Rents are rising. Wages are too low. And bosses are sacking workers. With rents so high, millions are struggling to make ends meet. The working poor and especially their children are suffering! People try to get lower rents by joining the public housing waiting list. But governments are selling off public housing! People are driven into ruin paying high rents while waiting up to twenty years on the public housing list! And it’s gotten so hard now to even get on this list that even full-time workers on the minimum wage aren’t eligible for it.
Yet while all this is happening, governments are letting big business owners like Gina Rinehart, Andrew Forrest, Frank Lowy and Richard Pratt get away with making billions by doing nothing other than exploiting other people’s labour. We need to fight to ensure that the wealth of this country is used to fund the public housing that we so badly need (and for properly funded public hospitals and schools). So we must rally to demand:
JUST LIKE WHAT CHINA IS DOING
MASSIVELY INCREASE
PUBLIC HOUSING
3:30PM SATURDAY MAY 4
Corner of Rawson St and Northumberland Rd, Auburn
(Near the Northern Exit of Auburn Railway Station)
The huge number of programs operating across the Net leaves no excuse for anybody trying to force inappropriate products on to disinterested punters – so flogging Beanie commander cialis Babies to an audience of amateur astronomers won’t work. The Kamagra at the cheapest prices with the uk viagra same quality. These penis enlargement regimes aim to pump more blood and also it decreases the chemical cialis side effects that makes sex organ ready for sexual activity. Electric currents are used to heal wounds and buy viagra from india treat several other issues. On December 3 workers at Western Sydney’s Sargents Pie factory went on strike for better pay. The multi-millionaire factory owner is paying workers, some who have been working there for 18 years, just $16 an hour. For a normal working week that equates to just $556 a week after tax. That’s just $56 a week more than Sydney’s average rent! No wonder these workers are desperate!
The plight of these Sargents Pie workers is shared by millions of other low-paid workers and their families. Rents are too high and wages too low! Especially doing it hard are those casual workers only able to get a few hours work a week. For pensioners, the disabled and those not fortunate enough to even have a job the high cost of renting is even more unbearable.
The problem is that there is so little low-rent accommodation available. The greedy property developers know they can make a lot more profit building expensive homes rather than low-rent housing affordable to working class people. Thus, over 10% of private dwellings – as they are priced well out of reach of the budget of ordinary people – lie vacant. Yet, the few affordable dwellings that do go up for rent have dozens of people applying to stay in them. No wonder the private landlords know that they can keep getting away with putting up rents. Meanwhile, with such a shortage of affordable accommodation, those women suffering in violent or abusive relationships with male breadwinners are presented with the agonising choice of either risking homelessness or remaining in the oppressive relationship.
If governments here were really interested in serving working class people they would be providing much, much more low-rent public housing. However, they’ve been doing the exact opposite – selling off public housing on mass. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s a Liberal or an ALP/Greens government. They are all doing exactly the same thing for they all only serve the same rich corporate bosses. Indeed, the undermining of public housing is just part of their overall attack on working class people – look at the way the federal government has drastically slashed payments for poor single mothers with children over the age of eight! That is why the only way we are going to win the public housing that’s needed is through the united struggle of working class people alongside all of our allies.
Governments and the lying racist media like to insinuate that the lack of affordable housing and decaying public services are caused by various vulnerable groups supposedly draining resources: whether it be Aboriginal people, refugees, single mothers, migrants or the unemployed. This is all total rubbish! It is a lie aimed to divert the masses from the real cause of the crisis. The real reason that not enough is being put into public housing, public hospitals and childcare is that so much of the wealth of this country is plundered by a small number of wealthy business bosses. Do you realize that Australia’s five richest people have a staggering $54 billion in wealth between them? That’s more than 30 times what the federal government spends each year on affordable housing!
To see how quickly the housing crisis could be addressed we only have to look at what is happening in Australia’s biggest trading partner, the Peoples Republic of China (PRC.) Over the last two years, the PRC either brought into public ownership or started the construction of 18 million public housing dwellings! Put in terms of a country of Australia’s population size, what they are doing in China is the equivalent of Australia doubling its entire, current public housing stock in just two years.
Yet, Australia has 50 times as much land (and therefore natural wealth) per person as does China! So, if all this can be achieved in China, it can surely be done in Australia too. That’s if only there was the political will and the right system in place here. We need to fight for just that. The struggle for a massive increase in public housing, when united with the overall struggle for justice for working class people, is an important part of that fight. So let’s join together and build a spirited demonstration on May 4 in Auburn! Massively increase public housing now!