Thank you so much for signing AND SHARING.. If you can educate your friends/family about OUR own lack of protection of our OWN Human Rights in Australia - by not having a formal Charter which most people NEVER consider - then you will have done all of us a favour!
There are MANY in today's society who view Human Rights with suspicion. That Human Rights are just about:
"...allowing refugees to invade us!" and
"...it's all about reverse racism!" (yes I have got THOSE responses!)
But while jumping on the hard-right conservative band-wagon they IGNORE the fact that Australia's LACK of a formal Charter affects THEM!
AND the PROUD History of Human Rights in this country!
THE HISTORY OF HUMAN RIGHTS IN AUSTRALIA
"On 10 December 1948, perhaps the most audacious, aspirational and humane document of our modern international community was adopted: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR). Reeling from the horrors of the Holocaust and WWII, the global community was firmly fixed on a path of “never again” and by international consensus constructed an architecture of checks, balances and expectations at law to attempt to fulfil this promise to future generations.
Australia was privileged to be one among eight members of the drafting party of the UDHR by way of Colonel William Roy Hodgson. Australia had also played a prominent role in the negotiation of the UN Charter in 1945 through the enigmatic Dr HV Evatt, then former federal Attorney-General, former High Court judge and head of Australia’s delegation to the UN. In 1948 Evatt became President of the United Nations General Assembly and oversaw the adoption of the UDHR.
From that time, Australia has led the way in many progressive developments of international human rights law including:
Australia became one of the first members of the United Nations in 1945;
Australia was one of the 26 states that drafted the 1951 International Convention relating to the Status of Refugees at the Conference of Plenipotentiaries which met at Geneva from 2-25 July 1951;
In 1983, Australia was one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW);
Australia ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities on 17 July 2008, making us one of the first Western countries to do so.
It is important and disturbing to note that Australia is currently the only liberal democracy that lacks a Charter of Rights in either constitutional or statutory form.
This is perplexing especially considering that there has been significant support amongst the Australian people, politicians and the judiciary for some time. Strangely, Australians still lack legally enshrined fundamental and basic human rights that Americans have enjoyed for over 200 years and much of the rest of the civilised world in the last fifty years."
Complete article in is in this link:
Something that we USED to be proud of!
One issue that is increasingly becoming more prevalent in our society is HOMELESSNESS
Something that has been always be seen as only an issue for people REALLY down on their luck - intransigent alcoholics and drug users - which many in Australia have little empathy for sadly (because not having empathy means society are more likely to view funding ENOUGH rehabilitation centres as somehow LESS worthy!)
But increasingly we are becoming like America - where we have WORKING POOR who are at increased RISK of HOMELESSNESS or becoming homeless!
Inflamed by POLICIES that have turned owning a house from something that MOST Australians could do - to something that more and more is OUT OF REACH for MANY Australians!
WHY has this happened?
Because ONCE - owning a house was something that was seen as an IMPLIED RIGHT for EVERY Australian!
But politicians have WRITTEN and enacted POLICIES over the past THREE decades that were popular and ENABLED them to be re-elected in the SHORT term - WITHOUT ANY thought of what this may lead to in the LONG TERM!
STATESMEN they were NOT!
Since the late 1990s owning a house has gone from being something that ALL Australians of the PREVIOUS 2-3 generations KNEW would be one day definitely possible - if they just worked hard and saved - to something that MANY younger people can now only dream of!
Because Governments wrote and enacted POLICY that turned Australia's residential housing from something people wanted to buy and LIVE in - into one of the most generously subsidised investments in the world. That could be used to both enable those who earned higher incomes to reduce their tax, while also increasing their assets.
Capital Gains Tax reductions also encouraged people to buy/improve MULTIPLE houses for increased profit.
In the USA - OWNER/occupiers can claim tax deductions on mortgage payments - in Australia ONLY investors can
But Federal Governments NEGLECTED to LIMIT the number of residential houses that could be Negatively Geared to LOWER higher-income earners' taxes, which encouraged investors to buy MULTIPLE houses and out-compete those who ONLY wanted just ONE home!
Even THOUSANDS of years ago learned people UNDERSTOOD that a FEW having a LOT of private property was AGAINST the best interests of SOCIETY!
"That the equalization of property exercises an influence on political society was clearly understood even by some of the old legislators. Laws were made by Solon and others prohibiting an individual from possessing as much land as he pleased." ~ Aristotle Greek Philosopher ~ LIVED from 384 - 322 BC
As well, instead of being expected - for these tax PRIVILEGES - to INCREASE our housing stock - investors were/are REWARDED for buying existing houses and renting them to THOSE who are PRICED OUT of the market!
Because more people renting means rents go up!
As reported by Domain:
'The latest Domain Rent Report, released on Thursday, shows the median rental asking price for house rents has soared nationally to a high of $471 per week – up 4 per cent in the year to March 2021.'
If you look at the graph in the report - even in smaller cities like Adelaide median rents have increased to over $400!
And units are no better..
With the median rent on a unit in Adelaide now being around $350
And in Perth renters are offering up to $100/wk MORE than landlords are asking - just to try to secure a place to live. Indeed this is also happening in the low-income northern suburbs of Adelaide where I live - where dozens of people are turning up for open rental inspections.
So if they can save at all with rents taking up over 55% of the minimum wage in Australia BEFORE tax younger people - and those older who have limited assets due to divorce or loss of a job - even as they TRY to save - find house prices go up faster than they can save for a deposit!
In fact even a house that's falling down - the LAND value is more than MOST young people can afford!
CONGRATULATIONS Politicians of Australia and those who VOTE for you!
