Owen Farmer

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Not being a diligent, I worked all my life. I've got Owen in the studio with me. [00:00:05] Speaker B: Good morning, Nick, how are you? Thank you for welcoming me on to IPR radio. [00:00:09] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you. And we had David Kernahan from Mentoring through the Maze talks. One of the things that is good was just speaking to Owen off air is that we being a community radio station, we're open to everybody and things that, you know, there's a lot of organizations, a lot of get quite a bit of publicity and mental health gets a lot of publicity and of course it's great. No question. Men's mental health doesn't quite necessarily get. And David comes in here and talks about men's mental health and I think it's a great thing. So it's, it's good. And Owen, what brings you in here this morning? [00:00:55] Speaker B: I've come in this morning on the invitation of one of your guests in about half past eleven on homelessness and homelessness issues. And me being an old person of that longitude many years ago, I thought I'd just speak on today about how to try and resolve one's from homelessness to be once in the ghetto or once in the Bronx and once on the streets is how one gets out of that situation from those areas that one has been put in. [00:01:38] Speaker A: I find that a really, you know, a really great topic to talk about. Have you had any experience in that, Owen? [00:01:50] Speaker B: Yes, many, many years ago I was with two, two small children and I'd owed a big debt to Ministry of Housing and they would not look at me until I paid my debt off. [00:02:06] Speaker A: Is that right? [00:02:07] Speaker B: That's correct. So in, in all the aspects of me being, becoming homeless with two children, two little children were in DCP at that particular time. And I had to prove that I could look after those children without a shadow of doubt through dcp. [00:02:24] Speaker A: What a DCP meaning for those Community [00:02:27] Speaker B: Welfare, Department of Welfare. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Oh, okay. [00:02:29] Speaker B: Where the children were put in for a short stay until I got my act together. [00:02:33] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:34] Speaker B: You know, so out of that. But through being an alcoholic and a drug addict, full blown one of the people here just like one of the people that you see on the corner streets of today with his bag and all that type of jazz. I was one of those types of people here in Rockingham and I've changed over, over many, many, many years. [00:02:58] Speaker A: Look, it's again, I've met Owen. I've known Owen for probably a couple of years now. Plus I think so might seem rocking. I'm shops, et cetera and we always, always very friendly, very chatty, always very helpful and that's the thing. I don't know. Owen, do you know? I mean I know as you're friendly. Hi, how are you? Help out ipl. You were at a catalpa on Sunday. But I don't know, Owen. And then you've just told me a little bit about being an alcoholic and a full blown drug addict. [00:03:33] Speaker B: Yes. [00:03:38] Speaker A: Is there any. Do you want to talk about the backstory of that? [00:03:42] Speaker B: I can give you the part of that story of where I had to be placed when I came off the streets and into a caravan and into. With two little small children tucked under my arm. [00:03:58] Speaker A: Now what were the children? [00:03:59] Speaker B: Six and eight. [00:04:00] Speaker A: Oh wow. [00:04:01] Speaker B: Yes. You know, and I had. No, I'd been married quite a few times before and I've had other children and, and it's not, not coming up very soon for my twins that had passed away and they, they're buried in, in Fremantle. [00:04:18] Speaker A: Can we look? Yeah. [00:04:19] Speaker B: They died of alcoholism. They were born with alcoholism, you know. Yeah. In King Edward Hospital. And because the mother drank just as much as I did and it sort of poisoned, poisoned the children and I was very, very angry when they, when they, when they passed. My little boy, he died in my arms up in King Edward Hospital. Wow. Yeah. So, you know, I had a. And then I had a really bad problem with alcohol and drugs myself. And of course I was back then quite a violent sort of a bloke. I wouldn't take any whatever from anyone or anything. And I was sort of, as they talk about domestic violence today, I was in that league, you know, I was pretty heavy, heavy handed. And so when my children were placed into the community welfare department here in Rockingham just above the doctor's surgery where the old bank used to be, they used to have the partners services up on top of the roof there. And seeing my, the back head of my little daughter with blonde hair and my son walking up the stairs with this young lady called Kate. She was pretty solid young lady and I had long hair, big beard, smelt like 10 elephants with a big cocky feather through my beard and thought I was Jesus Christ Superstar. She looked at me and I looked at my children walking up the stairs and she said, Owen, if you ever want to see your children again, you'll have to do something about your alcohol problem and your drug addictions otherwise you'll have no chance in the world of getting your children. I said, well, what I've got to do? She said, well, you've got to go to Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous for your drug problem. And I thought I was too good for that. I thought I was too smart for that. But something in back of my head said to me, well, I'm willing to do something because I want to have my children. I know I'd lost my children prior. There's three little babies in one hole in Fremantle Cemetery that belonged to me. Right. [00:06:46] Speaker A: And it was all alcohol related. [00:06:48] Speaker B: Yeah, all alcohol related, these children. Yes. And they buried not far away from Bon Scott, actually. And so I asked a question. I got the answer. Then I had to fulfill that obligation because I had to work out what hypocrites meant and what hypocritical meant because I was a person. I didn't. I couldn't read or write. You know, I was doing all types of stuff and I couldn't. Couldn't get it. What people were writing on pieces of paper, I couldn't get it down. And I'd used to sign. Sign my life away on something. I didn't know anything about it. So my father was a Second World War veteran and he was still alive at that time. And a mate of his, Mr. West from Kwinana, that went to war with my father or part of that war in the Middle East. And he looked at me and he says, oh, you're so and so's son, aren't you? I said, yes, I am. He