Mr DEAN ( Windermere ) - Madam President, I thank the member for Elwick for bringing this matter forward because it is an important and good report. It certainly is an eye-opener. It really identifies some of the issues and difficulties that a lot of people in this State are confronting, unfortunately.

It is interesting because what is poverty to some is not poverty to others. What some countries would see as poverty, in this State, it would be considered another thing altogether. In some countries - and we have all travelled, I think, quite a lot - just to be alive, is something that they see as good. I have seen young kids and adults laying around, not really understanding or knowing what is going on. In this State, poverty would probably mean somebody who is living on the street not knowing where their next meal is coming from or not knowing where they are going to sleep the next night. There are some good cases that I am going to refer to in a moment that I identified during my recent campaigning in the election that took place.

First, I want to refer to a couple of comments in the report 'Just scraping by?'. My first quote is:

'I'm just scraping by, just scraping by. You don't have $2 left over, sort of thing. You can't even go to anything that's only going to cost you $5, you can't go … you can't invent money, you can't stretch it.'

That quote is from an aged pensioner on the north-west coast and there are a lot of people in that position, Madam President. I went to an elderly lady's home in Mayfield during the campaign. The first thing she did was ask me to come inside and it was really a pretty sad situation. There was nothing in the house; it was very sparse. She was sitting right next to a fairly ordinary fire with one log of wood on it; she was poking around this wood to keep it alight. She told me how she lives from pension to pension. This was three days before her next pension was due. She said she had counted out the pieces of wood that she had left to get her through until pension day. I thought this is a pretty sad situation; there she is counting the pieces of wood. I have heard of people living on bread, waiting for the next pension to arrive but here is the woman counting the pieces of wood she had left until her pension day. She also said that she did not have one penny in the bank; no savings at all. She said she had family who did not care and she was getting no support from them. When you look at it you wonder why, because she is living in a Housing Tasmania home. Her rent would have been reasonable in the circumstances, so where would the rest of her money be going?

Then you read, and I quote again from that same document, 'Just scraping by?', which says:

'In the same year the results of the Tasmania Together Cost of Living Benchmark indicated that the cost of essentials (food, electricity, transport, housing and health) as a percentage of income had risen to over 98% for welfare dependant families. This did not include costs of items such as clothing, schooling and recreation.'

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Through you, Madam President - was that lady living in appropriate accommodation? Was it a three-bedroom or two-bedroom unit? Was it appropriate to her needs?

Mr DEAN - She was living in a conjoined Housing Tasmania home. There are a lot of them in Mayfield - one unit this side is joined to another unit on the other side. It was a two-bedroom unit and I did say to her, 'Could you not move into a single bedroom unit as it would be cheaper' and what she said was, 'That would mean I'd have electric heating. I can't afford electric heating'. The wood that she gets is much cheaper. She said that she was able to use the wood more sparingly and she was able to get her heating in that form, so she could not afford to go into a home with electric heating. She had made some inquiry, and I said that I would do that for her, to try to get her in a better position. That was the answer she gave me. I did ask her if there was anything else I could do to help her and the comment she made was that she needed a ramp out the back because she could not use the steps. The steps were too high for her to get in and out of the backyard of her home. That was what she wanted - the ramp in the backyard to be changed. It was a pretty sad situation and you wonder how many other people are living in that sort of a situation and I would suspect there would be many. She would not be the only one.

About two houses away - I had a pretty bad day this day, Madam President - I entered a house and there was a gentleman there whom I knew quite well but I could not recognise him at the time because he was suffering from cancer. He was just skin and bone. I do not know what his weight would have been, 20 kilos or 25 kilos maybe, he might have been a little more, and he was leaning over a heater. He told me who he was and I told him that I did know who he was and what he said to me was - and if the previous member for Mersey was here she would appreciate this, - 'I want you to kill me'. That was the comment he made to me, that he wanted to die. I spent the next hour consoling him, talking with him and trying to help him. He was on a cancer pack at this time and he is still living but his time is certainly up. It was a bad day for me.

We know that many are scraping by, but what can we do about it? In some cases it does not matter much what you give some people, the more you give the more they scrape by. Some people just cannot manage their own affairs. They do not have the background, the education that is necessary, and they are unable to manage things and that is where we can help a lot of these people.

