Thank you so much to the 128 people out of 7,000 who viewed my petition who cared enough to sign - and the 25 of you who have shared.
I started this petition because with the increase in Independent & Green politicians recently elected in Australia I thought perhaps there was a change sweeping through Australia - that MANY Australians understood how the SOCIAL & HOUSING policies of THIRTY years of neo-liberal Governments had CAUSED the surge in homelessness in our country!
And now with interest rates rising and rents rocketing up BECAUSE of the lack of social housing in Australia not offering ANY alternative to 'market rents' which have skyrocketed BECAUSE of this - which seems crazy as anyone who's a Landlord KNOWS they can claim interest on their mortgages as a TAX-DEDUCTION - the ONLY ones who CAN in Australia!
(In America a country I have always been thankful I WASN'T born in - home OWNERS can claim mortgage interest rates as a tax deduction on THEIR own home)
I believed that with the further increases in homelessness after floods and bushfires Australians CARED about those STILL living in tents and run-down caravans. But going by my OWN statistics here on Change there is only 1 in 54 of us who DO..
Because signing a petition HERE is NOTHING to the action that NEEDS to be taken to stop homelessness in our country!
I was SO enthusiastic I put $65 of my money into promoting this petition because I BELIEVED that if I- as a powerless everyday Australian mum - could just GET my petition 'out there' - get it noticed - Australians DID care and people would sign it and we could pass it on to our politicians SAYING
"Here! We are sick of politicians who PROMOTE themselves as 'living the dream' because THEY grew up in a time when POLITICIANS truly CARED - please RECOGNISE that if your Mum with arthritis as a disability was alive TODAY - she would:
A) Have STRUGGLED to get a disability pension - or waited YEARS if she QUALIFIED at all!
B) Would be far more LIKELY to be on the WAITING list of over 480,000 Australians WAITING for Public Housing!
You have been PART of Governments who have CONTRIBUTED to this (The Gillard Govt's changes to single-parent payments an example)
STOP self-promoting and DO something!
STOP telling us we can't AFFORD to build social housing for the MANY thousands struggling in OUR country - when we CAN spend BILLIONS on submarines and 388 MILLION dollars giving WEAPONS to another country BECAUSE its 'politically popular' "
But if just going by my petition the MAJORITY 54 to 1 - DON'T care to even SIGN - then WHY WILL our governments’ change THEIR priorities - when the 'Parties of Government" (as the two major parties LIKE to call THEMSELVES!) continually just 'pass the baton' TO each other term after term?
Will leave my petition here - but am going off to lick my wounds for a while and ponder that I would have been better off giving my money to a homeless charity (which we wouldn't NEED so MANY of - if our governments truly CARED about the disadvantaged in Australia!) than stupidly thinking anything I did could make a difference.
Now I truly understand WHY Bill Shorten was so emotional when he lost the 2019 election. It wasn't about LOSING - he is a man who CARES and it was REALLY about realising Australians seemingly mostly DIDN'T care about a FAIRER society without homelessness!
And yes, I am NOT Labor - more 'left' than Labor - but Shorten has grown in my respect after watching him trying to fight so HARD for a fairer Australia with his radical policies on housing and disability services - DESPITE he himself NOT growing up 'poor' like the current Prime Minister Anthony 'Albo' Albanese.
**How has THAT gone for you the Master Builders Association - campaigning AGAINST Shorten's housing scheme? Hundreds of builders have gone broke - when many of them COULD have got involved in building LOW-INCOME housing?!
NEVER believe the LIE that ONLY the 'working-class' need Unions - because then that shows YOU don't understand that the wealthy HAVE unions - but THEY use 'up-market' names (e.g. Associations, Councils) for them like the MBA (above), the AMA, Australian Bar Association, the Minerals Council of Australia to name just a few!
As a pretty famous American President once said a CENTURY ago:
"It is essential that there should be organization of labor. This is an era of organization. Capital organizes and therefore labor must organize" - Theodore Roosevelt -
More articles about Homelessness if you are keen
https://www.missionaustralia.com.au/stories/safe-homes/5-facts-about-homelessness