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Affordability Issues..
To read all the blogs of this selected group about rentals click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com,
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I belive that past politicians are to blame for today affordable rental problems, and they need to fix it. This man below started today rental problems.
NOTE, ARTICLE No: 7.
This article is the seventh article of a group of articles, about Australia and the housing problems cause and remedy discussions. We are reposting some articles to show you, what we believe is the cause of the rental shortage in Australia. You see, the Australian Social Security System fails to help the farmers, because of the assets test, and fails and punishes the small rental investors, because of the ASSETS TEST, that is the only reason I can see, why today there are not enough rental properties on the market. So, to solve the housing problem, the politicians need to abolish or reset the ASSETS TEST at least to the same level or below, what people can lose from their pensions or other benefits. Also, to solve the housing problem, the politicians must find grounds to work together with the private sector, and definitely not against the private sector. But today, from what they are doing, they seem to say that the private sector is their enemy, when the private sector is only running a rental service to the community.
Welcome to our article,
Today rental property shotrage has started several year ago, so, we are reposting and editing this old article to show you the turning point, when things started to become worse, first for the Australian pensioners, because their pension was cut, and some of them lost the government pension. This change of the assets test, first has affected the pensioners, and because of that, they are affecting the rental market as well.
But let us start from the beginning and talk about the man that brought in this disaster, first to the Australian pensioners, and because of that to the rental market. Anyhow, thas disastrous budget was delivered from the then treasurer Joe Hockey, the 13th of May 2014, today we are still finding how terrible this budget was. Because the 1st of January 2017, some Australian pensioners have lost some pension payments. But first let us see how the expert have described this budget at that time. So, here I quote:
The grim budget faced widespread criticism and was overwhelmingly rejected by the Australian public as reflected in all opinion polls after its release. Opposition to "unfair" budget measures came from the opposition and crossbench, pensioners, economists, the union movement, students, welfare community and disability groups are protesting. The budget included changes which were contrary to pre-election commitments and promises made by the Liberals in opposition. Critics argue that every one of the following pre-election commitments made by Tony Abbott were broken in the first budget: "No cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS." Echos of the "dead and buried" Fightback! policy package from the 1993 election occurred with proposals to defer unemployment benefits for six months for under 30s and the removal of GP bulk billing. Most proposals have since been shelved, dumped or modified.
End of quote.
Anyhow, Joe Hockey, has moved out of the Australian politics, but the politician have given him a good job, with a very good pay. Meanwhile the Australian pensioners are hurt from those changes to the assets test that he proposed. Here we want to ask, if he wanted to save money to the government by cutting the pension, why he didn’t propose to cut his own pay and the other politician pay, at least the same amount that the pensioner will lose, just to be fair for everybody, since they receive a ridiculous high pay for their services. We think that to cut the politician pay is only fair, since we are all in the same boat of Australia. Now, let us talk about the Australian pensioners, because they are alarmed and worried.
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Australian pensioners are alarmed.
Yes, dear readers, this is an old article, but we are reposting it because it is linked to what is happening today. But let us see what we wrote then. We said, today the Australian pensioners are alarmed, they are alarmed because they feel that the Australian government is ripping them off. They feel ripped off because the changes that are taking place from the first of January 2017 are unfair to them. We believe that they are right to feel alarmed, worried and upset, because some of them will be forced to live with less than the minimum government pension, because they have rental properties on their name.
Therefore, we will talk about the Australian pensions, since most of us must be interested about. I admit that I am not an expert in politics and government matters, however, when we use our common sense and things don’t work out, we want to have our say. So, let us talk about the Australian politics and what affects us directly. So, the Australian Pensions are changing, from the first of January 2017. This change is hurting people that rely on the Australian government pension.
Here we are talking about retirees, that have not got enough of their own funds to retire and live a modest decent life, so, they rely on the Australian government pension, for a full pension or part pension. Most of the people that will be affected from this change, are the part pension retirees; some of them will receive less pension, and some of them will lose the government pension altogether, because of the changed in the assets-test, that will cut their pension therre times as much as the money they can earn from their rental properties.
