of scrutiny and accountability over many years. It is time our governments stopped treating us like mushrooms on important issues and on issues on which we have a right to know. These issues are surprisingly easy to fix, as outlined in a recent article in The Conversation by Johan Lidburg from Monach University (reprinted below with permission) How did one of the world’s most-successful multicultural countries made up of refugees and immigrants end up harming children who came to us seeking protection and help? One of the answers to this question is secrecy. Successive Australian governments, both Labor and Coalition, have dehumanised refugees and kept Australians in the dark about what really goes on in the offshore detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. The cornerstone of the strategy is to limit public access to information. The policy started by the Rudd Labor government in 2013 has been put into overdrive by the Abbott and Turnbull Coalition governments. There are three pillars to the secrecy strategy:
Australian journalists have found it very difficult, bordering on practically impossible, to obtain visas to visit Nauru. Applying for a media visa for Nauru comes with an A$8,000 fee – which is non-refundable even if the application is rejected. The only journalists to be granted visas in the last two years filed stories that did not properly investigate or challenge the Nauruan and Australian governments' versions of the situation for refugees. This means the two governments directly and indirectly control who is allowed onto the island to tell the refugees’ stories of how they are treated. This leads to speculation that serves no-one – not the refugees nor the Australian government nor the public. The second issue with outsourcing refugee processing to another country is that neither Nauru nor Papua New Guinea has Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. This means an important journalistic tool is missing when it comes to seeking information. This, combined with the poor FOI history of Australia’s Department of Immigration and Border Protection (and its predecessor), which have repeatedly blocked and delayed requests, makes obtaining raw and unspun information about offshore refugee processing a time-consuming and frustrating task. Wilson Security is contracted to provide security in the offshore centres. The 2010 amendments to the federal FOI Act significantly strengthened the requirement on government agencies to obtain information from a private contractor when asked to do so. However, contracting out adds another layer of complexity to using FOI effectively. The practical consequences are longer processing times, delays and the increased possibility of the contractor claiming the information can’t be released due to commercial-in-confidence issues. In July 2015, the Australian Border Force Act came into force. Its controversial disclosure offence section extended the questionable Australian tradition of limiting public servants’ right to public speech and participation in public debate. The section effectively stops current and former staff, including those from volunteer organisations such as Save the Children, speaking out about conditions in refugee detention centres. It is nigh-on impossible to see how this gag section can be in the public interest. But it is easy to see how it is in the government’s political interest. The consequence of the fortress of secrecy built on these three pillars is that Australians don’t know what is being done in their name on Nauru and Manus Island. It also means the refugees are dehumanised. Suffering children and families become numbers instead of human beings. Every one of the nearly 1,300 refugees currently on Nauru and Manus has heartbreaking and crucial stories to tell. If Australians were allowed to hear and see those stories, the centres would have been closed a long time ago. If offshore detention is to continue, the Australian government should:
We don’t need a Senate inquiry or royal commission to figure out what needs to be done. More than enough evidence is available thanks to the Nauru files, former detention centre staff sharing their experiences, and the Australian Human Rights Commission’s report on children in immigration detention. The government must do the decent and right thing by the refugees and the Australian public. In short... we are being treated like Mushrooms and we are all tired of the Bullshit. The first thing that needs to be said about vaccinations is that there is absolutely no link between childhood vaccinations and Autism. Numerous studies have confirmed this. And while vaccines do have an adverse effect on some people, the vaccination process is closely controlled and monitored to ensure very high levels of safety for recipients. It is also worth noting that not vaccinating actually carries a higher level of risk for children. The decision not to vaccinate is not entirely a personal one - unvaccinated children put all those they come into contact with at greater risk. That is the reason behind the government's policy of 'no jab - no pay' for welfare recipients. The government has hailed their program a success. The problem is that the children of lower income earners and those dependent on government payments are not the most important target group. Some of the wealthiest suburbs are at high risk due to dangerously low vaccination rates. There are numerous explanations for this (none of which relate to vaccine safety), but what is clear is that families living in areas such as Mossman and Manly are unlikely to be influenced or affected by a 'no jab no pay' policy. The other areas with dangerously low levels of vaccination are among indigenous people and among select indigenous communities (especially in NT). There is no evidence that these groups are avoiding vaccination based on personal choice or fear of side effects. and the government's own website suggests: These disparities point to the importance of identification of Indigenous status, particularly in mainstream health services, and particularly in urban areas. The use of patient information systems to record Indigenous status and schedule preventive health services has the potential to increase opportunistic vaccination and enable the provision of patient reminders, with resultant improvements in coverage and timeliness. Culturally appropriate service delivery and communication strategies, as well as use of Indigenous-specific Medicare items, will also assist in improving access to health services for Indigenous Australians. No mention of 'no jab no pay' so clearly these measures are not intended to close the gap. Peter Mares from the Swinburne Institute for Social Research suggests that there is another large group that the government isn't targeting and is in effect withholding support from. Vaccination rates are low is among the 800,000 temporary residents in Australia, people the government has allowed and even encouraged to enter. Public health staff have been instructed not to give free vaccinations to the babies of workers on 457 visas, international students and other temporary visa holders. Instead they have been instructed to seek out a GP and pay for the vaccinations themselves. By asking people from a group that largely has very limited financial resources to pay for immunisation is a formula for low vaccination rates. Based on the way the government is treating the above higher risk groups, it does make you wonder whether the government is really interested in driving up immunisation rates, or whether immunisation is being used as an excuse for using another tool (no jab no pay) to hit the poor and those depending on financial support from the government. It seems plausible that this government wouldn't be overly disappointed with less than 100% take up as this would be an opportunity to both make savings in the budget and to level blame at those in need for their increased financial hardship. Because based on the evidence, and based on what strategies are most likely to target key at risk groups, the government isn't being effective and isn't following its own advice. Either they are incompetent or they have a different agenda. by Mark Enders
A picture does paint a thousand words. The power of Television and the Cinema is directly linked to the power of the images they project. Many commentators have suggested that the reason that numerous reports into the treatment children were receiving in the Don Dale detention centre didn't have any effect was because those reports didn't contain the confronting images that were on national display on 4 Corners. The reason why sympathy for Syrian refugees took a huge about face, right around the world, was because of the image of Aylan Al-Kurdi lying dead on a Turkish beach. Images of horror do spur us into action. But equally, images of more positive emotions like joy, love and compassion are equally powerful. As Jane Lydon from the University of Western Australia says in her piece on The Conversation website - positive images of refugees shape perceptions and the public debate. Images of both horror and joy surrounding refugees are censored by governments as they try to control the debate. It is the reason journalists are not permitted into detention centres. Photo-journalists would no doubt find endless images which would undermine their flimsy argument that they are being tough on people smugglers... rather than just unnecessarily cruel. We intend to try balancing the discussion with some powerful images of our own. Images that tell a different story. Such as: A story of Successful Migrants and Refugees... Stories that speak to the humanity of refugees and highlight they are much like us... Stories of love, joy and no threat to our collective safety.... Stories of Generosity, Welcoming and Kindness. Stories that show off our better selves... We are a lucky country. We can be a generous nation. We live in a safe and relatively prosperous place. The biggest threat to that is not refugees... it is the way we are being manipulated to think differently by powerful forces in sections of the government and the media. We can all play our part in changing the course and the tone of the debate, on any issue, by sharing images that subvert the populist narrative. And in this highly connected world of social media it has never been easier to share. Go ahead. by Wendy Tubman
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The Townsville Greens will publish blogs considered to be of merit. The opinions expressed are those of the Author. Archives
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