Lismore City Council began its new local government 4 year-term term in earnest at an Ordinary Monthly Meeting at 6pm on 8 February 2022. It quickly went downhill....

Banyam Baigham, The Sleeping Lizard
Images: Change.org & David Lowe

With little forewarning Lismore City Council Business Paper for its Ordinary Monthly Meeting of 8 February 2022 contained a Notice of Motion which shocked and alarmed the Widjabul Wia-bal People, traditional owners of the unceded lands on which Lismore local government asserts a jurisdictional right, as well as shocking a good many residents in the wider community of the Lismore area and across Northern New South Wales. 

Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau read thus:

Councillor Big Rob has given notice of intention to move:

That:

1. Council take no further action in relation to its decision of 13 July 2021 (Item BP21/567) to hand back all Council owned land at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners;

2. staff prepare suitable information and budget estimates for consideration in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process to investigate options for Council to realise a financial return on its R1 zoned land at the North Lismore Plateau;

3. the information above include an analysis of Council’s obligations and associated costs to rehabilitate the quarry having regard to the North Lismore Quarry End Use Plan 2012, the North Lismore Quarry Rehabilitation Plan 2012, with a particular focus on the E2 and E3 zoned land;

and

4. Council provide in principle support to transfer ownership of the E2 and E3 zoned land owned by Council at the North Lismore Plateau to the traditional owners and prepare budget estimates and supporting information to allow further consideration of this matter in the upcoming Operational Plan and budget process.  [my yellow highlighting]

The initial public reactions was two-fold - an online petition and a public meeting.

Big crowd on hand to support Widjabul Wia-bal People in their fight to see North Lismore Plateau returned to them as the Lismore Council promised last year. pic.twitter.com/JzBztv4zuq

— Michael Bennett (@nthistorian) February 8, 2022

The Lismore Council meeting was webcast at 6pm and the following Twitter stream of consciousness from among those watching began in the hour before the meeting opened and once the relevant item was reached.

• Do Lismore City councilors realise if they go forward /w assent in any form of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau at tonight's Ordinary Monthly Meeting then Council will likely be subject of least 2 formal complaints to NSW Office of Local Government & to Minister? @WendyTuckerman

• Have signed petition, downloaded business paper & attachment & opened a screen to listen to Lismore Council Ordinary Meeting at 6pm. I am seriously pissed off with Lismore City councillors!

• I think the SK team will get the shits with Big Rob calling all the shots. This might be the turning point. (Noticed Nimbin GT labelled it Big Robbery).

• this is not the only issue being tabled. The Sleeping Lizard agenda will attract much attention and the response may surprise this arrogant new council and mayor. The newly elected council are all in for a tough time and deservedly so.

• What a way for the new Lismore City Council to start its local government term 😂😂😂

• Uncle Mickey Ryan just presented a petition of 25,000 people to the Lismore Council meeting.

He expressed his thanks to all that have shown their support.

• Way to go! Opponents of Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau politely & carefully raised the prospect of racist intent. The colonialist attitude of take what you want & let First Nations live on the scraps you don't want was written all over it #LismoreCityCouncil

• Not normally a fan of watching Council meetings but that was superb.

• One LGA resident told Lismore City councilors that if they voted for Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau they will be on the wrong side of history & another told councilors who might support this motion that it looked as through they intended to "steal" the land a second time.

• Yet another LGA resident told councillors Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau is a test of their personal characters & referred to colonial attitudes towards First Nations peoples.

• I never thought watching a Lismore City Council meeting would bring me so much joy. The deputations are on fire! #landrights #reconciliation #SleepingLizard #GiveItBack

• OMG! Motion 10.7 Lismore Plateau is being changed on the run before being voted on - the details clearly demonstrating one particular councilor has no idea what spiritual connection to Country actually means. #OdiousDestructiveColonialismIsAliveAndWellAtLismoreCouncil

• And the newby Mayor is making it worse!

• Elly doing best to stop the mess that Cr. Rob created

• Sheesh Mayor Krieg is totally out of his depth.

• Yes. Caught the last 5 minutes. BR reading the meeting code and getting it totally wrong.

The Mayor’s got even less of an idea. It’s pathetic.