said, well, he said, you look like. He said, you smell like. He said, you act like. He said, get it together. Oh, this guy hit me with a. Hit me like with a baseball bat. And I knew he was a return serviceman. So I had respect because I used to push my father in the wheelchair for many years, even though I was what I was. So he said something to me that my father couldn't say to me. Well, I took that on board. So that afternoon, my first AA meeting was in Kwanana in the church. I walked in there like a ferret in a hole with my head between my legs, looking at all these other men, women in the room, going, oh, my God. So I did the walk of shame until I sat down on the chair. Then they asked me my name. I told them my name. So I had to come up to the front, mention my name with all these people. I had to tell a little bit about my story. At first of all, I had to admit that I was an alcoholic and my life had become unmanageable. As soon as I said those words, the tears came out of my eyes and. And I just saw the Calmness come over the top of me. And we went through the hour and a half meeting and the guys would come out and shake my hand and give me a cuddle and stuff like that. They said, don't worry, we're all here for the same reason. Well, then once again, that made me feel comfortable again. Wow. Wow. This was like a light bulb opening, Nick. So what have I got to do? They said, just keep coming back. So I did that in an old, burnt out, old bomb car that used to blow smoke out there more than I blew smoke out the windscreen of the car. I'd go to all these meetings, then I had a sponsor. And then within three weeks of me going to Alcoholics and Narcotics Anonymous, I got a phone call from Department of community services saying, Mr. Farmer, you can come and pick up your two children now. And I'm going, what? Come and pick up your two children. But I said, I haven't got a home. I said, all right, this is what you got to do. So my father, in his greatest wisdom, was behind the scenes for me. And he paid off all my debt, everything I owed to people in Kwinana and Rockingham. He paid that debt completely off, over $1,500 to Ministry of Housing. He paid it that afternoon. And Mr. George, that used to work for Department of Housing, said, owen, we have a unit for you in Orillia for you and your two children. Well, this. This just spun out, but through my father paying all my debt. Then it gave me the leeway to get off the streets to pick up my children from the welfare department, which was very hard for men back in those days because we never. Men never ever got their children. It was all the women's children. Oh, yeah, of course, all the women had the children. The men never had a chance to get it. So out of that, my father could see the. He could see the light at the end of the tunnel, that he knew that I was willing to do anything to keep my children because I didn't want to lose them, because that's where my guts went. My guts went with my children when they left and they went. My guts went with me when I buried my children. At the same time, you know, we should never, ever bury our children before us, you know. And so from that, from that nasty type of person I was. That looked like we were called hobos, we were called misfits. We were called everything except homeless. Homelessness has got a title now. Back in. When I was. We were just called deadbeats. [00:12:09] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly, you know. Yeah. [00:12:12] Speaker B: Bums. [00:12:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And I was speaking to David about loneliness in men and I said, you have this picture of a, an old 60 odd bloke with a. In a bed sit, you know, just with having no friends. And he goes, well, no, that's not the case now. You know, it's lonely. It's got a name now for men like loneliness. And I think what I'm trying to say is in my day, your. Your dead set. Correct, correct. He's on the shadow, he's a bum. And, and everybody again has that thing of home homelessness as again, a bloke in his late 50s, early 60s, he's an alcoholic, he's a drug o. Yeah, they're just, they're just like that. The scourge of society. [00:13:02] Speaker B: That's right. [00:13:03] Speaker A: But now it's got a name and now people you're reading these stories of, you know, I read one the other day, it was, I think Hayley put it up, Hayley Edwards, that this lady said that there's a family of four living in a car opposite them homelessness. And like you say, it's got a name now. [00:13:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:13:26] Speaker A: You know, which is, it's a bit like mental health. It's not, it's not looked down upon anymore. They would don't look down upon the homelessness. [00:13:37] Speaker B: That's true. Because of the stigma that went through the old heydays with blokes in my age. And that made it harder for us to, to get a job was, made it hard enough for us to go and get our licenses because we were put behind the eight ball. And when I was a young boy of eight years of age, I was put in a, in a, in a learning class for difficult disabilities. Now I was called a slow learner and a spastic. [00:14:13] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:14:14] Speaker B: In those days. [00:14:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:14:15] Speaker B: And the big boys used to drag us through the prickle bushes for initiations and all that stuff. Then we used to get the cane. Yeah, we used to get all that stuff, put it on top of us because we had a learning disability, you know, we couldn't get it right, you know, and we were put in a classroom on our own, got half a dozen of us and we copped the backlash of all the big fellas. We couldn't play sports because we didn't know how to kick a football, couldn't play cricket, couldn't play any of those because we were running around silly. Because that's how our brain was, you know. And now lucky they've got ed supports for these young children to go through to get the help that is badly needed so that they can go out into the mainstream of the public and try and act normal. You know, for me, it was very hard to act normal because I didn't know what normal was. I was one out of seven children and I was the one that had that disabilities. All my brothers and sisters were very clever. They all joined various things, have done everything. I was stuck in the. Yeah, I was stuck there. And coming out of year 12, I think it was about 12 and a half years old, I left school. My father pulled me out of school and he said, it's costing us money to send you to school. You're not learning anything, so we'll put you in the workforce. So that's when I went out and went into the workforce, riding