Time to act on THA issue

By Phil Roberts

The decision by the Teacher Housing Authority (THA) to no longer provide furnished units in remote towns will seriously hinder their ability to attract staff in the future.

The THA's prime objective is to provide adequate accommodation in areas where there is no private rental market to ensure schools and TAFE are adequately staffed. They have clearly turned their back on this responsibility.

According to the THA this decision was made as a result of insufficient funding by the Minister. However, this does not excuse the fact that this decision was made without any consultation of the tenants involved. The only people consulted were the tenancy agents, sitting at their desks in the CBD.

If we are not successful in this campaign, remote locations will soon have no furnished accommodation, and probably no staff.

Consider that these locations are predominantly staffed by new, young graduates who have just left home, have no money and often own just a bag of old clothes. These towns do not have laundromats. These new teachers, our colleagues, will be turning up to a location over 10 hours from home to a unit that has nothing. No table, no chair, no lounge, no bed, no washing machine, no fridge. They will be dossing down in a swag and expected to arrive at school the next day and be professional.

There is no furniture store in these towns for new or old furniture. There is no St Vincent de Paul to pick up an old lounge or table. There is not even a milk bar to borrow a couple of crates for a table. When these new teachers eventually get their first pay, the nearest large centre to go shopping at is around 400km away. Besides strapping a second hand fridge to the roof of the old Volkswagen, the freight costs to get things home are nearly as much as the purchase. In their first months of teaching they rarely even have the time.

This scenario is not fiction. It is happening now.

Recent reports, such as the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission Report into Rural and Remote Education have stressed the importance of enhancing incentives.

At present incentives in rural and remote locations only encourage people to leave. It is time the Minister looked at enhancing incentives, as well as maintaining what there already is.

The time to act is now. Take a moment to pen a note to the THA [fax (02) 9261 4227], but more importantly your local member. The THA has been critical of the fact that letters seem to be coming from only a few locations, and often as a form letter. To be successful we need a lot of letters coming from a wide range of past and present tenants.

Phil Roberts is a Relief Officer.

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April 2001 contents