17 September 2012

Green housing plans

| johnboy
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The Greens’ Amanda Bresnan is sharing her thoughts on what the Greens want in the way of housing policy with CommonGround the big winners:

The ACT Greens Social Housing initiative includes:
· $7m in capital and $200,000 per annum recurrent to be provided to the CommonGround development for people experiencing homelessness;
· $1.5m in capital and $200,000 per annum recurrent to provide housing to people living with a severe mental illness in a 24/7 supported environment, similar to Home in Queanbeyan;
· $30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers; and
· $334,000 to increase the advocacy and policy work of ACT Shelter.

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colourful sydney racing identity said :

Truthiness said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Truthiness said :

I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning

Of course you can.

At a couple of roles I’ve actually replaced people’s entire jobs by writing scripts and apps to automate the process.

Of course you did.

I met a ” developer” who lived, showered and ate in the building. He had been living rent free in a meeting room for months. He had been given an excel spreadsheet to turn into HTML and had been averaging seven lines of code a day. I wrote a script to do the whole file, replacing seven months of sloppy work in half an hour. I told management about him, but they said it wasn’t worth doing the paperwork to fire him.

This didn’t happen.

Don’t let the truthiness get in the way of a good story.

colourful sydney racing identity2:26 pm 19 Sep 12

Truthiness said :

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Truthiness said :

I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning

Of course you can.

At a couple of roles I’ve actually replaced people’s entire jobs by writing scripts and apps to automate the process.

Of course you did.

I met a ” developer” who lived, showered and ate in the building. He had been living rent free in a meeting room for months. He had been given an excel spreadsheet to turn into HTML and had been averaging seven lines of code a day. I wrote a script to do the whole file, replacing seven months of sloppy work in half an hour. I told management about him, but they said it wasn’t worth doing the paperwork to fire him.

This didn’t happen.

Masquara said :

Note to Amanda Bresnan: to release 100 ACT Housing houses for the deserving, all you have to do is empty 100 of the hundreds of housing cheats into the streets.

Check out what she says:
“The level of homelessness in Canberra is unacceptable,” Ms Bresnan said today.

““Canberra has a lack of long term secure housing options for people living with a mental illness and requiring 24/7 support on site. Stable accommodation is essential to stop people going from crisis to crisis.”

OK, so let’s analyse thIs:
Policy: spend more providing public housing
Rationale:
poor, homeless and mentally ill people have nowhere to live and need to be helped.

Reality:
Public housing is chockablock full of rorters earning good incomes.
People like Greens MLAs are perfectly happy for people on high incomes to continue to occupy public housing. The Greens are perfectly happy for people to occupy public housing that has far more bedrooms than they need. The Greens show far less concern for the homeless than they do for their pet ideological crusades.

Explanation for this apparent conflict between what the Greens SAY and what the Greens DO?

1/ The Greens are liars

2/ The Greens don’t believe in public housing for the least fortunate.

3/ The Greens believe in state-provided housing as a matter of ideology.

ergo, the Greens’ policies are infected with the ideas they acquired during Uni days as members for their Stalinist, Communist, Socialist, Marxist, Trotskyist, etc…. political organisations despite those ideologies having been comprehensively demonstrated to have been a complete and utter failure.

The Greens are not a viable proposition for the governance of anything but a corrupt and dysfunctional tin-pot banana replublic.

colourful sydney racing identity said :

Truthiness said :

I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning

Of course you can.

At a couple of roles I’ve actually replaced people’s entire jobs by writing scripts and apps to automate the process.

Of course you did.

Well, this has been an enlightening discourse, I see your point of view and have a new found respect for your position.

One department had an employee whose entire job consisted of copy and pasting from an access database into an excel spreadsheet. Luckily they found something else for him to do after I automated his entire job with a couple of lines of code.

There are similar inefficiencies throughout the public service, I met a ” developer” who lived, showered and ate in the building. He had been living rent free in a meeting room for months. He had been given an excel spreadsheet to turn into HTML and had been averaging seven lines of code a day. I wrote a script to do the whole file, replacing seven months of sloppy work in half an hour. I told management about him, but they said it wasn’t worth doing the paperwork to fire him.