a push bike, delivering parcels for Paris, you know. Yeah, and getting $2.40, I think $2.40 a week, you know, and then I'd have to pay board out of that. But going back into. Into the homelessness area, once I had to prove I. I had to prove the welfare department, I had to prove to them for nearly two years that. That I was capable of looking after my children now that they came every week on a Wednesday to check that I had food in the fridge, that their beds were made, they had clean linen, their school clothes were all done nice and neatly. I missed three appointments through them guys. And young Kate, you don't think she gave me a bollockin, she let me know that no certain terms, three strikes and you're gone. The children will return to us. So that was another thing that made me, oh, gee, I've done the wrong, and made me become ownership of my responsibilities in regards to the young children. So then 18 months came down the track. I got another phone call. Mr. Farmer, we no longer have to worry about you in regards to your children. You're free to do whatever you want to do. So that was a great reprieve that I got from the welfare department, saying that I still keep doing what I'm doing, but I'm free that your children can stay in your care permanently. And I'd won the court case in. In the Supreme Court in Perth, where men never got their children. And I won it through just honest and integrity that I put across. I still had for brains. But I used my manner differently because I was nearly two years sober and free from the alcohol. I was free from debt because of. My father paid that debt for me. So when. When a person on the streets, I'd say, today I Just drove past a guy saying, I'm hungry. I'm homeless and I'm hungry. On the side of the road by the lights. Now, I seen that guy, because I'm very observant, out on the streets because of my position, what I had on the streets, he came in electric pushback with big fat wheels on it. They're about three and a half grand for these electric bikes. And I'm thinking, well, yes, good on you, mate. You got somebody to take your bike away. Because I was watching all this stuff and sat down there outside of Woolworths, of Woomba Fair. I'm homeless and hungry. But he's got a fantastic bike that I'd love to have myself, but I can't afford one now. Through that, everybody's getting money. And for me to get ahead was that your debts must be paid in society, no matter what you owe. Because back in the old days, we could book things up at the corner shop, yeah, pay them when we've got some money, all that type of jazz. Now, if they are walking around debt free, then there's chance to get into housing, there's chances to benefit yourself better because you haven't got any overheads. You're free because you come to. But I do believe on homelessness, the amount of money that's floating around, the amount of money that an individual gets on the streets today is phenomenal amount of money. But what do they do with that money? Do they go and put it onto a house? I don't know what they do. I've got a good idea what they do with their money, but I cannot say that. And I won't say that. I won't degrade anyone in regards to that. [00:20:04] Speaker A: But you put two and two together, [00:20:05] Speaker B: you put two and two together and then you know what it's doing. And if a guy's got a cigarette in his mouth, you know, there's money. So. But for me to be. To be open and honest, I had to learn. I had to be reprogrammed. And I had people around me to say, owen, this may be the way that suits you. Oh, give it a go. Or what does that word mean over there, Nick? What does that word mean? Oh, that word means blah, blah, blah. Oh, is that what it means? You know, just to. To get reprogrammed into. Into the normality of. Of life, where. Baffled me for many years and got me into trouble because I was illiterate. All those things, Nick, I believe if you do that sincerely, you get on that road to recovery. [00:21:01] Speaker A: Look, so Many questions, Owen, so many questions. Do you. It's like you said before, there's so many questions I want to go on. You said before about there's plenty of money out there. And you know what, I hear what you're saying there. I think like everything, unfortunately it's like with a lot of things with the government, it's like one size fits all. So you might get somebody and you think, geez, I wish those people could get a house. They deserve it, they're doing the right thing. But then you can get somebody. You mentioned before, which is how happy to get the money and spend it on things we won't talk about. Do you think that with some. And I'm not a. Trouble is, when you speak homelessness, people think that, you know, you're, you're got a biased view and I'll try not to have a biased view. So. But my question is, which may be centered in do you think some homelessness people. It's a lifestyle choice. [00:22:24] Speaker B: Absolutely. [00:22:24] Speaker A: Oh, you do? So I haven't sort of. [00:22:27] Speaker B: No, no, no. I believe this. Going back in 2012, we had a senate inquiry in Perth under Senator Scott Loveland and the Greens. [00:22:36] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:22:37] Speaker B: Big senate inquiry in Perth in Parliament House. Now we mentioned that there was homelessness and home free. That was to people who choose to live home free compared to the homelessness. [00:22:51] Speaker A: Ah, see, I never knew that. That's very interesting. [00:22:54] Speaker B: You know, so, so that's the Grey Nomads live home free. [00:23:00] Speaker A: Yes. [00:23:01] Speaker B: But can still go to all the non for profits and get help because they haven't got a home. [00:23:09] Speaker A: Okay, right. [00:23:11] Speaker B: So the ones, the genuine ones like to mention about the young lady with the car living in a tent with four or five children. Yeah. There's got to be a powerful reason for that to occur. I'd assume that it be if you've got four children and yourself, you're getting good money through the Department of Community Services to keep, to keep that house. 