I didn't realise the meaning of poor until I found I couldn't afford to rent a house in Cooktown, Far North Queensland or Canberra. Having moved house just too many times, I'd hope the move from Far North Queensland to Canberra would help - given Canberra is Australia's capital?

There comes a time when sharing rental accomadation just doesn't work. After three rental arrangements that appeared on the outside to be alright, given the affordable price, I found I had to flee all three. Lower-rental share housing with people you don't know can be risky.

The point is, no housing options... leads to 'at risk' living, a cycle of desperation where poverty begins. Few ever recover from an experience like this. A persons mobility is everything. When it comes to having confidence. Once you feel you can't move, find a suitable place to rent... [or even share rent] a platform and means to rebuild - take calulated risks.... life becomes a bit narrow.

The burden of this housing obscenity in Australia points to the heart of Australia. As a public we have no-one to blame but ourselves. Our core values fall sharply when it comes to what we are doing as individuals in our own lifes that in turn adds up to be the downfall of our society in reality. Using housing to sustain profit has to be among the lowest of all human values. We can quote history twenty million times and it makes little difference. We are entering an era of major division of human time that is a subdivision of an eon ago now being subdivided beyond return. Our fate rests with ourselves. While so many use the housing market to accumulate profit we light the fire that bedevils the same crisis as those in the lesser developed nations.... an equation we watch and allow comfortably, only now we are too, doing it to ourselves.... as if we didn't know! While we play this horrid game of individualisation, the game will bite, less we get more of those comfortable standing up against this horror-stricken baseline, scenario.

http://www.miacat.com/

It is not a game of" individualism" Miacat.It is a game of "collectivism" for a few elites.They have been telling us for decades now that the individual must pay more taxes for the greater good and give up their rights as an individual.

You see big business, bankersand Govt work against the individual. Why is there so much debt? You're increases in productivity get expressed as debt.Our Govts should be creating your increases in productivity and you should not be paying any income tax or GST or Carbon Tax.

The collectivists have taken away from the individual the right to keep his own money thus nearly all of us are now looking at poverty.It is not for the greater good, but for the greed of a few that this collectivist lie is being spun.They all do it whether they be Socialist, Capitalist, Communist or Nazi.

Our Govts are also limiting to supply of land to keep prices high and taxing developers so much that they don't want to buld more houses thus creating a scarcity.

miacat, see this short clip by comedian George Carlin, he sums it up like no one else ever before. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0

A visiting Republican Senator said while speaking as a guest on Q&A; " you always reach a point where complexity becomes fraud". Quote unquote. Tax evasion and or avoidance is only made possible by our extremely complex convoluted mind-numbing, 40,000 page tax act, and absurdities like the double tax act of 1953. Or indeed, the need to stump up around 7% of the bottom line just to comply with the act, a figure that will likely top 11% when we transition to a POLICED complex carbon trading scheme. The operative word being scheme; given less revenue will be returned, but costs will rise as the carbon trading barons collect a 140 billion dollar international pie, which will like every other impost, be passed on down to those who cannot pass on their operating costs.
Ordinary folk who's productive inventive minds and hands, blood sweat and tears, create all the wealth we share?
Debt laden tax avoiding speculators wrecked the Irish, Icelandic, Spanish and other economies.
A land tax will be passed on in house and unit prices or returned to the people, as speculators seek shelter in legal instruments, bankruptcies and spousal transfers etc/etc? This is borne out by historical realities totally at odds with ivory tower dwelling perpetually pontificating academics.
However, a single stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax is very hard to actually pass on, given the fierce competition of normal business further compounded for retailers and others, by the realities of globalised web assisted marketing! Nonetheless the end of compliance costs, the central feature of a stand alone expenditure tax, returns all current compliance costs, which in many cases, will provide an after tax net benefit. This is why those currently earning the overwhelming bulk of their income as completely unproductive tax practitioners, argue so vehemently against it, and or in favour of even more complex arrangements, as would likely occur with the proposed land tax? Rhrosty.

The George Carlin video clip says it all. We, the people (also known as the sheeple) are being screwed without mercy by the rich.

The game is rigged and, truly, we aren't in it! Those who live along the harbour foreshores are in it bigtime. They even deny us the right to walk along the water's edge.

When are the sheeple going to wake up, rebel against the Parasites and Predators who feed upon us and laugh at us from their mansions?

Such people have never heard of equality. It's a word that makes them afraid.

Miacat when I came back to Oz, with very little money, I worked in the resort industry. It was not too hard to earn enough to live reasonably well in tourist areas of Queensland. The same income verses cost of living should apply in Canberra.

By moving to employment in a resort, where accommodation & food are part of the package, there was not much income, but limiting grog & tobacco, I was able to buy a block of land each year. Perhaps you have sort the wrong employment, or are you living on welfare?

Perhaps your choice of area is not very good. I know rents for 2 bedroom homes in places like Lithgow or Jandowe are often below $150 a week, & often lower. Perhaps they would suit you better.

We have quite a few towns in Oz in decline due to demographics, & they are inexpensive places to live. Often despite that decline, they are excellent places to live, with a really great spirit. Try one of them.