Letter on LPG price increases.

This is a copy of a letter I penned to my local Federal Member of Parliament on the increasing cost of LPG.

Dear Mr Alan Tudge MHR, Federal MP for Aston

I write to you today about the recent rise in petrol and LPG prices, but more towards the rise in LPG prices. Within recent weeks we have seen LPG prices rise from 62 cents a litre to 75 cents a litre, within the past two years we have seen it rise from 30 cents a litre to the current 75 cents a litre.

The companies are liking to blame situations overseas and increase demand for the rise in price, the reasons given do not justify the massive increase in price; the reason for this is that many other consumer watchdog groups have all indicated with thorough research that the reasons the petrol companies have given for the price increase would only have on average a 2 cent increase on price. We have a serious situation in recent years with the exploding price in fuel, a commodity in which our society solely relies on for so much, at the current rate of price rises on fuel it will be unaffordable for low income earners, the elderly, students and young people. The petrol companies need to be pulled into line to stop the rort that they are imposing on motorists who have no other option but to pay ever increasing prices.

As a federal member of parliament I would hope that you will be able to call a parliament inquiry into the petrol companies, the service stations, their owners and the petrol industry to find out what the real cause into the ever rising prices that are imposed on Australian citizens on an important commodity.

Best Regards,
Anthony Osborne

Council Approves Measure for Social Housing

It is great to see that Knox City Council has adopted a new measure to calculate the city’s social housing needs.

There is a massive short falling for housing in the community with a waiting list for social housing at about 10 years for some people. It is disappointing at times to hear members of the community calling for social housing to be removed and that they don’t need it in their area. Quite common is that they have social housing on their street and they don’t even know it, it is after all just normal housing with normal members of the community living there. There are two ministry housings on my street alone.

We do need to look at how we can provide more social housing for the less fortunate in our community, and quiet commonly the main residents of social housing are our elderly, physical and mentally disabled, young people and single parents who each day have to fight and worry about where they will be staying the night, or how long they will be staying in their current location. Let us not also forget those who are forced to live on the streets as they have no-where were they can go, they do deserve the dignity of having a roof over their head and to get back onto their feet with support.

To show how important social housing is I have had the opportunity to tour the Women’s Social Housing project that is in Bayswater. For every one resident that got a room there was 10 more on the waiting list, the women and mothers who got a unit there were in tears of joy for finally having a place to live.

Anthony Osborne