600 a week. I think you could pretty well do that. I did it in, in back in the days. Right. You know, so then, then it comes under domestic violence again. She could be running from this. [00:23:56] Speaker A: True, true. [00:23:57] Speaker B: But if you're out in the open showing yourself to the, to the community, that you're homeless, living in a tent with children, doesn't that say something? It says that look at me. But like it gets back to the, to this. What is it? You've got to pay that debt. If you. They say, oh, I can't get a house because I've Got evicted. Okay, I understand that because you didn't pay your bills. Okay, I didn't pay my bills, so I got evicted. My husband left me, my girlfriend left me, my dog bit me, blah, blah, blah. But to leave that house, it costs to leave that house. You leave a lot left in that house for the owner to come back and clean up and get it back into proper things so he can either sell it or rent it out out to somebody else. So that's a big cost that comes to the person who got evicted. It's one big cost, then it costs. Another big cost is to re. Get that house back to order so that they can do the same, look after somebody else. So that's another huge cost that goes back to the person that's been evicted. Why should the owners pay on something else that didn't cause that? So then, then if they go into another place, there's another big lot of money that you've got to put out to get into another home. By that time, you may have a 5 or $6,000 debt. Unless that debt's paid, you won't get any housing anywhere. [00:25:39] Speaker A: Is that true? Is it? [00:25:41] Speaker B: Yep. Once you get evicted, you're a bad tenant. So your, your credibility has been shot because you have not paid, have not been responsible. [00:25:54] Speaker A: What else is somebody, Owen, who. They're paying their. We'll just pick a figure, $600 a week rent. They're paying that. And the owner says, well, I'm sorry, your lease is up. I want to sell what. [00:26:09] Speaker B: Well, they called the homelessness. They are homeless through that, you know, they've been told by the owner, look, I'm selling up. You've got two months ago. Yeah, okay. They become homeless. That's really sad. But when you don't pay your bills and get evicted or you become a squatter, then you've got eight months, nine months down the track through the courts to get you evicted, blah, blah, blah. You know, so there's, there's there's a lot of things out there that people. [00:26:44] Speaker A: And it's, you know, like we, we talk about things and, and you know, you, you say about being honest and sincere, and I like to think that, you know, I'm honest and sincere and maybe I'm a, a little bit harsh. But like you said, that bloke that you saw who said he's hungry and whatever, if a homeless person would say that to me, I'd sort of go and say, well, what do you want? I'll go and buy you. I'll go and Buy you some food and I've had the thing. Well I don't want food mate, I need money. And I thought well if you're hungry you would want food. That was, that's my perception of that sort of thing. So. So it's not that I'm cold hearted. [00:27:30] Speaker B: No. It's just the truth. The truth of the matter is that if I give you $20 exactly. [00:27:38] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:39] Speaker B: Where's that $20 going? [00:27:40] Speaker A: I think so, you know. [00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah. You've got to be truthful about a lot of this stuff, you know. [00:27:45] Speaker A: I think so. [00:27:46] Speaker B: You have to to get along and to be honest in this, in any community. [00:27:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:27:51] Speaker B: You know, sometimes you put in a situation where that you've got to tell a trick truth. [00:27:55] Speaker A: Well people don't want. What are they, you can't handle the truth. And I think that's a lot like you were you, you know I previous to this when I, you get people on air and they have a cause no matter what it is and they all they see is the cause and therefore I, when I interview them I, I don't question their cause because I think I'm not going to get anywhere. Because you're so strong and I thought that you would be when I interviewed you today, you would be very cause driven and I thought well I'm not going to ask the questions. But I found that you're quite open about that. It's not what are you going to do all the time? You know, what's the government going to do? What are you going to. You actually turned around a little bit and said well what are you going to do? [00:28:50] Speaker B: You've got to take ownership. You know they go on about the government. I know they say oh the government's blame, blame, blame, blame, blame everyone else. Now this has got to a stage where people in society are blaming other people for their mishaps. [00:29:06] Speaker A: Yes. [00:29:06] Speaker B: You know, so it all rubs all rubs off, you know, from the highest hierarchies right down to the, to the person on the street. Now I've been there. [00:29:19] Speaker A: Well that's the thing. [00:29:20] Speaker B: I've been there, done that. I've come out the other side because of just hard work, you know, it was hard work to do to cut [00:29:27] Speaker A: things off what would have been, you [00:29:28] Speaker B: know, and to bury my children was even harder to lose. To lose things, to lose homes, lose houses, lose half. It's hard. But how do I adjust? Well, I became the advocate for the homeless people here in Rockingham and Western Australia. I formed my own non for profit was called Waha the West Australian Homeless Advocacy Limited. Now I travelled all around the state taking people home to their destinations. Indigenous people up north would take them home in car or somebody else's car. We'd take them all home at my own cost. I never asked for any money off of anyone. Anything that was given to me, which a hell of a lot was, I'd give it straight out to the people on the streets. My boot or my car would open up, take what you want and see you later. I'd give them my own personal money. Five bucks here, five bucks there. They call me rude on the streets, you know, because, because I'm jumping around from everywhere helping everybody out and okay, there's a lot of people out there that love you. There's a lot of people out there that don't love you, you know, as simple as that. So I've learned to ride the bumps, ride the criticism, turn the other corner. It's like turning the other cheek. As long as I'm doing the right thing, I can't be, be worried, you know. So getting back to, getting back to help you in that situation is that you've got to be debt free. If you're carrying a $5,000 debt over your head and you go to anywhere to ask for a loan, to try and get housing, to try and buy a car, drive by a caravan, you know, you've got to have that clean slate to get money to buy those items. If you've got a discrepancy at the top, you're a bad, bad payer that will cover you for the rest of your life. A woman can go and get married to 10 men who change her name 10 times and that she can go straight through, not a problem. A man only got one name, goes bankrupt, that carries him all the way through for the rest of his life. [00:32:01] Speaker A: Is that right? [00:32:02] Speaker B: