Deb Foskey's response, and the comments.

areaman – there seems to be confusion on your point about “Eligibility for Public Housing Assistance” policy. This policy applies when you actually apply for public housing assistance. Since Deb Foskey is already within the system, the policy would only have been relevant to her when she actually applied.

Deb Foskey you are a joke! I am sorry but simply justifying that your support of public housing means that you must live in it must be the most stupid comment from a politician in some time.
I support public housing, but my wife and I earn enough that we rent privately at great cost to ourselves. Public housing is for those in need. Not for someone grand standing and trying to morally justify the indefencible.
If you were as honest as you claim to be you would own up, apologise and move out. I doubt you will because you seem deluded enough to believe your own sad political mantras.

QUOTE This is the Eligibility for Public Housing Assistance policy. As Foskey is paying market rent she’s not getting any assitance, hence this policy has nothing to do with her.

Apart from being a squatter in a public house that has been purchased for the avaliability of people who need public housing even ?

Your words areaman, since she doesn’t need the assistance, she can get out of the house which has been made avaliable for public housing tennants.

Or are you gonna backtrack on that ?

Tell it to the dude at Kippax.

You idiot, did you even read the top of that page.

Purpose
This policy describes the requirements for establishing the eligibility of an applicant for public rental housing assistance

This is the Eligibility for Public Housing Assistance policy. As Foskey is paying market rent she’s not getting any assitance, hence this policy has nothing to do with her.

Actually you got me pissed off enough to warrant a response:

Some interesting reading;

http://www.dhcs.act.gov.au/hcs/Policy/Eligibility.html#Eligability

In addition, household eligibility is reviewed against the prevailing eligibility criteria:

when there are changes to the application (eg. household members are added or removed, or income varies);
prior to making an offer of housing.

Assets
If an applicant has realisable assets that would enable them to afford other forms of long-term housing, eg. by buying a house, the applicant is not offered public rental housing. An applicant with assets above the current assets limit of $40,000 is ineligible and is not registered on the Applicant List.

(interstate property) ???

Ownership of real estate
An applicant or household member who owns or has an interest in real estate is ineligible for public rental housing if they can:

reside in the property;
sell their equity in the property.
For the purposes of this policy, real estate refers to houses, units and flats. Mobile homes, caravans and land are considered assets, not real estate.

further fulfillment…

Fraud
Housing ACT considers fraud to have occurred when an applicant, in order to gain a higher benefit:

deliberately supplies false information
deliberately fails to provide information
changes his/her income or arranged his/her financial affairs by or as a result of any artificial or contrived scheme or arrangement.

changed income ???

Maelinar out!

Tell it to the homeless guy, I’m no longer listening (see other post).

Maelinar, you do realise that the ACT policy is to have public housing in all suburbs. Sure you could sell of the properties in expensive suburbs and buy stuff out in the middle of nowhere, but then you’re just creating ghettos which are no go for anyone involved or the community at large.

The public housing system is not designed to sustain people paying full market rent

Yes, yes it is designed for that, what evidence do you have that it isn’t. The lack of public housing currently has nothing to do with rights of tenure.

Stand with me and Mr Pitchfork !

I don’t post to the Greens website or TT website, and I don’t intend to (because just like alcoholism and gambling addictions being called a disease – people/political parties just whinging cause they can’t hack it in the real world) however feel free to quote me if you want to.

I’m sure I’ve already made it to their distribution with my previous comments anyway.

Way to rant Maelinar!

You raised some very good points, and I concur with most of them wholeheartedly!

That being saidm would this note have been more effectively left on teh comments section of the above?

Better still, forward a copy of all to Today/Tonight (as much as the show sickens me to my core) so they can do a muck-raking follow up stroy about “The Hypocrisy of Foskey”.

I have vented enough previously and it only pointed out my waning interest on the subject, but it still makes me mad as hell. More power to you.

My response to the rubbish contained in JB’s link:

vitriolic

adj 1: harsh or corrosive in tone; “an acerbic tone piercing otherwise flowery prose”; “a barrage of acid comments”; “her acrid remarks make her many enemies”; “bitter words”; “blistering criticism”; “caustic jokes about political assassination, talk-show hosts and medical ethics”; “a sulfurous denunciation” [syn: acerb, acerbic, acid, acrid, bitter, blistering, caustic, sulfurous, sulphurous, venomous, virulent] 2: of a substance, especially a strong acid; capable of destroying or eating away by chemical action [syn: caustic, corrosive, erosive]

Althought I had to look that one up, I’m ok with that, but I protest that I was misinformed, my argument was simply that once you get above a certain income – one that puts you WAAAAYYY above the general punter, the security of tenure debate becomes pointless and immaterial.

I believe that I have already stated that I am not directing my argument towards moderate income people, and I would think that most other arguments have supported this stance, so I’m not too sure where the Debmeister is getting the absolution to put herself in with the middle-classers from…

In response to the $12mil issue that the ACT Government would ‘suddenly’ have if ‘everybody on a moderate to high income’ got out of the public housing market, just how much of that would be sucked up by the selling of your house ?

1mil ? 2mil ? 3mil ? 4mil ? 5mil ? – For goodness sakes it’s a house in Yarralumla you dickheads, sell that house and turn it into 5 new ones in the outer suburbs where us other peions have to live cause we can’t afford inner city prices.

Also Deb, you said it yourself on your website and I quote “I should point out that most people on good, secure incomes move out of public housing a few months to a few years after gaining employment”, I’ll be looking forward to you moving out shortly then. I’m not unreasonable, let’s give this a good ‘few’ years, 2008 too much of a challenge ?

If you’re not prepared to move out by 2008, and not prepared to commit to saying you’re making plans to move out by 2008, then there’s something wrong..

Then we come to the great leap in logic, based on her previous misinformed opinions..

QUOTE “I’m sure you appreciate it has been quite a challenge to communicate this message: that an economically and socially sustainable public housing system needs a mix of tenants, including a good proportion paying full market rent, and that security of tenure is a vital ingredient in any socially sustainable public housing scheme”

Since when has public housing been economic and socially sustainable ?

Public Housing as far as I remember is a burden on the taxpaying society as a social response to the fact that some poor chap can’t put a roof over their head individually. As I have intimated before; Public Housing is supplied by ‘us’ in response to our social obligations, and it’s not the right of the tennant to dictate their terms and conditions. The right belongs to the public who has put them there.

And Deb, Greens, all you other lefties, the public housing system doesn’t need a ‘mix’ of tennants, of which a good proportion are paying full market rent, what it needs is people to not abuse the system. The public housing system is not designed to sustain people paying full market rent, that’s a stopgate that was put in place to try to recapture some of the monetary losses that ‘we’ as a taxpayer are supporting to keep you in housing that has been provided because of our concern for your social circumstances.

Finally, another quote: “Finally, I would like to reassure you that, wherever I live as an MLA, I will remain absolutely committed to increasing the amount of affordable housing — public and private — available in Canberra. I look forward to working with you on it”.

No problems, since you’re absolutely committed, we’ll see your house becoming avaliable shortly then won’t we ?

Great working with you.