The amended Retirement Villages Act (RVA) comes into force next Monday 1 March 2010 and I'm sorry to say I was behind the amendment to the legislation that officially makes public housing tenants living in retirement villages second class citizens in the eyes of the law in New South Wales.
Having been subjected to discrimination and harassment in the retirement village where I had lived as a public housing tenant for five years, I took my matter to the Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal (CTTT) in June 2007.
I had not been able to obtain any proper legal advice or representation, despite approaching Legal Aid, and so I naturally believed I was covered under the RVA. I mean, I lived in a retirement village didn't I? It wasn't a block of flats ...
The retirement village where I lived at the time is what is known as a 'joint venture' (JV) because it is operated jointly by NSW Housing, a local council and a religious organisation.
Roughly half of the residents were 'self-funded' in possession of 99-year leases and the other half were public housing tenants paying rent.
A few of the former had made it very obvious that they did not like living with the lower classes, and that these bludgers on the Australian taxpayer were very lucky to be living in the same building as them.
Never mind that the retirement village had been built by the NSW in Housing Commission using taxpayers' money, and not by a private property developer.
They did not seem to know, or accept if they did know, that these people who they viewed as one step up from vegetables were entitled by law to equal rights with them anywhere, including a retirement village.
Well, I was pretty naive to believe that load of high-minded hogwash. Over the last couple of years I've learnt that just because the law says something does not mean there is any natural follow through.
Getting the law upheld is a different matter entirely and involves a lot of hard work.
But I'm being tangental and maybe even transcendental.
I'm a baby boomer who had her mind expanded by the the consciousness raising activities of the '60s and '70s.
Pity the same cannot be said for some much older people living in the retirement village, the management or Housing NSW ...
Just before my matter came up for a hearing at the tribunal, I learnt that the then Minister for Fair Trading had put a RVA Amendment Bill before the Lower House of the NSW Parliament. Among the amendments was the removal of the 'joint venture' clause which brought public housing tenants living in JV retirement villages under the protection of the RVA.
I had previously been in touch with the Office of Fair Trading in regard to my intended legal action in the tribunal, so it was aware of the difficulties I had been having where I lived.
During its 'investigation' it had tipped off, inadvertently I was led to believe, both NSW Housing and the management of the retirement village of my intentions.
I realised I had to try and stop the removal of the 'joint venture' clause because if it went, so too did any legal protection I might have had against discrimination and harassment of me in a retirement village.
And that of any other public housing tenant who dared to stand up and be counted.
So I lobbied MPs and attended seven day-long and day-long-into-the-early-hours-of-the-morning sessions of the Upper House, following the progress of the bill.
The then shadow Minister for Fair Trading, Catherine Cusack, Country Liberal from Ballina was excellent. I
was most impressed with her and would recommend her for leadership of the state Liberal Party any day. I also received support from the Greens (thank you Sylvia Hale & her determined colleagues) and from the Rev. Gordon Moyes of the Christian Demoncrats who was then in a somewhat uneasy partnership with the founder of that party, Rev. Fred Nile.
I'd originally lobbied the Rev. Nile, but it later transpired that he had passed my email, and those of others 'lobbiestas' like me, straight to the Minister for Fair Trading who was, of course, not at all interested in retaining the JV clause.
The decision had already been made by the government to get rid of it. And all because of me and my temerity to try and use the legislation to protect myself from ongoing discrimination and harassment.
When Catherine Cusack challenged the Rev. Nile about his apparent partisan approach to the Labor party, he argued he had done the 'right thing'.
But when I had sent him an email soliciting his independent support, I had no idea he would be forwarding it straight to the government. If I had known that, I would not have wasted my time emailing him in the first place.
Because I had been the only person out of the entire population of NSW sitting in the Upper House visitors' gallery day after day, the MPs soon got to know me and were curious as to why I was there.
So when Rev. Moyes asked me that question and I told him I was lobbying to have the 'joint venture' clause retained in the RVA, he knew exactly what I was talking about.
He said he had been involved in early discussions when the idea of JV retirement villages was first mooted back in the 1980s.
From the very start he had known there might be a problem with having people from different ends of the socio-economic spectrum living together under the one roof.
In theory, it could work, but only if managed in an intelligent and sensitive way.
And who is to ensure that this indeed happens?
What government watchdog has been put in place to protect the underdogs from abuse?
You may well ask ...
The benefit of living in a 'joint venture' retirement village for public housing tenants is that they get to live in better surroundings than they normally would.
But while their physical surroundings might be better, there is a psychological price to pay.
Being treated like a second class citizen with no rights or power is a very demeaning way to live.
I've never been to South Africa, so have never experienced apartheid, but I now know first hand what it must have been like as a result of living in a 'joint venture' retirement village as a public housing tenant.
Public housing tenants living in this situation prior to the amendments to the RVA could have challenge this situation in the tribunal.
They could have taken the matter under Section 66 of the RVA which covers discrimination and harassment.
But like me they were probably too disempowered and downtrodden to even know about their legal rights, let alone to try to enforce them. I was living in fear for years before finally going to the Consumer Trader & Tenancy Tribunal.
Now under the amended RVA, self-funded residents are legally protected against discrimination and harassment, by management or other residents, but public housing tenants are not.
Is there something odd about that? Or is there something odd about me?