Yes, yes. So there's a lot of, there's a lot of things that I know over my years of 72 years old. [00:32:14] Speaker A: Are you really? [00:32:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:32:16] Speaker A: I don't like that because he looks younger than me, so I don't like [00:32:19] Speaker B: him, you know, and to be in the position that I, that I was here when I came to help volunteer with Trish and dad five and a half years ago, I was, I left the streets, came back in and then not quite 12 months down the track I got calling to go back out because nobody else was doing the job that I was doing. [00:32:50] Speaker A: Oh, right, okay. Yep, right. [00:32:52] Speaker B: So I went back out there and done the front line duties through covert, through all that Type of jazz that doing, making sure that the men weren't dead on the side of the road, making sure that the shopping centre staff got to work properly without the people asking them for money or cigarettes. And all that type of jazz that was my position to do. I did it all voluntarily. I did that from half past three in the morning right through till six o' clock at night. I'd go out and get a phone call saying, we've got some indigenous people on the side of the road, other organized, would ring me up because I knew how to handle a lot of the situations. I'd go out in my car and pick them up and take them back to the Mudjidarra, the Aboriginal corporation here in Rockingham and let them look after them and all that type of thing. So I had do all that stuff, you know, and I was registered with the police here in Rockingham so they knew exactly where I was up to and what I was doing. And I could go out there knowing that I had the backing from the police of Rockingham here and the council to do what I was doing, doing my lovely thing that I did for the people, you know, because I was pretty staunch. It was pretty hard. It's pretty direct, you know, this is how it goes. And I was also kind, you know, I'd never stand over anybody, always sit down on the ground with them. I'd never look over anybody and say, this is right and this is wrong. I'd sit down there and go, this is all good, you know, and things like that share the experience of strength and hope that we may solve our common problems. And a common problem was at the time, I just need a new pair of jeans, man. [00:34:42] Speaker A: Is it, Is homelessness getting worse? [00:34:49] Speaker B: Huge. Absolutely huge. I seen on. I go up to the RSL quite a lot. I'm going up there this afternoon after I finish here because I've got my homeless veteran statue up there that I made for all the homeless veterans and the veterans of suicide on the pride and joy of the war memorial in Rockingham rsl. Now I drive up there and all the way up to there, this home, people living in cars, Winnebagos, tents, swags, all on something Drive, I think it is RSL drive. They're all up there. It's been on the news just recently. [00:35:27] Speaker A: Oh, Duracan Am, rsl. Right, okay, Yep, yep, I'm with you. [00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I've seen them up there for months. And now Basil Zempus from the liberal parties, blah, blah, blah, you know, here we go. But there's also in Perth. There's 150 beds in a place up in Perth where people on the streets can go and stay. Before there was nowhere, you know they had the Lucy Soul for the women with domestic violence. But you know there's a six months waiting list to get into those places. And the Salvation army up in Perth, you know, there's another 500 beds or something up there. People can have a choice if they choose to go up there, okay, it cost them a little bit of money but if they choose to go the other way, they want to have all the money to themselves, you know, so you can do things. And there's the government now has made it a little bit easier for homelessness in the early intervention here. Back in 2012-20, 2014 there weren't a lot of non for profits in round Rockingham. Now we got with the capital of the non for profits and I think in the state of WA there's so many non for office. Yeah there's so many here that people can have showers, hot meals, you know, get their clothing done and all that type of jazz. And my latest one that 11 years ago that I helped open up St Brendan's by the Sea where they can have a three course meal, hot shower, get all the clothes that they need from the gift off shop, get all their clothes done by Sky Laundry. I helped open that up through the church. I was very blessed to be asked to do that and I've done that. So I'm very, very happy about that. [00:37:21] Speaker A: That's great. [00:37:22] Speaker B: So there's, there's lots of five or six, seven non for profits around where they can go and get their food and go and get their tents and go and get whatever they want. But I agree with that. But then I think of look at the waste now over the last three years I've been working with two colleagues of mine, Roxanne and Chris Cooper that are on my team now. We've formed a not for profit that's called Safe for Life Limited on the Owen Farmer Foundation. It's just new. On the 1st of April Owen Farmer foundation had lift off. Thank you. When I die that's going to be on for Legacy. Now we have made suits that the homeless people can wear at night to keep warm. They're like sleeping bags. They're thermal waterproof, they're heat proof, the thermal suits so that they can just jump in them at nighttime and it saves the tents, the swags, all that stuff that's sitting in a trolley when they get moved on, they can just get up and just move on with their suits, with their clothes underneath and a little bag of their other clothes that they need. So it saves all that waste that's hanging around the corners, you know, taken [00:38:52] Speaker A: away with these homelessness people, are they getting out of a percentage? If you saw 100 of them homelessness people who have not been being rude here, had their stuff in a trolley, etc. Etc. Are most of them getting some government assistance. [00:39:15] Speaker B: I'd say they all, they all, all have to be on job start because I used to take a lot of people to, to the, to sign up for the, the job start place. [00:39:26] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:39:27] Speaker B: You know, so they all have to do their, do their little bit and there may be maybe a few there that are not on Centrelink at all. Yeah. [00:39:35] Speaker A: But the greater Vicendi, Joe, I think [00:39:37] Speaker B: they are because they all get money, they have to be on. And what Saint Pats has, they have a by name list. There's a hundred of them on the by name list of people sleeping rough and Rockingham, there's double that. But