It was initially going to focus on how income management could effect residents in south Sydney, especially given the high concentration of disadvantage in parts of that community. However, during my research I realised that there would be significant impacts on tenancy rights coming out of the Bankstown trial, that I hadn’t seen raised elsewhere. So that’s where the focus went.

Welfare quarantining threatens tenant rights for South Sydney residents

The spread of income management to communities across Australia, including Bankstown in Sydney’s South West, looks set to have real impacts on the lives of residents of Redfern and Waterloo. Recent evidence shows that the impact of income management is on the balance a negative one, with implications for the dignity, and an erosion of tenancy rights, for our community.

Income management was first implemented by the Howard Government in Aboriginal communities in NT in 2007. From the outset the discriminatory nature of the policy was acknowledged by an exemption from the  Anti-Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). Under the Labor Government, the exemption from the Anti-Discrimination Act was dropped. As part of a new focus to extend the policy to the broader community, five trial sites, including Bankstown, will be implemented from 2012. Up to 70% of a recipients income may be controlled by the State in this program.

The Government claims that income management is a budgeting tool to help people to meet ongoing needs for themselves and for their family. This Orwellian turn of phrase distorts the coercive nature of the program, and the significant changes that income management will bear on the relationship between the Government, service providers and the community.
A recent report on the experience of NT residents under income management has again shown that reducing a person’s agency has negative impacts on their dignity and well-being. The survey by the Equality Rights Alliance spoke to more than 180 women currently living under income management, and over-whelmingly the respondents reported that the basics card had not changed their spending patterns; they do not feel safer because of the program; and that the Basics Card impacts negatively on the respect that they receive from other people.

With a lack of evidence on positive outcomes from income management, and clear statements about the negative impacts of the policy’s implementation, it is unclear what ideology is driving the push to expand the program.
As the trials are introduced to metropolitan Sydney, changes are being made to the program that promise to transform the relationship between Government agencies and the community. By explicitly stating that State housing providers will be empowered to refer tenants into income management for late rent payments, a message has been sent to public housing residents that they are set to lose tenant rights enjoyed by the general community, and face inordinate punishment when struggling to meet a rising cost of living. This gives powers to social housing providers far beyond those available to private landlords, and comes at a time when utility bills, rent (including public housing rents) and other basic costs are outstripping the incomes of those at the lower end of the income scale.

It is unclear whether these powers are extended to community housing providers.  

The NT experience has shown that sole parents and aged pensioners caring for grand-children will be the most vulnerable to be referred into the income management program, and therefore the most likely to experience the loss of tenancy rights.

The Australian Government is about to embark on a trial of income management in Bankstown, and that the Minister responsible has been shown to, at best, ignore the evidence of policy failure; and at worst to distort the findings. This represents a threat not only to the welfare but also the dignity of the Redfern / Waterloo community. The high number of social housing residents in this community makes the distorted relationship between Housing bureaucracies and tenants even more of a risk.   
 
Joel Pringle

What he said was that if the Government is to increase compulsory superannuation contributions, in spite of evidence that they are not necessary and are likely to have negative social outcomes, then the least they can do is allow people to use a part of their savings as a housing deposit.

It may be tempting to think that super is for retirement, and using it early would negatively impact on people’s later, more elderly lives.

Indeed, taking money out of super would reduce later payments, but at the same time by encouraging home-ownership by people who would otherwise be renting, then household savings overtime would be expected to increase. And by overtime, I mean by the time our current batch of 20-30somethings retire.

Saving for a deposit is a task that takes dedication and control. Congratulations to the people who have done this easily, but like many, in spite of recently nothing up 30 years, I am not amongst you. The combined income of my partner and I would likely have banks lining up to lend, if it wasn’t for that pesky upfront contribution that we have failed to squirrel away.

And, yeah, neither of us are all that rational. I know full well that if this state of affairs continues until I am ripe and ready for campervan trips up and down the coast, I am likely to be experiencing a much lower living standard than I otherwise would. Owning your own home significantly reduces the likelyhood of living in poverty when living off a retirement income.

Which is why failing to address the declining rate of home ownership amongst current and future generations is creating a time bomb when these people reach retirement, a second ‘aging crisis’. At least baby boomers will have property wealth to cover some of their health and care costs.

But dammit, we do have savings. Significant savings, which I am not able to invest in my future well-being. Instead of being able to use some of our superannuation to invest in housing, it is being left to the vagaries of the stock market. And we’re onto a winner with that one, given recent form…

Did I mention that our current rent payments almost match what loan repayments would be? We do live in inner Sydney, I guess. If we could use superannuation savings as a housing deposit, that money could contribute to my retirement savings instead of the retirement savings of my absentee, presumably much wealthier landlord who also benefits from a slew of tax deductions that I don’t receive as a renter.

Another thought bubble from my previous, never-to-be-completed post was the possibility of using super increases as a quasi- top-up unemployment insurance, with the point being that by income smoothing during the difficult times, our likelyhood of higher savings by old age could increase. There would need to be a fair bit  of investigation to test this, but I reckon it’s worth a look.

Especially if the Government persists with increasing the rates of compulsory contribution, in spite of the evidence that this will hurt workers on low incomes.

As I foreshadowed in this earlier post, the risk is that the Government will restrict water efficiency measures and otherwise fiddle with the regulations to fatten up the asset before sale. This comes at a cost to the community. We now have more proof that they have form in this area.

I don’t wish to suggest that the rioters are motivated by political purposes, but I am amazed by how many commentators are willing to state that the riots are not political and in follow-up statements discuss the concentration of the riots in areas of disadvantage and the influence of austerity measures.

This post includes a map overlaying areas of disadvantage and riots. Whilst the current UK government did not create the areas of social disadvantage, it is the politics of disadvantage over many decades / generations, with disenfranchisement exacerbated by austerity measures, that have created the preconditions for these riots to occur.

This is true whether you lay the blame on the inadequacy of social support, further withdrawn by the current government, combined with the disenfranchisement of poor people who have been punished for the sins of the privileged classes in response to the GFC, as I am want to do, or as many others claim, including progressives, that welfare dependency is to blame.

As a side note, it is not adequate for a progressive to argue against welfare dependency without offering alternatives. Because without any standout big ideas, such comments will be used by conservatives to fuel the withdrawal of the welfare state altogether, which will lead to even worse social tension.

What’s with the title of this post? The main idea behind this post is that everything is political, even if sometimes you have to peel back a few layers to see the connections. A wise friend once told me that all politics is war. So who is at war here? It isn’t the rioters. The privileged have stepped up a gear in the face of the riots, and appear to have the upper hand.

The conditions that preceded the riots came from the attacks on the poor through austerity policies, and ‘big society’. And so who gets blamed? The disadvantaged, as criminals and  theives. Bad people with bad morals. Individuals. And there have been many cases of public shaming, for example police twittering the identity of looters and front page exposure. The media has been particularly complicit, feeding the argument that these are the actions of bad individuals, rather than the result of government attacks on class.

Create conditions for dysfunction, blame the dysfunction on individuals when it occurs, then further punish the working and poor classes. Those are the strategies.

Everything is political, politics is war, and at the moment those in power are setting the terms and seem to be winning a major battle.