As many of you will have now heard, the Gillard government, through Federal Housing Minister Brendan O’Connor, has announced $3.3M in interim, emergency funding for the 23 de-funded Tenant Advice and Advocacy Services.  Read Minister O’Connor’s.announcement here.

These monies will proportionally fund each service between October and June 2013.

This decision by the Federal government is a life line to Queensland tenants who would otherwise be left without access to any free specialised tenant advice services from the end of this month. The Save Tenant Services group wishes to thank the Federal Minister and government for their support.

This does not mean, however, that our campaign is over.  We still need to pressure the state government to stop using tenant bond interest for other purposes over advice and advocacy for all Queensland tenants.

Last year $5M was provided by the Residential Tenancies Authority to the Department of Housing for the TAAS program.  This year, the Queensland Housing Minister, after deciding not to fund TAAS services, then required $7M to be provided for social housing.  All from tenant bond interest.

Queensland tenants are the big winner today, but now the Queensland government needs to step up to the mark, stop taxing tenants of their bond interest and divert those $7M back into services designed and specifically for all Queensland tenants.

For helping get us to this point, we want to thank you all – Queensland tenants and the TAAS services themselves, support services in local communities who have so passionately supported the TAASs, state, national agencies, the Australian Services Union, the Opposition parties.  At risk of missing significant supporters, we want to thank QAILS and NACLC and Community Law Australia.  There are so many organisations and individuals that have helped.  Please stay tuned, we still need your help.