It is the same for those living on the streets - sleeping under bushes, bridges, stairwells, park benches - it does not matter what you do, that is where they will live. There will never be a time when our streets will be clear of these people and if you think that way then you are probably living in fantasy land because I do not think that that will ever happen. As an example of that, Madam President, I think it was in Sao Paulo in America, when I was there, I was amazed by the number of people living on the streets and what was more amazing was that most of them had suits hanging up and their luggage apparel was first class. It was designer luggage. When I made some inquiries, I spoke with the police there about some other issues and they said it was their choice to do that because rental in Sao Paolo is very expensive so they elect to sleep on the street to save the money it would cost them to have accommodation.

My point is there are people who live on the street and who will always want to live on the street. It does not matter much what happens but what we can do is open up places. We can provide opportunities for these people. We can get them involved with the community organisations and those organisations that really care.

A lot of people do not know where to go to or who is available to give them help in these situations. We have the Mission which is very good and everybody is aware of the Mission. The Salvation Army, many church groups, and many other organisations, and there are many government departments, that will also provide assistance and give support in these situations.

Many people scrape by because there is nobody else in their life. They know little about budgeting and they just do not care any more. Some have addictions, and that is another sad situation which they have embraced because of the situation that they are in. They become chain smokers, they become alcoholics, they become addicted to illicit drugs and prescription drugs and that is their way of life, providing them with some outlet and allowing them to continue on but what they do is deepen that hole that they are in. They get further into that hole to such a stage that they are never really likely to come out of it and that is the sad situation.

Many of them have very low self-esteem - uneducated unfortunately. There are some people who are living or just scraping by in these situations who are well educated. I know of several in Launceston who are living on the streets, who you see dragging their baggage around behind them all day long, who are well educated and you wonder how and why they can be in the position that they are in. They can have a very good conversation.

One gentleman pulls me up most mornings, as he is walking through Civic Square, and wants to talk about politics. He obviously reads the papers, listens to the news or television or whatever it is but he has a very good understanding of it. A lot of these people are well educated but something has gone wrong somewhere.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Through you, Madam President - it obviously shows that their family support is not there.

Mr DEAN - That is right and probably a lot of it is a generational thing where their families have gone through that way of life and they have simply followed on. I do not know whether they realise there is something better out there or whether they do not want it and whether that is just their life, I am not sure.

I want to mention another matter, Madam President. I am a board member of Citizens Advocacy. Probably not many in this Chamber would know much about Citizens Advocacy. I doubt it very much because it is an organisation that does not do enough to promote itself and at one stage it was not able to advertise itself but I think things are going to change there very shortly. It is a non-profit organisation, providing support to those in our midst who are vulnerable, who have disabilities in the main, and who are struggling to make ends meet, who know little about budgeting, who are taken advantage of - and many of them are - and simply need somebody in their life who can give them support.

Citizens Advocacy has these people identified to it through different sources and different organisations and then Citizens Advocacy provides an advocate to work with that person on a one on-one basis. They meet them on a regular basis. They visit them at their home or in other places where they teach them about budgeting. They look at their finances, look at their accounts and their bills and they give them advice and go probably to the theatre, have a cup of coffee with them or what have you, but they spend quite a lot of time with them.

As a result, many of those people have been turned around and are now living quite good lives, as it were, and not just scraping by as they previously were. A lot of them, with bills that they were not able to pay, were now, as a result of Citizens Advocacy's attitudes and actions, being helped.

That organisation, I will mention the lady's name, is led by Linda Hahn whom Citizen Advocacy in Launceston poached from Queensland. We got to know about her and brought her across here and she is, in fact, doing an absolutely wonderful job providing great opportunities to a lot of battlers out there. It is a great organisation; government funded and I hope that the Government will continue to fund this organisation and the number of other organisations out there that work with these people because they do help a lot.