You have returned the current generation who are working - and those after THEM - BACK into the pre-World War 2 generations who unless their parents were WEALTHY - had no choice but to LIVE for years with their parents!
You have UNDONE ALL the work by STATESMEN of BOTH major Parties to improve the lives of FUTURE generations!
As reported by Peter Martin in April this year
"We're chipping away at Menzies's legacy
From when Robert Menzies stepped down as prime minister in 1966 until the end of the 20th century, about 71 per cent of Australian households owned the home they lived in — one of the highest rates in the world.
Since about 2000, owner-occupation has been sliding. The latest figures (themselves some years old) put it at 66 per cent.
Among those aged 35 to 44, it has fallen to 63 per cent."
And remember for those who couldn't afford to buy and so continued to rent - it was mostly PUBLIC housing that they tenanted for life!
It's also not necessarily that we don't have enough houses right at this particular moment - it's that we don't have enough houses being LIVED in full-time!
And for those in Regional Areas since Covid19 - the situation has become even more diabolical as more people have moved out of the cities to either retire, work remotely from home and/or avoid lock-downs.
But if you work a LABOURING job - you CAN'T work from home!
So families who have lived and worked in a community for years can no longer afford to RENT there
And due to low incomes - because unless you're in a mining area - wages are usually lower in the regions and many banks' lending criteria meant people had to have a LARGER deposit to buy a home in a regional areas - they couldn't afford to BUY there BEFORE prices suddenly accelerated!
Australia since Howard - has become the country with the most EXPENSIVE housing in ALL of the OECD. In fact we have the SECOND most expensive housing in the WORLD!
We have allowed overseas investors to buy up property, our Governments in the last decade or so have used immigration and temporary workers to GROW the economy (without having to do ANYTHING that involved 'working' FOR us at all!) and this has helped to KEEP wages down, by increasing he amount of insecure work - while house prices have accelerated!
While all this has been going on - ALL Governments in Australia have decreased their stocks of SOCIAL housing..
And as house prices skyrocket; as more people can't afford to rent in the rental market - they become homeless and have to be ADDED to the list for social housing.
Governments' have KNOWN about this for MORE than a DECADE!
WHY did they let this happen? WAS it to ensure all those Landlords investing and becoming asset wealthy had enough people desperate to rent THEIR homes?
Considering we have MPs and Senators who THEMSELVES own MULTIPLE investment properties?
In October 2020 there were approx 430,000 people across Australia on social housing wait lists. Add this to the thousands on the NDIS waiting list and it is estimated there is a shortfall of 450,000 social housing dwellings across Australia!
As was pointed out by Olivia Killeen - Victoria's Sacred Heart Mission’s social policy officer in August 2019:
"The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) measures household affordability and housing stress, which is when households spend the majority of their income on housing costs. AHURI do this by using the 30:40 indicator; for households in the bottom 40 per cent of income distribution, spending any more than 30 per cent of income on housing (mortgage or rent, insurance and other taxes) indicates housing stress.
For households who are on higher incomes, but who can just afford to spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing, this limits their ability to save money and prepare for the proverbial “rainy day”. The 30 per cent rule may not be the threshold of housing stress for the entire community; but no matter where you fall in income distribution, the risk of falling into housing stress is more apparent than you might think. Recent research from Finder shows almost half of Australia’s workers would run out of money in under a month if they lost their job. One in five of us has less than $250 in our savings accounts, according to AMP Bank. The reality is, it wouldn’t take much for many of us to find ourselves struggling to stay afloat, or be at risk of homelessness – the housing crisis is everyone’s problem."
https://probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2019/08/australias-housing-crisis-is-everyones-problem/
Despite the Human Rights Commission in Australia agreeing that Housing is a Right - there is NO actual RIGHT to safe and adequate housing in Australia!
As Justice Connect pointed out in in its article on 16th March THIS year:
"There are a number of International treaties to which Australia is a signatory that enshrine the right to adequate housing. The right to adequate housing is enshrined in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights also enshrines the right to freedom from arbitrary or unlawful interference with privacy, family, home and correspondence.
However, Australia has not embedded these into our domestic law, despite our international commitments. This means that many people in Australia don’t have access to affordable, secure housing and are often evicted into homelessness because our laws don’t protect them.
Nearly 14 years ago, the United Nations condemned Australia for failing to implement the human right to adequate housing."
https://justiceconnect.org.au/fairmatters/housing-should-be-a-human-right/
Any one of us could become homeless or be at risk of becoming homeless at any time - due to a relationship breakdown, mental illness, a physical illness or an unexpected accident - if we lost our job and had to rely on Social Security that is well BELOW the poverty line.
Or if we are renting and our landlord decides to sell and we can't find anywhere else to live!
Andrew Wilkie's Human Rights Bill 2019 INCLUDED the Right to adequate housing for ALL of us!
"Article 23
Standard of living
(1) Every person has the right to an adequate standard of living, including:
(a) sufficient food and water; and
(b) clothing and housing; and
(c) access to health care services; and
(d) access to social security, including if they are unable to support themselves and their dependents, appropriate social assistance.
(2) No one may be refused emergency medical treatment.
(3) The Commonwealth or State Government will take reasonable legislative and other measures to provide for the progressive realisation of each of these rights."
A formal RIGHT would help to prevent our own Governments making POLICIES that HARM the MANY - for the BENEFIT of a few!
NEITHER major party wanted his Bill to become legislation!
The Census night is Tuesday 10th August THIS year - there are around 116,000 homeless Australians sleeping rough across Australia EVERY night
Do YOU think this will have increased in the past 5 years?