• He thought he knew how to chair a meeting because he was a school teacher. Oh well, reality strikes.

• I just witnessed so many breaches of the meeting code of practice, I don’t know where you would start a complaint.

• A certain Lismore City councilor is calling the Sleeping Lizard "a piece of crap land" then tries to walk it back and blame others a la Scotty Morrison.

• Oh please, someone save those new Lismore City councilors from themselves before they wreck this particular local government. A 5 minute break has been called in the OGM

• I honestly fear for Lismore City Council. If it continues breaching Code of Meeting Practice & Practice Notes it will be under administration before June.

• Motion 10.7 North Lismore Plateau before Lismore City Council at OGM 8 Feb 2022 failed decidedly! No-one except the mover voted for it.

• And the motion goes down.

• It should never have been contemplated, let alone put to a vote. This kind of shit harms people.

That said, I’m glad it was voted down.

• 9-1! Excellent news.

• Good news

• Finally, in spite of the Lismore City Mayor & Cr. Rob the experienced councillors finally put the issue of Motion 10.7 to bed.

• Honestly I have never witnessed new local government councillors anywhere undertake such a sustained insult of First Nations culture, lore & law #LismoreCityCouncil

• To see the response to Lismore council brings strength to my soul. Thank you to everyone who has helped.

Yessss pic.twitter.com/TP6Ukvbbq5

— sᴉɹɹǝℲ ǝllǝɥɔoɹ (@OzEcology) February 8, 2022

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Affordable housing remains an issue in New South Wales and the Northern Rivers region

This was the situation in 2020 in the NSW Northern Rivers region......

House of Representatives, Standing Committee on Social Policy and Legal Affairs, Inquiry into homelessness in Australia: June 2020, Social Futures -Submission 141

Northern NSW suffers from chronic homelessness issues. Like many regional communities, it is characterised by relatively low incomes, lack of employment opportunities, high welfare dependency, significant pockets of social disadvantage, limited stocks of affordable housing (especially in the coastal areas) and a lack of regular public transport. The Northern NSW region has an above average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander population at 4.4 per cent compared to the national average of 2.9 per cent.

This combination of high rents and a critical shortage of available rental accommodation has created severe housing stress among a considerable portion of the community, forcing many into homelessness. With the growth in tourism in some coastal communities, property values have soared and increasing numbers of dwellings are used as short term rental accommodation for visitors and tourists, further reducing available and affordable housing stock for people in the private rental market.

The Richmond Federal Electorate was ranked third highest across the whole of Australia for rental stress at 43 per cent (7,390 households).

Housing stress is particularly high among renter households at 38.8 per cent compared to 28.4 per cent for NSW and 28 per cent for Australia.

The four least affordable local government areas for renters in regional NSW are located within the Northern Rivers.

The average monthly rental vacancy rate for the Northern Rivers over the 12 months to April 2020 was 1.8 per cent. This is a very tight market compared to Sydney where the vacancy rate is 3.4 per cent.

There is substantial pressure in regional housing markets in NSW with most of the regional markets surveyed recording average monthly vacancy rates of 2 per cent or less over the same period.

While the Northern Rivers only represents 4 per cent of the NSW population the region recorded 18.7 per cent of the State’s rough sleepers on Census night in 2016 (up from 18.4 per cent in 2011).

Affordable housing and rental stress remains an issue.....

 The Guardian, 6 February 2022:

In the already Covid-stretched hospitals of northern New South Wales, health workers are struggling with another growing pressure caused by the pandemic.

House prices have soared in Byron Bay and surrounding areas since Covid lockdowns and work-from-home inspired many to flee the city for a sea or tree change.

And while the impacts on buyers or renters in the area have been well documented, hospital workers say it’s having far-reaching effects on the community’s health.

The consequences of the housing crush are being felt at hospitals such as Ballina, where nurse and New South Wales Nurses and Midwives’ Association (NSWNMA) representative Suzie Melchior works.

“That’s not just staff struggling to get permanent housing, but we’ve seen people who are almost itinerant,” she said.

“We’re not used to people living out of their vehicles, their cars. That seems to be a new thing.”