I find it hard to believe anyone with even the most rudimentary exposure to the public service could consider it efficient.

colourful sydney racing identity1:23 pm 19 Sep 12

Truthiness said :

I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning

Of course you can.

At a couple of roles I’ve actually replaced people’s entire jobs by writing scripts and apps to automate the process.

Of course you did.

I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning

Of course you can.

At a couple of roles I’ve actually replaced people’s entire jobs by writing scripts and apps to automate the process. In my experience there is nearly nothing that can’t be sped up through the liberal application of regular expressions and boolean logic.

Masquara said :

Gungahlin Al said :

Now – you were saying…?

I was saying, that they should get some of the housing cheats out of public housing and free up a hundred properties for people who need them. That way they won’t NEED to spend multimillions of OUR money on un-needed new housing in the outer sticks of, er, “Gungahlin et al”.

EXACTLY. I think everyone agrees that public housing should be for those who need it. But that does not mean that it is a home for life! Move those who no longer meet the rules out and let the real people in need in before we spend $30m on more housing!

Actually I am going to suggest something that tends to shit people to tears, if someone doesnt need a “house” anymore – the kids have grown up and moved on etc, move them into more appropriate – smaller housing – so that the bigger ACT Housing places can be given to people who need them or so they can be used as “group houses” by younger people needing a hand up.

And yes, I HAVE had knockdown drag out fights with people who claim to hate “all those losers who suck up public resources and get free houses handed to them on a plate” (one in particular grew up in public housing but “all kids in public housing are apprentice criminals” – remind him he was one and “I had a good family, it was just Dad was disabled, it’s not the same thing”!!!). But suggest that the little old lady who lives in a 4 bd government house, who has been there 40 years, but now lives alone and needs all kinds of social welfare support to maintain the place and needs 20-30 grand spent on modifications done to the place so she can “remain independent” – be moved into a little 2 bd townhouse, with all the disablity access stuff already build in – less than 5 minutes walk down the road and you are “taking the home away from a person who has worked hard all their life but just never had a job paying enough to buy a house”.

Nope sorry – it’s a rental and should be treated like that. You wouldn’t expect your landlord to pay for the gardening and cleaning to be done if you aren’t physically capable of maintaining it anymore, let alone spend a fortune modifying the place for disabled access – why should you expect the government to do it?

Gungahlin Al said :

Chop71 said :

$30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers.

F#$%^ me that’s a lot of a hand out.

Personally, I’d prefer the money go to hospitals (so they don’t have to fudge the figures) or schools (to educate the kiddies so they shouldn’t need public housing).

There is already enough public housing in Canberra.

Clearly there isn’t enough, or there wouldn’t be waiting lists.
And it isn’t a hand out. It is an investment in bricks and mortar, which apart from having rent paid on it, will also appreciate in value, offsetting maintenance costs.

Rather it spent on hospitals? Well put those people out on the streets and you’ll have to spend more on hospitals. And mental health facilities. And police, court, jails, insurance, …

Surely you can connect the dots and see that secure housing is the critical first step of preventative health practise?

I agree 100% that secure housing is important but ….

Masquara said :

Gungahlin Al said :

Now – you were saying…?

I was saying, that they should get some of the housing cheats out of public housing and free up a hundred properties for people who need them. That way they won’t NEED to spend multimillions of OUR money on un-needed new housing in the outer sticks of, er, “Gungahlin et al”.

EXACTLY. I think everyone agrees that public housing should be for those who need it. But that does not mean that it is a home for life! Move those who no longer meet the rules out and let the real people in need in before we spend $30m on more housing!

devils_advocate10:49 am 19 Sep 12

gazket said :

you do know who gets the 100 extra houses don’t ya . Boat people will get the houses

I only know a handful of people in Canberra who are wealthy enough to own a boat as well as the mooring fees, and none of them qualify or otherwise use public housing.

