The need for checks and balances on tenants

2022-10-09

Credit:Illustration: Badiucao

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HOMELESSNESS
The need for checks and balances on tenants

“Luxury high-rise apartments are ‘inappropriate’ for the homeless” (Sunday Age, 9/10) highlights what is occurring around Melbourne. I reside in an apartment building where residents in it, and in adjoining properties, have had to endure 12months of hell from just one inappropriately placed individual.

Similar to Park House in Abbotsford, we have experienced theft, violent behaviour, malicious damage and discarded syringes in common areas. Female residents were routinely threatened, spat on and abused. At one stage a resident found a four-year-old child abandoned in the stairwell at 4am.

The police attended regularly and were incredibly supportive, but their hands were tied as this category of tenant had access to vast supports which did little to ensure their clients do not pose a danger to the public. These issues commenced within weeks of this individual being housed in the building by a national, not-for-profit housing provider which did nothing to rectify the situation until 12months later when its tenant stopped paying rent.

Whilst many homeless individuals welcome the opportunity to turn their lives around when provided with adequate housing, others do not. The organisations responsible for housing and managing them should have far more checks and balances in place when selecting their potential tenants for housing in private buildings.
Monica Clarke, Port Melbourne

A better use for the owners corporation fees

They may be social housing, but luxury high-rise apartments still come with expensive owners corporation fees. Who is paying them? I expect this depends on whether the apartments are owned and managed by the state government as public housing, or are community housing and being managed by a non-profit organisation. In either case, it is a huge and ongoing outlay. Surely these funds can be better utilised.
Jan Lacey, North Melbourne

Housing is a right, not an investment opportunity

We are in a housing crisis. While the excellent article “Every day, you feel a little bit more invisible to society” (The Age, 8/10) focused on Victoria and the government’s successful but temporary adaptation of the internationally recognised Housing First model, the lack of housing is Australia wide. It goes way beyond rough sleepers.

Equally heartbreaking were stories told on Four Corners (ABC TV, 3/10) where women workers with children could find nowhere to live. People are locked out of home ownership and also the possibility of renting near where they work.’

Over the years, social housing has been seriously neglected while we have encouraged a system where housing is seen as a way to wealth supported by taxpayers through negative gearing and other measures. Governments at all levels need to create strategies to provide affordable, sustainable, social and public housing. Housing is a basic right, not an investment opportunity. Australia is a wealthy country and everyone needs a home.
Anne Sgro, Coburg North

Our wealthy country’s embarrassment and shame

I have just returned from seven weeks in Bulgaria. There were, surprisingly, fewer beggars and homeless people there than in 2018. In fact, far fewer than one sees on the streets of Melbourne. This must be to the shame of our affluent country.
Reg Murray, Glen Iris

Mickleham: new, modern, empty and going to waste

The first two homes I lived in as a child did not have a proper bathroom. Has anyone thought of asking homeless people if they would like to live in a new little house in Mickleham, originally purposed for quarantining people with COVID-19? Shared housing has been criticised because of the syringes lying around everywhere. If I were homeless, I would certainly choose a neat little home where I could lock the front door and enjoy my privacy when I wanted to.
Rita Camilleri, Strathmore

THE FORUM

Proof is in the pudding

The Housing First model has achieved great results in many Scandinavian countries, including that what follows is a much higher rate of success for those completing drug, alcohol, mental health and other programs. To continue and extend this program would be a step forward to a more equitable society.
Betty Alexander, Caulfield

The virus is still with us

Now that Dan Andrews has vanquished COVID-19, does that mean our doctors and nurses can do without all those arduous protective measures? I think not. Victorians are still getting ill and dying from COVID-19. The decision to no longer isolate or even report a positive test (Sunday Age, 9/10) makes a mockery of the sacrifices most Victorians made and some continue to make.
Dr Anthony Palmer, Southbank

Our protective measure

A shortsighted Victorian government got rid of the Fairfield Infectious Diseases Hospital and we were left exposed when COVID-19 arrived. Now, just when we have a new, excellent quarantine facility in Mickleham, there are calls by the ignorant to repurpose it. Mickleham is our insurance policy.
Alan Williams, Port Melbourne

Legislators’ failings

Recently I got off the phone with my bank after discovering that someone has been running around Sydney using my account to eat, drink, be merry and catch Ubers. Given that one of the bogus transactions was for one cent to Optus, we can safely assume that my details were among the millions that were stolen from it.