Every additional stressor is being felt due to the surge in demand brought on by Covid, and already prevalent GP shortages.

“They don’t have a GP so they’re coming to us for their basic healthcare needs,” Melchior said.

“They know they’re not meant to be accessing emergency departments to get their blood pressure medication or their gout medication but they don’t have the option.”

Long-term renter and mother of four Jenny – not her real name – is at breaking point after two years of housing instability, and has seen her health slide as a result.

“There have been moments where I ask, ‘What’s the point in going on?’,” she said. “My stress levels are through the roof. A human right to safety and shelter – there’s nothing remotely close to that now.”

Jenny has a month left at her short-term rental in Alstonville and after months of searching still can’t find a secure and affordable next step.

She is considering buying a caravan or pitching a tent.

“I wouldn’t have considered that in the past but what are our options? What else can we do?” she said.

Melchior said many patients were presenting without Medicare cards because they didn’t have an address for them to be posted to, taking up extra admin time that overworked staff didn’t have.

“There’s a ripple effect,” she said.

“It is small in the scheme of things but if you multiply that across how many other people are having similar issues … it’s big.”

Another local nurse – who wished to remain anonymous – said she was also seeing more patients without a fixed address.

“Even in the maternity unit we see it – new mums living in caravan parks because they can’t find housing,” she told the Guardian……

The Guardian, 25 January 2022:

Nearly half of all people who sought help with homelessness last year in New South Wales did not get it, a new report has shown.

According to data from the Productivity Commission’s annual report on government services, 48.2% of people in Australia’s most populous state who asked for accommodation assistance from specialist homelessness services in the 2020-2021 financial year went without.

That figure represents a substantial increase from five years ago, when 37.2% of people did not receive the help they had requested.

The Productivity Commission report, released on Tuesday, contains detailed information on the performance of Australia’s social support services, including housing, homelessness, aged care, youth justice, child protection and more.

It shows unmet requests for homelessness accommodation services are increasing across Australia, from 30.2% of people going unassisted nationally in 2016–2017, to 32.2% in the last financial year…..

Productivity Commission, Report on Government Services 2022: Housing and Homelessness, 25 January 2022:

Low income earners are particularly susceptible to housing instability as market factors lead to higher private housing prices. ‘Rental stress’, defined as spending more than 30 per cent of gross household income on rent, is a measure of housing affordability for this cohort. In 2017-18, of the 27.1 per cent of Australian households renting in the private sector, 43.4 per cent were low income. Of these households, 50.2 per cent experienced rental stress – largely unchanged over the past 10 years.

Of low income households that were CRA [Commonwealth Rental Assistance] recipients at end June 2021, 72.5 per cent would have experienced rental stress without CRA. With CRA, 45.7 per cent still experienced rental stress…..

In 2021 the percentage of NSW households considered to be under rental stress:

• At more than 30% household income on rent.

Receiving no housing assistance payment from the federal government – 75.2%;

With rental assistance payment (CRA) from federal government – 48.5%.

• At more than 50% household income on rent.

Receiving no housing assistance payment from the federal government – 35.1%;

With rental assistance payment (CRA) from federal government – 20.4%.

In 2020-21 there were 321,509 eligible dependent children living in renting households which received Commonwealth Rental Assistance.

As at 30 June 2021, nationally there was a total of 400 792 households and 422 753 social housing dwellings (tenancy rental units for community housing), excluding ICH [Indigenous Community Housing]. In addition, as at 30 June 2020 (latest available data), there were 16 363 households and 15 053 permanent dwellings managed by government funded ICH organisations.

The total number of low income households in all categories of social housing in NSW as of 30 June 2021 was 141,597.

The occupancy rate of all NSW social housing categories is high. Only between est. 3-5% of all social housing stock was available to new tenants on 30 June 2021.

There has been a marked rise in community housing stock in NSW. However this in part reflects a transfer of 13,465 public housing dwellings (under management or held by title) to community housing organizations between 1 July 2018 & 30 June 2021, rather than an significant increase in total social housing stock numbers overall.

For decades the NSW Government has indulged in shifting deck chairs around on the Titanic rather than addressing the sinking proportion of social and affordable housing in the overall for sale or rental residential housing mix. 

