Australia 2018: Is long-term rental destroying the wellbeing of low income households?

Choice 2018, DISRUPTED The consumer experience of renting in Australia:

Across the nation, people who rent are living on insecure tenancies. Almost 9 in 10 Australians who rent (88%) are on leases of a year or less, and are not certain of where they will be living in a year’s time. This impacts a person’s ability to feel part of the local community and establish roots.

The Land, 1 May 2018:

AFFORDABLE rentals on the state’s North Coast are increasingly few and far between, but the continued rise of the Airbnb-model now sees 3000-plus homes sit empty while low-income and government-assisted tenants are shut out. 

Anglicare’s latest Housing Affordability Snapshot says the region’s rental crisis has worsened as property owners in Ballina, Byron Bay, and the Tweed are incentivised to target short-term holidaymakers through web-based booking companies instead of potential long-term renters. 

The Anglicare report, released on Sunday, showed available North Coast rental properties were in steep decline (down from 795 in 2017 to 660 in 2018) with all family groups on income support, and single households on minimum wage, likely to struggle to find housing for themselves and their children.

Clair, A. et al, 24 May 2016, The impact of housing payment problems on health status during economic recession: A comparative analysis of longitudinal EU SILC data of 27 European states, 2008–2010, excerpt:

Transitioning into housing arrears was associated with a significant deterioration in the health of renters…..

Housing arrears is one of the so-called ‘soft’ ways in which housing influences health (Shaw, 2004), especially mental health, alongside the ‘hard’, physical impacts of the infrastructure itself, such as damp, mould, and cold. A growing body of scholarship indicates that people who experience housing insecurity, independent of other financial difficulties, experience declines in mental health (Gili et al., 2012, Keene et al., 2015, Meltzer et al., 2013, Meltzer et al., 2011, Nettleton and Burrows, 1998). 

In Australia, analysis of the longitudinal HILDA dataset found that those in lower income households who had moved into unaffordable housing experienced a worsening in mental health (Bentley, Baker, Mason, Subramanian, & Kavanagh, 2011), with male renters faring worse (Bentley et al., 2012, Mason et al., 2013).

One has to wonder if being a long-term renter affects quality of life to such a degree that on average renters die earlier than home-owners.

Loss of nearly every wild oyster in the Richmond River estuary more than two years ago became a catalyst for action

Echo NetDaily, 5 December 2018:

Recently Rous County Council voted unanimously to prepare a proposal for a $150 million bid to the State’s Snowy Hyrdo Legacy Fund to ensure long term water security, natural flood mitigation and improved river health for the Northern Rivers region.

Rous County Council Chair, Cr Keith Williams, said the idea for the Northern Rivers Watershed Initiative was born with the realisation that flood risk and river health are interrelated. ‘Slowing water flow in strategically selected streams by revegetating and fencing off stream banks, can reduce downstream flood peaks, improve water quality and provide habitat,’ said Cr Williams after the vote. ‘Similarly, by better understanding ground water flows and recharge zones, we can target efforts to revegetate and increase soil moisture retention and improve infiltration rates in important ground water source areas.

‘By having a wholistic view of water within the combined Northern Rivers catchments the Initiative can deliver multiple benefits from the same dollar of investment.’

‘It would be a fitting legacy of the Snowy River Scheme to restore some of the natural function of the Northern Rivers of NSW and ensure a sustainable water supply for the region.’

Cr Williams says that the Initiative will need the support of the Northern Rivers Joint Organisation to progress and the first step of this process is to formalise the proposal and engage with all Councils in the region. ‘I think most people are aware of the dire state of the Richmond River. The loss of nearly every wild oyster in the estuary more than two years ago has been a catalyst for action.’

Tweet of the Week

Penny Wong lets loose on the government after it stopped a Labor bill to end discrimination against LGBT teens 🔥🔥🔥 pic.twitter.com/N5z3mwX8qM

— BuzzFeedOz Politics (@BuzzFeedOzPol) December 3, 2018

Quotes of the Week

“in the Liberal Party, the problem is intellectual honesty, intellectual capacity, courage and integrity. Liberal Party politicians are not even game to attempt ideological coherence in their public pronouncements. They prefer simplistic slogans, message manipulation, outright lies, and varying levels of verbal bullying”  [Academic and blogger Ingrid Matthews writing in oecomuse, 27 November 2018]

“I note, and accept, advice that there is nothing in the bill that would abrogate parliamentary privilege. However, the main issue with covert access in relation to privilege … is that there would be no opportunity for a parliamentarian who considers that material is protected by privilege to raise such a claim.”  [ Speaker of the Australian Senate, Senator Scott Ryan, quoted in The Guardian, 29 November 2018]

Scanlon Foundation Survey finds that in contemporary Australia racist values are held by a small minority

The Guardian, 4 December 2018:

Australia has not lost faith in immigration. The political narrative has darkened but not the fundamental view of ourselves as an immigrant nation. Most of us remain convinced that we are in so many ways better off for newcomers of all races and creeds who have come in large numbers to our shores.

That is the verdict of the Scanlon Foundation’s 2018 Mapping Social Cohesion Report published on Tuesday. The mission of the foundation is to measure how this migrant nation hangs together. Over the last decade 48,000 of us have been polled to fathom the panics that sweep this country and the steady underlying views Australians have of immigration.