How is it possible for Optus to retain my personal details despite my not being a customer for over 10 years? Oh, that’s right, our legislators are more interested in the spoils of office and squabbling over who gets to be leader than doing what they are so handsomely rewarded to do. Govern.
Gary Adams, Clydesdale

The muggins who pay

So the state opposition has pledged to cap public transport fares at $2 a day if it wins the election. Recently, I caught a bus for the first time in a long time. I bought a myki card with the minimum starting amount – muggins me paid $16 (the card and the minimum fare) for a one-way journey priced at $3.10.

Once I got on the bus and duly tapped on, I realised I should not have bothered paying anything. Most passengers treated it as a free service, and the driver did nothing to disabuse them of this view. Presumably if he did, he would cop a bucket-load of abuse.

Contrast this with my use of the bus service in Townsville, where drivers still take money and issue printed tickets – or check weekly passes. Everyone pays. So if the opposition also included enforcement of $2 fares, this would be a dramatic improvement on the current situation, where a minority of users subsidise the majority who do not pay.
Alex Judd, Blackburn North

Lure of the older women

I laughed out loud, with delight and pleasure, when I read that Marilyn Leder, in her early fifties, has discovered with surprise that she is “attractive to younger men” (The Age, 6/10). It brought back my own memories from 25 years ago when I too was single and in my early fifties. The whole experience was refreshing and rejuvenating – and I am writing this letter merely to point out that Marilyn is not the first woman to discover this. It has probably been going on for centuries.
Evelyn Lawson, Karingal

Australia’s interest first

Your editorial – “Government needs to seek best tax policy” (The Age, 8/10) – is most welcome. Next year’s phasing out of the low and middle-income tax offsets, acting to reduce by $1500 the take-home pay of 10.2 million people who earn between $48,000 and $126,000, needs to be addressed.

More important is The Age’s call for parliament to open up “broader tax debate”. However, it is worth bracing ourselves for any recommendations, in the public interest, that result from such open inquiries to be rejected because they offend the commanding, rent-seeking interests of the mining, banking and real estate industries.
This will result once again in discussion of tax reform being limply consigned to the relative weighting of “income tax versus GST”. For Australia’s sake, let us hope for something better.
Bryan Kavanagh, Mount Waverley

Progressive wealth tax

All this discussion on income taxes and yet not much on wealth taxes. Strange. We need and want more government services and we cannot afford it with our current government income. The average person is paying a lot of tax and struggling to pay their rent or mortgage.

And wealth has become more and more unequally distributed over the last 50 years in Australia. Some individuals have enormous wealth. I find it obscene that they can own so much property and also earn tens of millions of dollars a year. Any tax reforms should include a progressive wealth tax.
Angus Reynolds, Ashburton

Loss of the tax offset

I have read so many complaints about how the proposed tax cuts will benefit the wealthy and that they should be scrapped.

According to your tables (The Age, 8/10), from 2024-25, anyone earning more than $200,000 will still be in the 45per cent tax bracket. Everyone in the $45,000 to $200,000 bracket will have their tax reduced to 30per cent. The biggest beneficiaries will be those in the $120,000 to $200,000 bracket. They are not the wealthiest people in our society.

Of far more concern is that the up to $1500 tax offset for people earning up to $126,000 will be removed from July, 2024. This will put low-income earners at a major disadvantage. People who are concerned about social justice should be taking up this issue with the politicians.
Margaret Arthur, Haven

The tax changes are wrong

Jim Chalmers, an old proverb says “circumstances alter cases”. Certainly relevant ones have altered, only further justifying stopping the inequality-entrenching tax changes. And Peter Dutton, these should never have been introduced in the first place. Lately, the basic philosophy of the right seems to be that of survival of the fittest.
John Archer, Black Rock

But it’s already October

The supermarkets and shops are late this year with their hot cross buns for next Easter.
Layla Godfrey, Mount Eliza

