Jim Penman (speaker) strongly criticises government regulations in Victoria for obstructing grassroots efforts to house the homeless. He recounts friends at his church attempting to create temporary housing being forced to stop because regulations require leases after three days, argues that some useful technologies are forbidden as they ‘do not meet Australian standards’, and frames government action as causing inefficiency, poverty, and needless suffering among the poorest.
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So here's the government stepping in and saying, no, we could take them off the street, we can give them a better life, but get them out there, throw them into the street, because we're the government. Government regulations are just designed to stop anything useful from happening. There's people in my church who are trying to produce homes for the homeless, get them off the street. Homelessness is a really nasty problem. It really is. It's a disgrace that we people can't afford to live. Now I have some friends who are trying to do something about that, setting up a really nice facility to get homeless off the street. And the government said if you go day, more than three days, you have to put them on leases, which is impossible because they can't afford to pay. Shut it down. So here's the government stepping in and saying, no, we could take them off the street, we can give them a better life, but get them out there, throw them into the street, because we're the government, that's what we're paid taxes for, so that we can make people's lives more miserable, especially the lowest and the most unfortunate members of society. It makes me furious, the kind of things that they do, the pettifying, stupid regulations. But we are forbidden to use products and systems that are quite widespread. In the eec, for example, which is not exactly Wild west of capitalism, so just simple, basic technologies. It doesn't meet Australian standards, so you can't do it. The government contributes so much to inefficiency, to poverty in this country and we pay heavy taxes so they can do it to us. It's a shocker.