“Immigration is a growing concern,” says the author of the report Professor Andrew Markus of Monash University. “But for media commentators and some politicians it has become an obsession. They are in the business of creating heightened concern, of crisis. But what the survey shows is rather a picture of stability.”

Markus is one of Australia’s leading authorities on the politics of race. This is the 11th report he has written for the Scanlon Foundation. Year in year out his reports show about 80% of us believe immigrants are “generally good” for Australia’s economy and that ours is a better society for the “new ideas and cultures” that immigrants bring to this country. Support for multiculturalism in 2018 stands almost as high as ever at 85%.

 “A number of international surveys that look at Australia, America, Canada, a range of European countries from eastern Europe to western Europe, and also countries in other parts of the world, have a consistent finding that on attitudes to immigration and cultural diversity, Australia is within the top 10% of countries which are open to and welcoming of immigration,” says Markus…..

BACKGROUND

The Scanlon Foundation:

Each Mapping Social Cohesion national survey builds on the previous year and informs the Scanlon-Monash Index (SMI) of Social Cohesion. The surveys have been undertaken since 2007 where the original survey provided the benchmark against which the SMI is then measured.

These surveys provide, for the first time in Australian social research, a series of detailed surveys on social cohesion, immigration and population issues. A prime objective of the surveys is to further understanding of the social impact of Australia’s increasingly diverse immigration program.

Mapping Social Cohesion The Scanlon Foundation Surveys 2018 [PDF 86 pages], excerpts:

While there are significant differences by mode of surveying in the level of strong positive response, as indicated by Figure 35, the balance of opinion remains in large measure consistent. Thus with strong positive and positive responses combined, agreement that multiculturalism has been good for Australia is at 85% RDD, 77% LinA. Agreement with discrimination based on race or ethnicity in immigration selection is at 15% RDD, 22% LinA. Larger variation by survey mode is obtained with reference to some questions on religion: negative attitude (strong negative and negative combined) to those of the Muslim faith is at 23% RDD, 39% LinA, agreement with discrimination in immigration selection on the basis of religion is at 18% RDD, 29% LinA…….

The Scanlon Foundation surveys are of relevance to a fourth dimension, attitudes within the community. All populations comprise people with diverse personalities and views ranging, for example, from the tolerant to the intolerant – from those who celebrate cultural diversity to those who are comfortable only with what they perceive to be Australian culture.

As discussed in this report, the Scanlon Foundation survey findings establish that in contemporary Australia racist values are held by a small minority – arguably most clearly indicated by ‘strong agreement’ with discrimination in immigrant selection policy based on race, ethnicity or religion. Across the two survey modes, ‘strong agreement’ with such discrimination is indicated by 7%-11% of the population. [my yellow highlighting]

The truth about Australia's approach to climate change

The graph below says it all - in 2008 through to September 2013 there was an Australian Labor Government in Canberra producing programs to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and from September 2013 until today there has been a Liberal-Nationals Coalition Government in Canberra intent on dismantling as much established cilmate change policy as is possible.

Trend emissions levels are inclusive of all sectors of the economy, including Land Use, Land Use Change and Forestry (LULUCF)

Reading Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2018 [PDF 39 pages] released on 30 November 2018 it is highly unlikely that the Morrison Govenment will be able to meet Australia's commitments under the Paris Agreement.

For interim PM and Liberal MP for Cook Scott Morrison to assert otherwise is a political lie.

Moving the Aboriginal Legal Service to Coffs Harbour will have adverse effects

The Daily Examiner, 3 December 2018:

A Grafton solicitor says the decision to move the Aboriginal Legal Service to Coffs Harbour will have adverse effects.

“As a lawyer who has worked with the Aboriginal community over many decades I was very surprised and concerned by your report in (Friday’s) Examiner that the Aboriginal Legal Service is closing its Grafton office and moving to Coffs Harbour.

If this move goes ahead it will have a significant and immediate adverse effect on the Grafton and Clarence Valley Aboriginal community that I feel the “ALS decision makers” in Sydney have not taken into account.

The Grafton building that ALS now works from is shared with a number of Aboriginal service providers and is a community hub that is safe, welcoming and holistically culturally appropriate for the services provided.

These services include tenancy advice, youth empowerment and support, addiction support, family violence support, mental health, homelessness – all of whom draw on ALS legal services for client support.

The reality is that the presence of the ALS in this group of service providers is the magnet that draws the community together. This original service hub is unique and should be maintained at all costs.

The logic as expressed by ALS Sydney for moving to Coffs Harbour appears to be short-sighted, rushed and vexing given the role now played by the Grafton ALS office within the Aboriginal community in the Clarence Valley.

Also, with the new Grafton jail soon to be opened, it is logical that a full time operating ALS office in Grafton would be of significant support to the courts and police and such support would be significantly diminished if the ALS moves to Coffs Harbour.

Jeff McLaren,

Jeffrey McLaren Solicitors

It comes as no surprise that Coffs Harbour City seeks to drain services from the Clarence Valley.

For years the NSW state government and elements on Clarence Valley Council have sought to draw Clarence Valley local government area into Coffs Harbour City Council's ambit - first as an outright merger push and later bundled together as a faux community of interest.

This is part of the inevitable outcome. Clarence Valley communities will have to get used to this state of affairs or vigorously fight it.