Sorry state of our roads

Re ‴⁣⁣A nightmare’: Dangerous potholes are putting drivers and cars at risk” (Sunday Age, 9/10). This is not only a problem on the Melba Highway between Yea and Glenburn. Try dodging potholes on the Colac Highway from Waurn Ponds to Winchelsea. It is not 10 years old and has been patched up countless times. It is one way of knowing that the Romans did not invade the Great Southern Land.
Robert Martin, Winchelsea South

Vlad, not such a great guy

So Martyn Iles believes Vladimir Putin “is right in many ways” (CBD, 7/10). Does this include poisoning Russians on foreign soil, and too bad if foreign nationals are unfortunate collateral damage in the process, as occurred in Salisbury, England?
Marcia Roche, Mill Park

Our utter insignificance

The Essendon Football Club saga has again brought to prominence the complexities of religious influence. The sooner we all appreciate we are just matter upon a rock, orbiting a sun, orbiting a black hole, the better off we will be.
Luke Kendall, Wattle Glen

Why they get the big bucks

Paul O’Halloran’s piece – “Andrew Thorburn case a risk to all work rights protections” – did not ring true for me (Comment, 7/10).

Chief executive officers are not employees in need of legal protections to shield them from power imbalances. They are appointed to lead, represent and embody the views and cultures of their organisations.

It is normal for newly appointed CEOs to resign from other positions they hold that might create perceived or real conflicts of interest in their new role. That is why they get paid many times over what their organisation’s employees earn.
Jo Bowers, Yarraville

Thorburn and two masters

As Anglican Archbishop of Melbourne Dr Philip Freier says, “the controversy has tipped into the absurd” (The Age, 8/10).

Andrew Thorburn is not being pilloried because of his faith or religious views, but because those views – extreme compared to the more inclusive doctrines held by most Christian churches – would have to be espoused by him in his role as a leader of his church, but denied by him as a leader of the Essendon Football Club.

As Jesus himself is reported to have said: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Matthew 6: 24). Enough said.
Bronwen Bryant, St Kilda West

Just a fraction better

I read Tony Wright’s column – “Black ties and British inequality all on show” (The Age, 8/10) – rather bemusedly. He says “Australia has pockets of very wealthy people, a broad population of middle-income earners and too many who are poor. But the social disparity that is so obvious in Britain cannot be compared to Australia’s growing inequalities. Yet.“

The World Bank Gini index comparatively measures the world’s inequality (expressed as a percentage). Britain’s index is 35.1. Australia’s is only marginally better at 34.4. Both countries are slightly worse than most European Union countries (indexes of 30 to 32), but far better than the United States at 41.4.
Calvin Graham, Lorne

Polluting our waterways

Gardiners Creek flooded last week and there was polystyrene everywhere. It is probably in the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay by now. It really is time to regulate the rubbish from building sites.
Ed Farbrother, Hughesdale

AND ANOTHER THING

Politics

We have a lightly used, 1000-bed quarantine facility and a huge problem with homelessness. Is it really hard to put the two together?
Bob Cornelis, Wonthaggi

Thank you, Leunig, for your ″⁣Q + A″⁣ and its take on politics (Spectrum, 9/10). The blowfly has my vote.
Jane Ross, San Remo

The Liberals have circled their wagons and are firing inwards.
Malcolm Cameron, Camberwell

It seems the only endangered thing Tanya Plibersek really cares about is the fossil fuel industry.
Helen Moss, Croydon

Economics

You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. The stage three tax cuts must go.
Dan Drummond, Leongatha

My dear, departed, Scottish mum often responded to requests with: “I’m not making any rash promises.” If only campaigning MPs had so much wisdom.
Patsy Sanaghan, North Geelong

We must remember that all members of parliament will get the legislated tax cuts.
Laurice Paton, Heathmont

Religion

The Essendon Football Club and their woke supporters are a paradox unto themselves. Fighting discrimination with discrimination.
Peter Cash, Wendouree

Melbourne’s Anglican archbishop “fears the end of tolerance” (8/10). If that is the end of tolerance of intolerance, bring it on.
Stuart Hamilton, Richmond

I would really like to have an adult discussion about religion and football with someone who isn’t a fanatic of football and/or religion, but I can’t find anyone.
Robbert Veerman, Buxton

It’s time we stopped accepting “religious faith” as a descriptor for denying women control of our bodies and vilifying homosexuals.
Heather Cleland, Clifton Hill

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