Almost by definition, if you can own (or even regulalarly lease) a boat, you aren’t reliant on public housing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JdbJP8Gxqog

Contour crafting could build the houses we need, we could make them nearly self sufficient.

I am not saying we need to be living in a utopia overnight, just that currently we aren’t even aiming close.

Truthiness said :

It seems like a fine idea to encourage more people onto the dole, they’re cheaper than public servants and about as productive.

If we could print every person a self sustaining eco-house, and get them out of the public service, we’d save a huge amount of money. We have the technology, everything is so automated that most people don’t actually need to work anymore. Its only the workaholic dole-bashers that keep us all in cubicles.

I for one would be ten times cheaper to keep on the dole than as a government contractor, and I’d be ten times happier too, if they didn’t keep making me go back to work for no reason.

I even like working, I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning, but it doesn’t let me be at work any less. oh no, we have to keep bums in seats, maintain a physical presence and pretend to be working.

I don’t get why everyone is so dead set keen on infinite expansion, its clear our ecosystems can’t take it, and it is endangering our long term survival. Just let us do less and lower our impact already!

As for refugees getting houses over locals, it wouldn’t be a problem at all if there were enough houses to go around. We have no shortage of land, or even money, just a shortage of political will. We could have universal housing and universal unemployment, it could be glorious. but no, our economic paradigm and protestant work ethic are sacrosanct.

Mate, I actually admire some of the ideas you’ve put up. There are lots of bad people, bad policies and bad things in the world. In an ideal world things would indeed be a lot better than they are now.

But it’s not an ideal world, and we have to do the best with what is possible. Sitting around waffling on about how we could have a utopia if things were perfect is a waste of time and effort. Things are not and never will be perfect, and come what may, we definitely won’t have a utopia in our lifetimes. We can make things better, but being realistic about our objectives will only help the process.

If you are underemployed in your PS job, then leave it and join or start a business that provides something that somebody wants. You, your customers and society as a whole will all be the better for it. I’ve been doing that for 30 years, and in that damned long time I’ve never once had the experience of doing a weeks “work” in a morning, so I can guarantee that your experience is not the norm. If you don’t do that then you are simply enjoying the fruits of bludging, while simultaneously complaining about the awfulness of the relaxed mellow bludging PS lifestyle, which is not something that I have any regard for.

Finally, you seem to think that there is enough wealth around to supply everybody with almost everything for no effort. This is not the case. Communal prosperity does does not simply appear out of thin air. Yes, there is a great disparity of wealth in Australia, and we’d all be better off if it was all distributed more equitably, but if we all just sit around skinning up doobies and singing Kumbaya while waiting for the houses to magically appear then we’ll end up living in holes in the ground.

gazket said :

you do know who gets the 100 extra houses don’t ya . Boat people will get the houses

You’ve convinced me. I’m gonna buy a boat now.

Truthiness, that is one weird post.

It seems like a fine idea to encourage more people onto the dole, they’re cheaper than public servants and about as productive.

If we could print every person a self sustaining eco-house, and get them out of the public service, we’d save a huge amount of money. We have the technology, everything is so automated that most people don’t actually need to work anymore. Its only the workaholic dole-bashers that keep us all in cubicles.

I for one would be ten times cheaper to keep on the dole than as a government contractor, and I’d be ten times happier too, if they didn’t keep making me go back to work for no reason.

I even like working, I can get a weeks worth of public service “work” done in half a morning, but it doesn’t let me be at work any less. oh no, we have to keep bums in seats, maintain a physical presence and pretend to be working.

I don’t get why everyone is so dead set keen on infinite expansion, its clear our ecosystems can’t take it, and it is endangering our long term survival. Just let us do less and lower our impact already!

As for refugees getting houses over locals, it wouldn’t be a problem at all if there were enough houses to go around. We have no shortage of land, or even money, just a shortage of political will. We could have universal housing and universal unemployment, it could be glorious. but no, our economic paradigm and protestant work ethic are sacrosanct.

