On his last day, Rocky TAAS worker Craig sent us this potted history as he shut the doors for the last time. 
In December 1988 the Queensland Housing Commission offered to make available to Community Organisations participating in Mortgage and Rent Relief schemes a one-off grant to employ a Housing Referral Worker.
The expected duties of the Worker were:
- To assist people locate suitable accommodation in the private rental market;
- To assist people obtain Commission bond guarantees, rent relief and long term accommodation;
- To assist with tenancy law advice;
- To assist those in crisis with practical support.
Our first Housing Referral Worker was Ron Leeks with the then auspicing organisation of Rockhampton Family Emergency Accommodation Programme (FEAP).
In July 1991 the Housing Referral Worker Programme became the Housing Resource Worker Programme with the newly formed Department of Housing and Local Government. When Ron moved on to greener pastures he was replaced with Keith Mansfield and around 1996-97 the programme auspice was transferred to CQ Consumers Association at the request of the SAAP service, FEAP.
I joined in 1998 as Keith’s relief worker and did my first block of training in tenancy law at the Tenants Union of Queensland offices in Teneriffe, and what trendy offices they were
Over the years I’ve gone from relief work to part time work to full time, guess I always was a sucker for punishment. It is with great sadness that I have to oversee the closure of a service that has worked tirelessly for almost 25 years, I’ve had to bin and shred documents almost as old as I am.
From all the past workers who have championed the cause of a fair go for tenants in Central Queensland; Ron Leeks, Keith Mansfield, Margaret Whitton, Craig Jackson, Maureen Neal, Leonie Lane, Lyn & Alex Gartlan, Debbie Willebrand and Katelyn Clements; we say…
Fare thee well and good fortune smile upon your future endeavours, the axe is falling and we will cease to be in just over two hours at 12:30 pm local time.
(Editor’s note: the service had to close a month early because Craig found a new job. After 14 years he was made redundant but has no access or right to a redundancy payout. It is a far cry from the Premier’s comments last year the all public service redundancies were voluntary and everyone got big payout. Wrong on both counts in this case)
Thanx for the hard work, Craig….alway crap when the beauracrats interfere with those actually doing the hard yards…shame you had to shred history…glad you got a new job and damnable that there wa NO redundancy. Hopefully someone will pick up the reins in the not too distant future…Screw You Newman is a bugsplat on Queensland’s window into the future.
Cheerz M8
Oh this is such a disgrace and so damn awful, words really cant describe it. I referred and used your services in my area so often and they helped so many. Workers were always so kind and knew everything inside and out. The loss is so deep that even if it ever gets restarted the loss of knowledge and amazing staff will take so long to rebuild if it is even possible. This Government is making people homeless when it is not needed for a mere 2.5 Mill. Disgraceful. And thank you to you all for your tireless hours and being thrown out like this is awful but know Queensland thanks you!! Shame our politicians currently are such idiots.
As Craig rightly points out, the original program was the Housing Referral Worker program which was established by the then National Party government. It is rather ironic that in its rush to slash and burn services, the Newman Govt took out one of its own side’s creations! What though is harder to understand is that they also took out a self-funded program which did not cost the taxpayer.
Over the coming year, regional Queenslanders such as those tenants living in Rocky will start to wonder where their services have gone.