By 2019 the NSW shortfall in social and affordable housing projected unmet need was est. 316,700 units by 2036 - est. 99,700 of those units representing the shortfall in rural & regional New South Wales.

SOCIAL HOUSING STOCK NSW 30 JUNE 2012 to 30 JUNE 2021

The centrepiece of the Morrison Government’s “Living with Covid” program is a call centre outsourced to former robo-debt collectors and staffed by workers on casual contracts with no medical experience

 

“On January 17, as the nation recorded another 39,000 cases of the disease, with hundreds of thousands of active cases, the first phase of the “transitioning to Living with Covid” plan went live at the national hotline…..Health Minister Greg Hunt first announced what was then an information line for people worried about the novel coronavirus on January 31, 2020. Although hosted by healthdirect – a sort of national cabinet for government health advice across every jurisdiction in Australia – the call centres were set up by Stellar Asia Pacific Pty Ltd, now a wholly owned subsidiary of its former rival Probe Group.” [Journalist & author Rick Morton writing in in The Saturday Paper, 5 February 2022]

The Saturday Paper, 5 February 2022:

The centrepiece of the federal government’s “Living with Covid” program is a call centre outsourced to former robo-debt collectors and staffed by workers on casual contracts with no medical experience.

A cache of documents and testimony obtained by The Saturday Paper reveals the inner workings of the National Coronavirus Helpline, which is being run by private-equity owned Probe Group and its subsidiaries on contracts worth more than $270 million.

This information hotline has now been asked to triage people who have tested positive for Covid-19, or who believe they are infected, as part of the Commonwealth’s pivot to managing the disease in the community.

In practice, it has outsourced a key front-line health service to a small battalion of low-paid, poorly trained workers on insecure contracts. People staffing the hotline do not have medical qualifications. Many were previously unemployed and subject to the welfare system’s “mutual obligations”, which threatens penalties and payment suspensions if they refuse reasonable offers of work.

Training offered to new Probe recruits lasts only two hours.

Accounts obtained by The Saturday Paper show workers have described being placed under extreme stress while managing an overwhelming variety of callers, with limited information or ability to actually help them.

For instance, the coronavirus helpline is listed as the No. 1 point of contact on almost every government department, including Home Affairs and for disability and Aboriginal health services, despite there being no specific resources for team members to even provide advice.

Although scripts for call centre operators advise patients to seek rapid antigen tests if they are available, it is not part of the helpline’s remit to actually provide these tests or information on where they might be obtained.

Helpline workers are also fielding calls from people who are experiencing family violence, poverty or other types of extreme stress and are expected to arrange welfare checks or talk them through complex problems with little support.

Where problems do arise, employees are encouraged to phone their team leaders and not put anything in writing to ensure a “quick response”. Employees have requested access to more resources and training but in some cases have had no response from management or, where concerns have been heard, a two-page “cheat sheet” is provided.

There have been frequent occurrences of callers who have been given incorrect isolation advice from the National Coronavirus Helpline or who have complained about misleading public statements by politicians compared with the advice for different jurisdictions offered by the hotline.

In other cases, callers have been directed to see a doctor but have been sent away from GP clinics and even emergency departments, contrary to the advice offered over the helpline…..

Read the full article here.

Scene: Australian House of Representatives On a Busy Working Day in February 2022. Enter Stage Right: the Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 looking back over its shoulder

On 22 November 2017, then Prime Minister & Liberal MP for Wentworth Malcolm Bligh Turnbull announced a review into religious freedom in Australia.

The review was in response to pushback by religious institutions & conservative persons of faith once it became clear that the nation would be considering separating gender from the definition of legal marriage¹ and, the possibility that the Commonwealth Marriage Act 1961 would be amended to reflect this.

The Religious Freedom Review was conducted by an Expert Panel, chaired by former Liberal MP for Philip Ruddock, and was comprised of Emeritus Professor Rosalind Croucher AM, Dr Annabelle Bennett AC SC, Father Frank Brennan SJ AO and Professor Nicholas Aroney.