Knowing the greens the houses will all cost double what they need to to pay for ‘green features’ of minimal benefit.

gazket said :

you do know who gets the 100 extra houses don’t ya . Boat people will get the houses

Or Greens candidates.

you do know who gets the 100 extra houses don’t ya . Boat people will get the houses

Masquara said :

I ask, how can the Greens build 100 houses if they will never be a government?

Not that I think it will happen, but 2 more seats could see them be the minority government, ie Greens 6, Labour and libs 5 and 4.

I think the greens have shot themselves in the foot though with their policies, they gained 4 seats based on the fact that both major parties were not favoured by many. Of course the reason 2 party preferred politics is common in Australia, is because theres not much in the way of organised 3rd parties eg Democrats, One Nation, Family First, Greens….. The whole divide and conquer and of course minor party votes all flow to the two major parties, before flowing to many other minor parties….

Gungahlin Al said :

Chop71 said :

$30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers.

F#$%^ me that’s a lot of a hand out.

Personally, I’d prefer the money go to hospitals (so they don’t have to fudge the figures) or schools (to educate the kiddies so they shouldn’t need public housing).

There is already enough public housing in Canberra.

Clearly there isn’t enough, or there wouldn’t be waiting lists.
And it isn’t a hand out. It is an investment in bricks and mortar, which apart from having rent paid on it, will also appreciate in value, offsetting maintenance costs.

Rather it spent on hospitals? Well put those people out on the streets and you’ll have to spend more on hospitals. And mental health facilities. And police, court, jails, insurance, …

Surely you can connect the dots and see that secure housing is the critical first step of preventative health practise?

seems you missed the dots re spending that money on education

Gungahlin Al1:34 pm 18 Sep 12

Chop71 said :

$30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers.

F#$%^ me that’s a lot of a hand out.

Personally, I’d prefer the money go to hospitals (so they don’t have to fudge the figures) or schools (to educate the kiddies so they shouldn’t need public housing).

There is already enough public housing in Canberra.

Clearly there isn’t enough, or there wouldn’t be waiting lists.
And it isn’t a hand out. It is an investment in bricks and mortar, which apart from having rent paid on it, will also appreciate in value, offsetting maintenance costs.

Rather it spent on hospitals? Well put those people out on the streets and you’ll have to spend more on hospitals. And mental health facilities. And police, court, jails, insurance, …

Surely you can connect the dots and see that secure housing is the critical first step of preventative health practise?

“$30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers;”

This by itself is enough for me to not vote Green (not that I was going to anyway).

We should be reducing the stock of publically owned housing, not increasing it.

You grow potatoes; you increase public housing numbers.

$30 million in capital to be invested in public housing to grow stock numbers.

F#$%^ me that’s a lot of a hand out.

Personally, I’d prefer the money go to hospitals (so they don’t have to fudge the figures) or schools (to educate the kiddies so they shouldn’t need public housing).

There is already enough public housing in Canberra.

Gungahlin Al said :

Now – you were saying…?

I was saying, that they should get some of the housing cheats out of public housing and free up a hundred properties for people who need them. That way they won’t NEED to spend multimillions of OUR money on un-needed new housing in the outer sticks of, er, “Gungahlin et al”.

Gungahlin Al8:34 pm 17 Sep 12

Masquara said :

I ask, how can the Greens build 100 houses if they will never be a government?

As a part of the Parliamentary Agreement with the Labor Party, the ACT Greens included an item for public housing to be 10% of housing stock in the ACT. In the 2011-12 Budget, the ACT Greens secured $9.5 million to be invested in public housing, and in 2012-13 $5 million.

Now – you were saying…?

Good to see Home in Queanbeyan getting a rap.

Greens reported on 666 as “planning to build 100 new ACT Housing houses”. That’s houses, not units.
I ask, how can the Greens build 100 houses if they will never be a government?

Note to Amanda Bresnan: to release 100 ACT Housing houses for the deserving, all you have to do is empty 100 of the hundreds of housing cheats into the streets.

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