Madam President, in the Windermere electorate I am responsible in the north of the State for almost all of the low socioeconomic group areas so I see a lot of this happening in my travels and in the work that I do. I have the areas of Newnham, Mowbray, Waverley, Mayfield, Ravenswood, Rocherlea, George Town, et cetera; they are all in my electorate. It is interesting the way they see things from time to time. They say to me on a regular basis, and it rather annoys me: 'Living here, we've just got to put up with it; we've got to put up with being pushed around; we've got to put up with inadequate services; we've got to put up with not having the bus services that we need; we've got to put up with having to pay for everything that we want and to go into Launceston or wherever else; we've got to pay extra money to do all of these things'. A lot were talking about the hooning, for instance, which is a good example; 'We've got to put up with this; we're only Ravenswood; we're only Rocherlea; we've got to put up with this'. Well, my position with those people is, Madam President, they do not have to put up with anything and they deserve to have the same resources, the same support and the same assistance as any other citizen wherever they might live. It rather annoys me when they make those sorts of comments to me.

George Town was interesting where a number of people live on the breadline, just scraping by. They raised another interesting issue with me in relation to local government where they were talking about their recent changes to the rate system in George Town. What a lot of them there were saying to me in the lower socioeconomic group areas of George Town was that local government is charging extra money in their rates system, but in the areas of Low Head and the other areas they are decreasing their rates; making those in George Town pay more and making the people that can afford to pay more, pay less.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Through you, Madam President - are these people who own their own homes?

Mr DEAN - These are people who own their own home and who live in the lower socioeconomic group areas, yes; in areas of George Town and Widdowson Street in particular were two people I spoke to there; very, very upset with what was going on. That was an area they raised with me. They were already just scraping by, having trouble living, having trouble paying for the schooling of their kids, the buses and all the rest of it and then local governments came in and imposed on them a greater cost at the expense of -

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - I wonder if that is a normal case where often people who own their own home do not normally have the same pressures of people who are renting and don't always have the opportunity to get into their own home to get into that conundrum of never being able to save enough to get to the deposit.

Mr DEAN - You wonder, at the end, who is in the better position. There are a lot out there who are in their own home and they struggle to live in that environment, and those people who are renting properties struggle as well.

Mr Martin - I think George Town has implemented a flat rates system, haven't they, like Brighton?

Mr DEAN - That is what they have done. They have introduced the flat rating system and it was raised with me by many people in that town. It was interesting the comments that were coming out. So what do we do? Is it more money; do we give these people more? I suppose that is partly the answer; I suppose we should be ensuring that the amount of money that they get is adequate for them to be able to live a reasonable life. When I quoted that first figure of 98 per cent of their current pensions being taken up on all of those things that I mentioned, very clearly that is not enough.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - Like the basics.

Mr DEAN - We do need to look at providing them with more money, there is no doubt about that. The Federal Government goes some way to helping some of those people living in that position but there are many who are not on pensions who work spasmodically, and are just scraping by.

The real answer lies with good housing opportunities, education, training, advocates or people properly trained to relate to these people. I have referred to that with Citizen Advocacy. What a government could do is have more people trained in that area who could go out and identify with some of these people to give them good advice and good support and teach them how to budget properly and show them ways to improve their standards of living to help them move forward.

A lot of the problems are generational. We need to get it through to people at the right age that getting Centrelink is not cool. That is an issue with a lot of the younger people. They believe that it is somewhat cool to line up to get their Centrelink payments. I do not think that that is the way that we should be going. I think that there are things that we can do to help these people move forward.

Providing employment opportunities is very important. There are a lot of people who are struggling, simply scraping by week to week and it does hurt when you have elderly people without anything, wondering how they are going to get through the last two to three days until they get their pension.

You feel like dishing it out to them, you feel like giving them things and in fact in one instance I have done that. But there are so many of them out there you cannot do that with all of them.

Mrs Rattray-Wagner - With the older people in our communities it raise the question where are their families. I know that we cannot answer everyone's problem.

Mr DEAN - There was another lady we spoke to, an elderly lady in her late eighties, 88 or 89. When she came to the door she said, 'I am partly blind so I will need assistance when it comes to voting'. She said that she would need to get a postal vote. My wife went back the next day and went into the house and she was appalled; the house was untidy. She said that there was nothing in the house at all really, other than a table and chairs and a little bit of crockery. This elderly lady had lived like that, she said, for the best part of 20-30 years. It is quite amazing, the conditions of some people.

I thank the member for bringing this matter forward; 'Just scraping by?' is an important document and I think that a lot of other people out there should be given it to read and understand because we do need to do a lot more for people in this situation.