they are on the name list. So they're all on the name. So they all get some sort of assistance and some of them may be on disability where they don't have to look for work at all. They can just walk out of their house and go, I'm going the streets now, I'm homeless. Because they still get their. Pardon me, they still get eleven hundred dollars a fortnight on disabilities. [00:40:15] Speaker A: Is that how much it is, disability pensions? [00:40:17] Speaker B: Yes. [00:40:18] Speaker A: 1100 a fortnight, 550 bucks a week. [00:40:22] Speaker B: Yep, that's correct. Because I'm a pensioner and I get that on my age pension. [00:40:29] Speaker A: Yes, yes. [00:40:30] Speaker B: Yeah. So it's just a couple of bucks difference between disability and age pension. So, you know, I'm not putting anyone down. [00:40:38] Speaker A: No, no, he's just telling the truth. Yeah. [00:40:41] Speaker B: You know, people have come to me over the last three to four years and say, oh, we want to do this, we want to do that. I said, well, if you have a look at the record, we've already done that, been there and done that. We've already created this wheel and we got nowhere. We've asked for showers, we've asked for lockers, we've asked for common ground, we've asked for affordable housing, we've asked all this stuff to come to no avail at the stumbling point. So everybody that comes in, they'll say, new broom sweeps clean, of course, but they have the enthusiasm that we've already been through. We've already done It, Nick. And you know, and when we're here five and a half years ago with ipl, we put in, we could have lockers here for the homeless, right? And we could knock. We could knock back on that, you know, the council said, no, it's going to cause vermin to come in and people will be stashing their goodies away in there and things like that, you know. So now with my two partners in crime, we've made a suit that they can go to court in without dragging their belongings with them. They can go to hospital in their suit without the clothes underneath. Be the dignity back into society of homelessness. It costs a penny and a half, I can guarantee you that. But it's there for the safety. There's safety. If I save one woman from getting bashed, the other things that happen to women, I've done my job. Yeah, I've done my job. My 150 bucks, I've done my job for that suit. I've done the job. I've saved a life, you know. So out of all of that we've done, we're doing the simple things. I can't get housing. That's why I retired three years ago, because I couldn't keep people on my books and say, I'm going to pray. Promise you that. And promise you that knowing that I couldn't do it. So I said, I can't get your house anymore. I used to take hundreds of people to Kwinana Homes west and sign my name on there. I've got many people houses, I've got many people. They've come in, they've gone, they've done the same thing again, you know, so it was a repeating thing. But the people who are challenging now for common ground and affordable accommodation and peppercorn leases and all the top, he goes, okay, it's fine to have that, but you've got to have the land. You gotta have the land before you can even put a structure on it. So all this three or four or five years that we did, Nick, pushing governments hard, turned around that we haven't got the land. So nobody wants a group of people just stay here. Why should they get privileged when the other people can't get privilege? You know, we wanted the sleep bus. Through the sleep bus, they did a shonki over in the eastern states. And, you know, then you've got to have one for the indigenous and you've got to have one for the lptg. Then you've got to have one for the father and mother. You Know, so to come into a really, really. It became too much in the head because of the protocols and what you have to do to have a common ground. Like it has to be rangers, it has to be policed, it has to have doctors, it has to have psychological people around that area to keep the inner city safe. So that comes at a huge cost. Cost, huge cost. So who's going to back that? Too many. So this is why they have the organisations of the non for profits where these people can go and get the help that they need if they want to sit in their car all day and get a sore bottom and say, nobody's helping me. Well, by Jimmy Cricket, what's wrong with you getting up, helping yourself? To me it's simple because I've seen people come to me, Nick, and ask me, can you come on the team and do this, this? And I say, sorry, I've already done that. Oh, well, who are you? So you have a look on my go on the Facebook, then you'll see what I've done and what I haven't done and you can follow along and, and you can go through that, whatever you want, mate, but please go on there and you'll see. And I said the most best thing that you can do for that homeless person is sit down beside him and work out with him how that you can help. You know, in the early intervention with me, I had about 34 people in my house. In my unit, homeless people would come in, sleep out the back, get them fixed up, then they'd go again. Somebody else said, oh yeah, rado, rudo. And that was on the road, recovery. So I saved a few people there, which was really, really great. But then the police said, oh, it's getting too heavy out there. You've got to look at your own safety. Yeah, okay, fair, cool. So I changed the other areas and that's when I went out early in the mornings. So not having a go at anybody. I wish everyone well in their, in their plight on homelessness. It's a tough call. You can blame housing, you can blame migrants, you can blame it's costing, blah, blah, blah, you can blame all that stuff, but the ownership comes back to self. We weren't born in a park, we were born in a hospital with a roof over our head. At some stage we are, we were a part of that community. I call it community homeless now because they were a part of my community, working, living and breathing in my community. Something went snap, the other things went snap behind them, then they fell and from in a House. Either you're evicted, you choose to leave or you choose to buy a van or something, something like that. Out of all that there's actions out of consequences or the other way around, it's true, you've got to have that. We're going to get worse and worse and worse as time goes on. People only have to read what's actually happening in Australia with two types of governments, local, state, federal, federal. You can see what's happening and there's going to be a lot more, which we're going to have a lot more problems. [00:47:31] Speaker A: Well, I, it's, I was talking to David who came before and I read a lot of, not necessarily