kendra
For example - basic payments of rates, car registration, insurance etc attract a surcharge if not paid as a lump sum.
Essential medical equipment eg CPAP apparatus can cost $2500. Banks will not lend to those on pensions, although GE finance will at 27%

I doubt the 'poor' that this thread is reffering to even own a house, car etc.

As for lending on a pension, would you lend to someone not knowing if they could repay the debt.

Banks are often targeted as 'the bad guys', so, rather than risk the prospect of being a 'bully' when the loan does not get paid, i.e. pensioners, they tend to addopt the old, 'prevention is better than cure' approach and simply avoid the situation.

A Church in Sydney which has entered into a partnership with the local community, has available interest free loans up to $1000 and makes them available to pensioners. A pensioner cannot get the money for a new fridge or washing machine, from conventional lenders, but by a grant from a major lender, this Church was offered an opportunity to establish a revolving fund so that it could lend to the poor people of Sydney.

It was originally offered $15,000 but ended up getting $50,000 and has lent money to otherwise ineligible people on Centrelink benefits. Centrelink has kindly agreed to deduct a small amount every fortnight until it is paid back, and does the same with clients when it advances up to $500 to clients in temporary financial distress.

This scheme could be expanded to every Church in Australia if Churches were prepared to teach the Bible as the basis for the Australian Constitution, and instead of going into altruistic theological study of the Holy Bible, extended their research to understanding the practical aspects of the incorporation of the Holy Bible into everday life, by virtue of the Constitution. Poverty was and should again be abolished by the common law. Instead of calling upon us to make poverty history, the Churches should not be afraid to use their unparalleled political clout to actually do something about it.

I know Belly will spew, but Labor won in 2007 (and lost in 2004), because it was led by a Christian in 2007. The political clout of Christianity shifted from Liberal to Labor and that was decisive. Christians everywhere in Australia should call upon the Commonwealth Parliament to clarify the meaning of S 79 Constitution. It applies the Christian principles of the Holy Bible to the Constitution, in that it uses two words without Capitals; court and judges.

A court is never a Judge and Christians should be clearly taught that, and judges are not and never can be one person. To check it out for yourself click here:
http://www.community-law.info/?page_id=473

With a liquidated penalty of $33,000 for every breach, poverty should be history

We were never taught at School or in Church that the so called Poor Laws, were a mechanism that ensured no one starved in England before there was a social security system. The Poor Laws were an essential feature of the Common Law, and Australia is the poorer as a Nation for the illegal and unauthorised abolition of the common law.

When Bob Hawke promised in 1983, that no Australian Child would live in poverty by 1990, he probably meant it, but his bite was nowhere near as good as his bark. He could have done it, by simply understanding that the common law was in force in Australia, and in 1915 in a case entitled R v Kidman, the High Court declared that there was only one judicial power of the Commonwealth. You may read an extract here. http://www.community-law.info/?page_id=495

If our lazy bl**dy churchmen stopped pussy footing around about poverty, and got off their superannuated backsides, and started to assert their political clout, to ensure that S 79 Constitution is enforced and enforceable, as a Christian principle, we would be able to abolish poverty absolutely in Australia.

There is a quasi religious organization that has to abolish Christian principles to prosper. It is called the Law Society or Bar Association, and they are the reason paupers are poor. The law is cruel, but justice is merciful, and S 79 Constitution was inserted into the Australian Constitution to ensure courts were courts of Judicature. Justice is bought and sold by lawyers, and the poor are getting poorer, and the rich richer. Jesus hated that.

We have all the laws we need to make poverty history. We have a powerful lobby group, with thirty members in the House of Representatives in the Labor Party and fifteen in the Liberal Party, who are all legally trained. These obstructionists of the Australian Constitution are keeping the poor, poor. If they have a true allegiance to the Labor Party, they will see that the membership of the legal profession is a conflict of interest. Lawyers were banned from the English Parliament for 498 years

When the State Government in New South Wales abolished the common law in 1970, with the Supreme Court Act 1970, they repealed the Common Law Procedure Act 1899. They guaranteed that poverty in New South Wales would become a growth industry, and that like any other third world country, we would have beggars in the streets. One of the key features in S 24 (c.) of the Common Law Procedure Act 1899 was the right of anyone to enforce Statute Law, and that included the Australian Constitution.

Before 1970, no Judge as representing Almighty God represented by Her Majesty Elizabeth the Second, was entitled to disregard the Gospels, and unless authorised by higher authority, namely the Holy Ghost, was not until 1970 entitled to refuse any request for justice. This was as the Holy Bible says, this is the law and the prophets. ( Matthew 7:12). Since 1970, and after 1976 Federally, a Judge has been a God in New South Wales and Australia, and accountable to no one but himself or his fellow Gods, in the Court of Appeal.

The pagan Gods of the Greeks and Romans had no compassion. The pagan Gods of Australia have none either. The real reason for Exodus was the injustice of the Egyptians towards the Jews. God said I have heard your cry and I am answering it. The Parliament of the Commonwealth has heard the cry of Australia’s poor and enacted the laws to abolish poverty forever. S 268:10 and 268:12 Criminal Code Act 1995 ( Cth) carry fines of $165,000 and $122,000 respectively if and when the High Court decision in 1996, establishing the “Kable Principle” is accepted by the Government.

Justice Gaudron said in that decision: the States are not free to legislate as they please. As soon as the Commonwealth accepts that the States cannot abolish the Common Law, and nor can the Commonwealth, good honest people will be able to ensure poverty in Australia is history. There should be no poverty in any common law country. The word Commonwealth incorporates the common law, and it is your birthright

You've made a pretty good assessment of the way things are, rehctub.
The question is:
Do you think that's the way things should be?

Of course the homeless and people without possessions are far more needy than pensioners who have a home and transport.
I was simply trying to point out the things that can send people on a downward spiral arent simply mismanagement or mental illness.
The costs of poor health and maintaining a home can in fact lead people to lose what they have.