LAUNCESTON TOWN HALL AND THE HOEMELESS INDUSTRY

 

The homeless industry

SADLY, what homeless people are experiencing has turned into an industry. A charitable industry maybe, nonetheless, it thrives on our collective political and social failures.

Governments rely on charities being there to deliver relief to the victims of their investment-driven economic strategies.

Ever-rising property prices depend upon the lack of supply, and people's inability to get into the housing market fuels this. Yes, that is right. Too many find themselves on the streets sleeping rough.

Statistics tell us who is wealthy, by how much, and by what taxes they are avoiding. Moreover, the gap between the haves and have-nots seems to grow exponentially.

Homeless people's dependence on crumbs from the tables of the well-off is troubling.

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Have your say.

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think.

Where the rubber hits the road locally, gap closing is not an idea the self-nominated representatives are inclined to broker. You see, they all have investments to protect, as do those who ask them to 'represent' them.

It is well past time for a reality check

YES MINISTER BARNETT AND!?

 

LAUNCESTON TOWN HALL'S ANT-DEMOCRATIC SHINANIGANS

A councillor breaching a code of conduct protocol would be laughable but for the serious issues that are not being openly discussed. When it comes to political shenanigans, local governance is where you will find a goodly amount of it. 

On this occasion the comedy is not because of some silliness and a broken rule, it is because the shenanigans we get to see tells ratepayers about the democratic dysfunctionalism that costs them so very much. 

Dysfunctional systems tend to create and give dysfunctional people their daily bread and a reason for being. Real celebrities know that if they play the numbers game sooner or later they must face the depressing fact that their number is up and the only place they can go is down. With some councils in Tasmania in recent years that has happened in bulk. 

The greatest fall from grace is not in the failing, it is in the refusal to learn from the failures, the dysfunction, the delusion. Looking at the outcomes, self-nomination is a worry. 

Everyday life and the ordinary has become so complicated that ratepayers are very often overwhelmed by the realities they are forced to deal with. In local governance the ordinary becomes twisted and distorted and our self-nominated self-important and mostly undistinguished representatives seem only capable of representing their need for sustenance and importance. 

To get noticed and maintain a meal ticket all too many representatives will turn up to cut a ribbon while entertaining delusions of adequacy. 

For a very long time there have been many writers who have warned us about the complicated forces that would shape contemporary life and here we have it in the here and now and on show at Launceston's Town Hall. 

All this tells us a lot about those cliches that are there saying … the tail is wagging the dog ... they are trying to walk both sides of the street as do drunken sailors ... they know the cost of everything and the value of nothing ... etc. etc. etc.

In all this there is absolutely no mention whatsoever about the cost of this action to the ratepayers – those supposedly being represented. To be so bold as to suggest that the actual cost along with the hidden costs adds up to much more than say the cost of holding a real life community consultation event looking at how to alleviate homelessness for instance. One might well ask how come and why?. 

However, homelessness is another subject Launceston's self-nominated elected 'representatives' along with the people on council's management team shies well clear of. Why? 

If there is an issue that matters, let us have it out in open council and let us hear to pros and cons out loud and in clear air. Then let the represented make their judgements. At a guess, our self-nominating representatives, with their cunning agendas as likely as not, will be quite circumspect about the prospect of any of that sort of thing. 

Apart from being very expensive these in camera code of conduct hearings tell us nothing worth knowing that shouldn't or couldn't be deliberated upon out in the open. What appears to be mostly at risk here is the truth of the matter. 

Truth is like gold, you can only get it once you have washed away everything that is not gold, the rubbish, the untruthful. More to the point, once you win it, the gold, or the truth, it is not discarded wantonly, and it seems to stick. 

Here we have a situation crying out for representatives with the wherewithal to say what needs to be said and likewise managers with the will, life experience and the expertise to defend the appropriateness of their actions, and advice if they are indeed appropriate and backed up by expertise. 

Thinking long and hard on all this, the prospect of meaningful change would be best considered on some very cold day in Launceston that was the hottest day ever when hell is at risk of freezing over. 

JJ Bower

TINY HOMES AND STUMBLE STONES

"Tiny homes

Just recently, there have been a lot of comments about tiny homes. Some councils say there has been no change in the regulations, but contrary to what they say, there must have been. By the time the councils and possibly the government get through with all the regulations, building, sewage and various other permits, it really isn't worth the hassle. I know one young person who got the OK to put one on a block, but when they did, the council had a different attitude by the time they would have to jump through all the hoops. It just was not worth it, so she sold it. We hear how the councils and the government are sympathetic to the homeless, but when it is all boiled down, they are only interested in the almighty dollar. It's no wonder there are a lot of homeless people living in tents, but it's only a matter of time before the council will give them a permit. That's if they haven't already done so. They say Australia is a free country - I say bulls**t. ... ALLAN SLATER - RAVENSWOOD"

Elsewhere in Australia Local Govt is working to remove the stumble stones that get in the way people finding affordable and more appropriate housing for increasingly diverse communities. It tuns out that, and unsurprisingly in so many ways, in Launceston for instance any challenge to the same old, same old, there'll be resistance to brokering change. Why is this so?

Might it be because 'the people's' representatives are actually self nominated, and that immediately puts their ability to 'represent' in peril. If we think about it, they are actually seeking permission to represent themselves and their world view when putting themselves forward.

More to the point, they go on to appoint a management to do their bidding for them and in turn the fawning managers, who wish to preserve their high salaries and status, are willingly do whatever and then everything in the garden is just rosy.

Well, all is rosy until the represented ask to do something, like live in a tiny house, that is not in the interest of the self nominated and 'elected' cohort of 'deciders' and their enforcers.

In communities where 'the people' are enabled to represent themselves this cannot happen and generally the people live in places that fits, and developed to fit, their collective needs. However, such communities are identified as being "primitive" – primeval even with an emphasis on the 'evil' syllable. So, we are all left to wonder about what/who is in fact "evil" in all this – if we dare to go there.