Now, what hurts most these pensioners that are losing pension money, is that the people that have got no assets, because they have never worked hard and tried to save money, they will still receive the full pension from the government, but those that have worked hard, paid their tax and saved their money for rainy days, hoping to have just a bit extra cash when they retied will have the pension reduced and in some cases completely cut off. We believe that this is not right, because it is the people that have worked hard and saved their money, are the people that have paid most taxes in the past.
Anyhow, here are some figures that have been published on the net.
About 330,000 Australians will find their pension cut from the 1st of January- 90,000 will be losing it entirely, because of the tighter assets test. I believe that it is not fair, because it is already hard for pensioners to live a modest life peacefully.
So, if the federal government loses next election, because of what they have done, they deserve to lose. Anyhow, let us look at some possible outcome, and how people can react to these pensions cut. Here we are going to write about some imaginary case, about what some people can do, because they feel that they are being discriminated and punished for being good honest citizen.
Anyhow, here we are going to talk about a case or two, as an example. You see, before this pension was cut, this couple had accepted that the government would give them only a part pension, so, they tried to live with that, but now that pension is being cut, they don’t know what to do, because it is going to be hard for them to live a decent modest life, since they can earn only a third of what they could receive from their pension.
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Other pensioners’ concerns
Here we cannot use real names, so, the name that appear are not their real names.
Mr. John Day and Mrs. Ann Day are two pensioners, they have received a part pension for years, as they are both over 70 years old, so, they are aged pensioners.
Anyhow, let us describe how this change will affect Mr. and Mrs. Day.
Mr. and Mrs. Day own two houses, they both live in the same house, even though they are not on the best terms with each other, and it is said that they will end up divorced soon. Anyhow, they are still living under the same roof as husband and wife, so, they receive their pension as a couple, which is less than if they had the pension paid as single people, so, they start thinking if they are doing the right thing, or they should do other things to improve their financial position. So, let us compare what is happening to their pension.
As we have said, Mr. and Mrs. Day have two houses, one they live in and another one they rent, so, the house they rent is calculated as an asset, the value of the house is set at 820,000 dollars, add to that a few more things they have, they have 850,000 dollars’ assets, so, their pension is calculated on these assets, as it was before they told me that they were getting from the government about 450 per fortnight each, from the 1st of January, they are going to get about 250 dollars per fortnight each. This is not enough to live with even if you try hard to save money.
The house they rent, today it is rented at 500 dollars per week, because they could not rent it any higher, now, that is not net money, because they must pay all the fixed expenses, like the rates, the water and other urban utilities, the insurance, the maintenance. But that is not all, because sometimes the house is vacant for several weeks until a new tenant is found. So, there are times when in a year, they can average from the house rent, about 250 dollars per week. So, Mr.and Mrs. Day must live now with half the money the other pensioners receive from the government.
Anyhow, at this point of time I believe that this article is becoming too long, so, the facts and figure about this example will be discussed in our next article,
To see more click on this link, Australian pensioners alarmed.
See you soon.
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NOTE. This article above, is the link to the following article, Assets and pension cuts. This article is also the seventh article of a group of articles that we want to publish. The aim of these articles is to demonstrate that, the Australian Social Security System fails to help those that need their help. And we believe that it must be equal for everyone. The greatest problem is created by the assets test anomalies, so, the ASSETS TEST must be abolished or adjusted, so that those anomalies are eliminated. Because it is not fair to the pensioners, and this is one of the reasons why, there are not enough rental properties on the market. But the greatest problem is that the politicians do not see it that way, and they make laws that would stop anybody to invest in rental properties, when they need the private sector to invest in the rental market, so, the politicians need to make laws that helps the private sector invest in rental properties. So, let me explain.
For me there are three main things that the government can do, to come out of this rental crisis: give more rent assistance to the low income earners, abolish the assets test on affordable rental properties and low other levies, so that the small investors can keep renting at affordable price, and stop foreign ownership on rental properties, that is pushing real estate prices up, and the rental market must follow to go up, because the properties cost more.
Some politician believe that the government should build, affordable rental units to solve this rental crisis, but for the government, to build an infinite number of affordable rental units, is not practical, because it will cost the tax payers several times more than helping the present rental set up, as we have suggested above.
To read all the blogs of this selected group click on this link, http://menfranco.blogspot.com,
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