the mainstream newspapers, I read a lot of other articles and I've always thought that Australia a greater country, that it is and it is that we, we are. It's almost like you see what's happening around the world and it's not happening here yet. But as you. Time goes on, you think, and my point being with this, I read something the other day that we're very much, I think, similar to England in a lot of ways and they said that they had this report that 20% of people in England live on the poverty lines now. They can't afford heating. They have to, you know, they turn off the lights of a night and the councils can't afford it. 20%, 1 in 5 people in England is on the. On poverty. And I see you were saying here, without sounding negative out there, people, you say it's only going to get worse here. And I can see that, that, you know, it's. I don't know what you do. People say, I don't know what the solution is. [00:49:00] Speaker B: Well, there's none if we keep going the way we are. Yeah, there's no. We just got to accept what we cannot change. That's what we have to do, change [00:49:12] Speaker A: the things we can. [00:49:13] Speaker B: That's right. Now on this morning, 48,000 new arrivals in Australia has stopped at 5% government rebate to get a house. 48,000. So there's 48,000 families have gone out of the house, you know, and the young people of today are way out priced. They will never, they will keep flying in, flying out, flying in, flying out while the money's come. They will not own a house down here at all because it's too much. [00:50:03] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing, isn't it? And, and there's so many, like I was talking to David before about, there's so much unpacking, like when you're. Well, you Would have a similar memory to me. Like I remember when I got my first house that, you know, you were just happy to have literally a three bedroom house that was. The dark starts. And so you go. And my wife's parents were. So we've got old cranky old sofa, all cranky, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I just said to my wife the other day, between then and now, you can drive down the street and people are throwing out perfectly good sofas, perfectly good barbecues. In my day you would, you'd scream to be able to afford a barbecue. And I think that's the thing, like our expectations, you know, of ads on TV. Everybody's got two, four by. What are they called? Four Wheel Drive. Two of them. [00:51:09] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:09] Speaker A: Probably worth 40, 50 grand each, plus a lovely 4x2 house. And the kids are just perfectly. And I'm thinking it is so unrealistic. And that's what gets fed. [00:51:20] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:51:20] Speaker A: And I go, well I should. But why should you have that? Well, because this is my right. [00:51:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. [00:51:25] Speaker A: And that's what you're talking about. It's up to you. It's not a right. You know, you've got to work to get that. [00:51:33] Speaker B: You've got to do it. See, it even comes into now the cost of living. [00:51:40] Speaker A: Yes. [00:51:41] Speaker B: People don't know how to boil a potato. [00:51:43] Speaker A: I know. [00:51:44] Speaker B: So they go to Kentucky Duck and get a packet of chips. [00:51:47] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:51:47] Speaker B: You know, and, and so the economics of it. All the people in our from our 60s to 80s know how to survive. The ones pride, they don't because they've been force fed, they've had everything on the plate. They don't know how to make bread. They don't know how to. To do stuff. You know, they don't know how to tighten the budget up. Powdered milk. You know, make your own milk out of powdered milk. And all this stuff. You can do all this type of stuff. [00:52:16] Speaker A: You buy a huge. I'm just not. We're not. You know. You know, if I was in that sort of situation, I'll probably go out, buy 10 packs of pasta, a whole lot of cheap tomato sauce, maybe a little bit of cheap cheese if possible. And you, you got meals for ages. Because pasta goes such a long way. [00:52:34] Speaker B: Yeah. And I think. [00:52:36] Speaker A: But that's what I would do, you know, I wouldn't go be going to a fast food franchise and paying 15 for a burger. [00:52:44] Speaker B: No. And I'll see people get Ubers. [00:52:47] Speaker A: Oh, Uber. [00:52:51] Speaker B: Take them to somebody's front door for coffee. [00:52:54] Speaker A: Kids at school ordering coffees via Uber. [00:52:58] Speaker B: The money, how much? [00:53:00] Speaker A: The coffee's probably six bucks. You're probably getting seven bucks delivery. Yeah. Twelve bucks for coffee. Who. Who pays out? Owen. [00:53:07] Speaker B: And this is what I see as well. Nick. I said this as well. So we have to tighten our belts. If we don't tighten our belts, we're going to be lost. [00:53:14] Speaker A: Yes. [00:53:15] Speaker B: You know, and I think there's a lot more, like I said, there's a lot more to come now. [00:53:19] Speaker A: Oh. [00:53:19] Speaker B: Than ever before. We on the clock. We're on the verge of recession. Maybe speaking out of turn, but we're on the verge. We're on the verge. Petra will never ever come back. [00:53:31] Speaker A: I agree. Again. [00:53:31] Speaker B: To normal. Price of groceries. Will never ever come back again. [00:53:35] Speaker A: I agree again. [00:53:36] Speaker B: You know. So the shirts that you're wearing today, you're going to be paying twice as much. [00:53:43] Speaker A: Yep. And it will never come back. You're dead right. [00:53:45] Speaker B: Come back. We've lost. We've lost the great Australian dream in Australia. We've lost that, you know, because nothing's going to come back to normal. [00:53:54] Speaker A: I mean, and that's the thing. And I agree. Even if. And it would be, you know, even if houses were to drop 10%. So 7 and I think average in births are about 800,000. 10%. 80 grand off. Still going to cost you 720 grand. [00:54:12] Speaker B: Yes. [00:54:12] Speaker A: You still can't afford it. [00:54:14] Speaker B: You still can't. There's no way in the world that you can. That a man on a wage. My son can't even get in. He's flying. Fly out and he's on 150,000 thousand a year. [00:54:25] Speaker A: No. [00:54:25] Speaker B: Yes. He can't even get into the market. [00:54:28] Speaker A: You're kidding me. [00:54:32] Speaker B: So, you know, and he's paying 700 a week just around the corner from me, you know. And so there's things, there's things here that we have to. We. We know. Well, I know I make my own damper. I. I get my own pig from people down south. You know, brother's got farms. I can't get my own beef and meat. I can put that in my freezer because I'm a butcher, slaughterman shearer by trade. So I can do all that stuff, you know. But to go and pay $3 for a cabbage where wa salvish. 