Action Day a resounding success!

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WOW everyone, great job!! Thanks so much for supporting the 22 local and regional tenant advice services statewide and the Tenants’ Union of Queensland with your calls to reinstate the Program.

It sounds like there were plenty of calls, both the Premier and the Housing Minister.  A few people reported not being able to get through at times so had to call back later.

In Brisbane about 80 people turned up to hand in postcards to the Premier’s electorate office.  The crowd was loud, proud and polite!  We’ll get some video of it up soon. Continue reading →

Tenant advice services call for funding reinstatement

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Protesters to rally against funding cut for Tenant Advice and Advocacy Services   (reprinted from the Courier Mail 28-8-12. Reporter Koren Helbig)

PROTESTERS will today rally outside Premier Campbell Newman’s northwest Brisbane electorate office, demanding funding for a key tenancy advice service used by 80,000 Queenslanders each year be reinstated.

The Government has argued the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Services funding, which topped $20 million over four years, is better directed to new public housing properties.

Campaign organiser Peter Mott said the change could force more people on to the public housing waiting list. Continue reading →

Bond money grows $5.5M in one month!

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Remember this graph? In one month the amount of tenant bond monies held by the Residential Tenancies Authority has grown by $5.5M.  Such a small part of the interest generated on it is spent on tenant specific advice services. The vast majority gets spent providing impartial RTA services across the industry. Come on Minister Flegg, be fair. Reinstate our tenant advice funding!
Funding diagram

Day of Action Tuesday August 28 – what you can do (your reminder!)

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We need your help on Tuesday August 28th, a day of action calling for the complete reinstatement of the Tenant Advice and Advocacy (TAAS) Program. YOUR CALL!!

What you can do:

  1. CALL the Premier and the Housing Minister to seek complete reinstatement of the TAAS program. Keep it short so others can get through!
  2. If you can’t get through, fax or email but keep trying to CALL the Premier and the Housing Minister.
  3. In Brisbane, help us to deliver postcards to the Premier’s electorate office in Ashgrove. Meet at 12.15pm Corner of Stewarts Rd and Waterworks Rd, Ashgrove (Stewart Place – War Memorial). Please, bring all your family and friends.
  4. If you are in a regional area you can print out postcards and deliver them to your local MP.

If you want you can add some or all of the following pieces of information to your call:

  • TAAS funding is mainly from tenant bond interest and it isn’t fair tenants are denied free access to tenancy advice
  • The RTA doesn’t provide advice or advocacy services to tenants.
  • 80,000 renting households every year will be denied access to tenancy advice which for some of them will result in homelessness.

We want to show the extent of concern for the funding cuts to tenant advice services on August 28 and need as many people as possible to join in! Come on, make the call!

For the Brisbane event we will be bright and organised. Please come along if you can.

Contact details:
HOUSING MINISTER  Hon Bruce Flegg MP  Ph – 3237 1832  Fax – 3012 9017
 [email protected]
PREMIER Hon Campbell  Ph – 3224 4500  Fax – 3221 1809  [email protected]

Ask for the Premier and Housing Minister. If they’re not available, their Chief of Staff or senior/policy advisor. If no one is available ask the person who answers to leave your message to reinstate the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Program and if you want, ask them to call you back.

Action day tomorrow Tuesday August 28

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Contact details:
HOUSING MINISTER                   PREMIER
Hon Bruce Flegg MP                    Hon Campbell Newman MP
Ph –   3237 1832                           Ph –   3224 4500
Fax – 3012 9017                           Fax – 3221 1809 [email protected]
                                               [email protected]
More information:
https://savetenantservices.net.au/498/day-of-action-call-to-reinstate-on-august-28/

 

Double whammy for tenants as RTA withdraws forms

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On November 1, the very same day the tenant advice services will officialy shut their doors due to the funding cut, the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) is withdrawing access to tenancy forms from Post Offices across Queensland.

Tenancy forms are used for a number of reasons including – to inform the other party of a breach of the agreement, to dispute the other party’s alleged breach or to claim a bond back – and are currently available from all Post Offices.    Continue reading →

Minister’s misinformed statements confound Logan service

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Picture: Derrick Tonkin Source: Quest Newspapers

Logan workers are shocked that the Minister for Housing thinks the role of the tenant advice service could be filled by impartial government agency the Residential Tenancies Authority.  Worker Wendy Clark also challenges the Minister’s veiw that cutting their funding will reduce the social housing waiting list.
To read the article click here.500,000 Queensland renting households, including those in the Logan area, will be left without any specialist service after October 31 unless the funding program – Tenant Advice and Advocacy Service – is reinstated.

Minister admits bolstering central government agency at expense of front line

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In an interview about funding cuts to the Logan service, Housing Minister Flegg has acknowledged the Residential Tenancies Authority (RTA) will increase in size as a result of his decision to discontinue funding to the Tenant Advice and Advocacy Service program (TAAS).

The RTA is a centralised government agency, unlike the 23 community based, regional and urban advice services which will close as a result of the Minister’s decision.  Such a decision seems contrary to the government’s own stated aim of retaining front line services and bolstering the regions.

The withdrawal of funds to the TAAS program will leave the 500,000 Queensland households who rent without a specialist, tenant focused service.

The decision is extraordinary because much of the work of these services is assisting renters in the private rental market to retain their housing.   This work reduces the incidents of homelessness and subsequently the demand for social housing. The fact that the lion’s share of the program funding is money generated on tenants’ bonds is another aspect of the decision which makes it unreasonable and unfair.