TUQ media release 17 April

TUQ offers visit to correct Mander misunderstandings

The Tenants’ Union of Queensland (TUQ) today expressed deep concern for what appears to be misunderstandings regarding the role of the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Services (TAAS) program after Housing and Public Works Minister Tim Mander’s comments in parliament on Tuesday.

‘In the face of cutting the entire program of tenant advice and advocacy in the state, we are concerned that the Minister does not have the correct information about our services.  As such we would like to invite him to tour the TUQ and other tenancy advice services with us’.

The TUQ outlined several areas of concern regarding the Minister’s comments.

‘Firstly, there is no other program which provides tenant advice and advocacy, especially not the Residential Tenancies Authority’, said Ms Carr.  ‘The RTA has never helped a tenant write a letter, prepare their tribunal application, never appeared in the tribunal on behalf of a tenant.  And nor should they as an impartial body’.

‘If the Minister was thinking that any organisation can pick up the role of tenancy advice as an adjunct that would be concerning’, said Ms Carr.  ‘Tenancy advice is equivalent to paralegal work, requires expert training and support to deliver,and in our organisation is backed up by our in-house solicitors.We are not aware of any other agencies which think they can fill the void if the TAAS services cease functioning.  In fact, insurance would probably be an issue for services if they wanted to give tenancy advice’, continued Ms Carr.

The Minister also stated that the aim of the program is to advocate to get people into housing.

‘The TAAS program is aimed at helping people maintain their tenancies by understanding and asserting their rights and responsibilities, not helping people get into housing per se’, said Ms Carr.

The KPMG report referred to shows that many clients were helped to access housing, mainly social housing, but this is not the key or only function of the program.

The TUQ also responded to the Minister’s statement that 60% of the services’ core service outcomes were unresolved.

‘Our funders ask us to report on tenancy law outcomes for clients’, said Ms Carr. ‘The figure means that at the time of giving advice, such as helping someone prepare for a tribunal hearing, the outcome of the tenancy law matter is not known in 60% of the cases’, said Ms Carr.‘There is nothing untoward or unusual about that.  In fact, we think  if  recorded, when giving information the RTA would be unaware of outcomes 100% of the time’.

As for suggesting that the TAAS services are not cost effective, the KPMG report mentioned by the Minister found that the program is ‘effective in educating and equipping its clients………..and assisting them to maintain their tenancies.’

81% of clients interviewed said that the assistance provided helped to resolve their problems.  The other 19% were mostly tenants whose issue had not been finalised.  Every client indicated that the service helped them maintain their current tenancy or will help maintain ones in the future.

The report also found that “TAASQ workers are highly committed, often ‘go beyond the call of duty’ and continuously work at capacity in a high-demand environment” (p59).

The TUQ reiterated their call for the Minister to conduct a tour with them before pulling the cord on the guillotine.

(Source document:  Department of Housing (Queensland), Evaluation of the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Service Final Report, KPMG, December, 2008)

Hansard Record:  page 932 http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/documents/Hansard/2013/2013_04_16_DAILY.pdf#xml=http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/internetsearch/isysquery/9cff0d0e-2aed-495c-82fc-056f88fec15b/1/hilite/