The Report of the Expert Panel was presented to the Prime Minister on 18 May 2018 – five months and nine days after the Marriage Act had indeed been changed to create marriage equality as a fact under law – and it made a total of twenty [20] recommendations.

In the following years there were three publicly released iterations of the proposed draft legislation. These are the versions currently before the Parliament: 

Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 [Provisions]; 

Religious Discrimination(Consequential Amendments) Bill 2021 [Provisions]; and

Human Rights Legislation Amendment Bill 2021 [Provisions].

On 2 December 2021, the Senate referred all three bills to the Legal and Constitutional Affairs Legislation Committee for inquiry and report by 4 February 2022.

On 4 February 2022, this committee tabled its 164 page Report.

The Report states in part: The religious discrimination bill seeks to implement recommendations 3, 15 and 19 of the Religious Freedom Review, while the human rights legislation bill would implement recommendations 3, 4 and 12.2 It is silent on the remaining fifteen recommendations.

The entire report can be found at:

https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Senate/Legal_and_Constitutional_Affairs/Religiousdiscrimination

Starting at Page 95 and ending at Page 150 are the Committee View, Additional comments from Australian Labor Party senators, Dissenting report from the Australian Greens and Additional comments from Senator Andrew Bragg.

What this section of the Report clearly shows is that the only people who come close to being unreservedly happy with the wording and intent of these bills are to be found within the ranks of Scott Morrison’s faction in the Parliamentary Liberal Party. In the wider Parliamentary Liberal Party there is some concern but whether it gets fully realised is another matter.

Further amendments are expected to be put forward, given the very real concerns held by the general public that the rights of LGBTQ+ students, teachers and parents are not protected against discrimination by faith-based educational institutions, as well as other concerns relating to potentially discriminatory impacts of Statement of Belief provisions currently found in the draft Religious Discrimination Bill 2021 and the fact that the successful passage of this bill into law will require as yet unaddressed amendment of the Sex Discrimination Act 1984.

The three bills in question were always going to be used as an improvised explosive device buried deep within the House of Representatives carpeting, all set to explode during the first few weeks of the 2022 parliamentary calendar year in the hope of badly wounding the Labor Party over the course of the federal election campaign. 

On Thursday 4 February Prime Minister Scott Morrison also clearly stated his intention to legislate amendment of the Sex Discrimination Act before the federal general election. 

Given the limited number of sitting days in February and March in which to amend, it appears that Morrison may be reconciled to not passing  the current version of the Religious Discrimination Bill if the House Of Representatives baulks during the coming weeks. However, it is likely his intention to perform a piece of political theater in which he attempts to bully, intimidate and threaten the parliament in order to be seen as striving to fulfill his longstanding 'religious freedom to discriminate' promises to his conservative Christian base before polling day.

NOTES

1. Australian Marriage Law Postal Survey, 2017

2. Recommendations incorporated into the religious discrimination bill and human rights legislation amendments bill:

Recommendation 3

Commonwealth, State and Territory governments should consider the use of objects, purposes or other interpretive clauses in anti-discrimination legislation to reflect the equal status in international law of all human rights, including freedom of religion.

Recommendation 4

The Commonwealth should amend section 11 of the Charities Act 2013 to clarify that advocacy of a ‘traditional’ view of marriage would not, of itself, amount to a ‘disqualifying purpose’.

Recommendation 12

The Commonwealth should progress legislative amendments to make it clear that religious schools are not required to make available their facilities, or to provide goods or services, for any marriage, provided that the refusal:

(a) conforms to the doctrines, tenets or beliefs of the religion of the body, or

(b) is necessary to avoid injury to the religious susceptibilities of adherents of that religion.

Recommendation 15

The Commonwealth should amend the Racial Discrimination Act 1975, or enact a Religious Discrimination Act, to render it unlawful to discriminate on the basis of a person’s ‘religious belief or activity’, including on the basis that a person does not hold any religious belief. In doing so, consideration should be given to providing for appropriate exceptions and exemptions, including for religious bodies, religious schools and charities.

Recommendation 19

The Australian Human Rights Commission should take a leading role in the protection of freedom of religion, including through enhancing engagement, understanding and dialogue. This should occur within the existing commissioner model and not necessarily through the creation of a new position.