99 cents. [00:55:12] Speaker A: You know, it's just that we're putting brought up in a. And I was thinking about this the other day without sounding like an old man's radio station, but I was thinking the other day that you would have been similar to me. In our era, that I know, my old man, he was in a war. And they had rations and they had this. And we were brought up in a poorish household. You know, we always had food on the table. [00:55:41] Speaker B: Table. [00:55:42] Speaker A: But it was food. You didn't have a choice. It was food. It's food. You eat it. And if you were brought up in a rough time. And the thing is, as time's gone off, people assume there's been no rough times for a lot of people. They wouldn't know what a rough time is. [00:55:58] Speaker B: They wouldn't know. They wouldn't know. I remember my father getting a bull from a. From a neighbor to service his little milking cows, where my mother used to milk the cows in the morning. And the guy who had the bull, he'd come and pick out the best calf for him because that was the [00:56:23] Speaker A: service for the bull. [00:56:25] Speaker B: Because there was no money. Yeah. You know, there was no money. It was a really bad recession. So they swapped things over. [00:56:32] Speaker A: That's. [00:56:32] Speaker B: And that's how they got around. But we never, ever went without food. [00:56:36] Speaker A: That's. Yeah, we were the same, you know. [00:56:38] Speaker B: You know, we had the whole lot in your copper, you know, with a. Yeah. Ball. And the water up full of clothes. [00:56:46] Speaker A: Hand wringer. [00:56:47] Speaker B: Yeah, the old hand wringer. Yeah. And the milk and the cows with the old separator get the cream. All those things. The young people that don't. They asked the child the other week, where do you get milk from old Woolworths or where do you get chalk milk from? Or from a brown cow? You know, These children, because they don't go out into the farms because they're stuck. And I believe the government has made it this way, that we are stuck. We are stuck in our suburbs where it becomes total control. [00:57:24] Speaker A: Oh, I think there's, you know, and I think, look, we can go into all the. [00:57:28] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:57:28] Speaker A: Things that people agree or disagree with, and that's fine. But I think you can still talk about them. I think they, you know, I think their governments love covert, you know, like. And people's views on covert. I used to have found it quite freaky because I said, have you done research here or here or here? Oh, no, no, no. I got told by this person, blah, blah, blah. And I thought, well, what makes that person's opinion different to that person's? Oh, well, I believe him, I think. But that was just my opinion at the time. And I just. [00:58:05] Speaker B: We got underdone there. You know, we. We crippled the country. [00:58:10] Speaker A: It did. [00:58:11] Speaker B: And a lot of people passed away because that was wrong stuff, you know, I got terribly sick, you know, And I'm going, I've never been like this before in my life. You know, we had to get it. Had to get it. When I was working out on the streets with all the people, they never got anything. They never even got a cold. [00:58:28] Speaker A: That's right. You know, But I mean, that's the thing. You can talk about it and then you get all people. Oh, IPL said that this happened. I know, it's just a chat. You've got a. I said to David before the art of conversation, like, surely we can talk about things without putting our opinion down people's throat. It's just what you think, what I think. And this person will. I disagree. Oh, well, that's fine. [00:58:54] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:58:54] Speaker A: That's what it's all about. [00:58:55] Speaker B: That's what it's all about. You have the right to be right and the right to be wrong. [00:58:58] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:58:58] Speaker B: You know, and if a person's got an agenda, you cannot break that. You cannot break his speech. [00:59:06] Speaker A: You cannot. [00:59:06] Speaker B: He's. He's on that agenda and that's all he's focused on. [00:59:10] Speaker A: Yep. [00:59:10] Speaker B: He doesn't know the narratives or whatever. No, I want this. [00:59:14] Speaker A: That's right. [00:59:14] Speaker B: I'll go into. I want land. [00:59:16] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:17] Speaker B: Nothing will budge me until I get land. [00:59:19] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:19] Speaker B: I'll say, well, there's a door. Go put your feet on a bit of land out there. Because that's all you're going to get, you know, so these people that have a. Have a. An ongoing grudge against something or someone or something, they will persist on just. [00:59:37] Speaker A: They will. [00:59:38] Speaker B: But you're talking about the common question or common knowledge about something else. [00:59:41] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:59:42] Speaker B: Yeah. It's time to go. [00:59:44] Speaker A: Oh, it's not so much. Well, yeah, we've got the. Another guest coming in. You're gonna sit around for it. [00:59:50] Speaker B: Well, who's that? [00:59:52] Speaker A: I don't know. I just. The. The. That's a great thing about live radio. We just got a signal that somebody was in. What I'll do is I'll put a track on and find out. Oh, go on. [01:00:05] Speaker B: Can I say thank you to IPL Radio and Nick for bringing me on today? It's always a pleasure to come back and put my 20 cents worth in and help now I'm a person. [01:00:19] Speaker A: You know, Owen, it was funny, I was saying to my wife the other day, we went to a. We went to a. A 70th birthday party and the bloke was a bit of. A Bit like yourself. I don't know that's a compliment. It was a bit of a, you know, rough around the edges and, you know, a bit of. A bit mouthy and they have a joke and a lot of people don't like him because he's like that. And my wife said, but he's a lovely man. He gives a lot back. Yeah, but people just see the thing. And I'm not saying you're rough of a water ever, but you're a good man. You do the right thing. [01:01:00] Speaker B: Do the right thing. [01:01:00] Speaker A: And people can't see that. [01:01:02] Speaker B: Sometimes that's tough. Tough titties, as they said. [01:01:04] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, put a track on. Hopefully you can hang around.