My landlord is rorting the system - how well are govt depts linked?

[wylie]

Lou, expecting your landlord not to extend hospitality to her family in her own home is completely unreasonable.

I feel sure that if Lou was renting one of her rooms in her own house to a "boarder" she would feel quite happy to have her relatives stay over if they were in town without feel the need to get the approval of her boarder.

Handing out a key is another matter, and Lou should have been told that someone may just barge in unannounced, but I would guess that the communication breakdown is coming from both sides in this situation.

 

[willair]

I told my landlord tonight what the ATO said and she said 'yeah i know i should be declaring the rental but i'm not going to'. so what does that tell u - there was never a grey area, she always knew. hence the cash in hand business which for the record was not how it started. i paid the bond and first 2 weeks rent to her bank account before her friends apparently advised her to do cash in hand to avoid a paper trail.

.

Lou,maybe just face the facts you are worried about something you have no control over,people who complain always have to explain i'm still trying to understand someone with a accounting background thinks the way you do focus on your problems first,get a job whatever that may be and get out of the hole you are in,if you paid the money into your landladies bank account then she is already in the ATO system no inbetweens..wilair

 

[on the move]

But I am glad i am moving. she is lovely person but her ethics aren't my cup of tea.

I am glad you are moving too. You were lucky she put up with you for a measly $200 pw. Why was the previous nationality of the landlady ever mentioned, were you trying to imply Chinese have less ethic than Aussies ? I am sure hundreds of thousands of "disability pensioners" or cash in hand tradies or the mega rich have a lot more ethics than this "sneaky landlady" !
A person's behavior has nothing to do with where he/she was born ! In this global village we all eat at MacDonald, drive japanese cars, watch yankee movies. g, one paint brush for 3 billions of people, the bottomline is you don't know what you talking about ?! A frustrated academic is exactly right, same as our now infamous prof Keen. You claim you have a taiwanese wife (like some of my best friends are ...... ) , I doubt very much. I sensed there is a racial bias in your thread, as are some of the other replies.

 

[gg1965]

. g, one paint brush for billions of people, the bottomline is you don't know what you talking about ?! A frustrated academic is exactly right, same as our now infamous prof Keen. You claim you have a taiwanese wife (like some of my best friends are ...... ) , I doubt very much. I sensed there is a racial bias in your thread, as are some of the other replies.

Huh????????

 

[gg1965]

A person's behavior has nothing to do with where he/she was born ! In this global village we all eat at MacDonald, drive japanese cars, watch yankee movies.

Oh my....Where can i start with this one?

Yes we are in a global village, yes american movies dominate some parts of the world......But how can you seriously say that a person's behaviour has nothing to do with where he/she is born???

Have you ever heard of how culture defines a person's behaviour, have you even noticed that someone born and bred in rural India has different thoughts, different standards and different ideologies compared to someone born and raised in the western suburbs of Sydney? Even someone born and raised in rural NSW has a different mindset and culture to someone born and raised in Sydney CBD.

Are you also questioning the work and theories of many thousands of anthropologists who have studied cultural behaviour over the years?

Are you saying that you are exactly the same in mindset and culture compared to someone like Prince Charles? Do you know what the thoughts and manners of an 15 year Nigerian boy are? Do you understand why many Muslims despise the Western world?

Do you ever get out of the house and look at the world around you?

Open your eyes and have a look around you and stop looking into the mirror. People are different.



g

 

[gg1965]

You claim you have a taiwanese wife (like some of my best friends are ...... ) , I doubt very much. I sensed there is a racial bias in your thread, as are some of the other replies.

And what evidence do you have to publicly doubt who is in my family?


g

 

[on the move]

Open your eyes and have a look around you and stop looking into the mirror. People are different.
g

I doubt you have a taiwanese wife because of your silly attempt to paint the behaviors of 3 billion people with a brush.
There are much bigger differences because of the profession or the "status" of a person have in a society hierarchy than the culture. I look around and I see individuals, a decent person is a decent person, a crook is a crook doesn't matter what culture what creed.
I question the motive behind mentioning she was a Chinese landlady, she could have been an Aussie landlady, a German landlady, or a tealady for all I care.

 

[gg1965]

I can assure you i have a Taiwanese wife. I can assure you that i spent many years studying Asian studies and living and travelling in Asia. I can also say that i have been accepted into a few Chinese families as a close family friend. this is an experience that many may not understand or comprehend until they are in the same situation. Being a family member of a Chinese family is very different to being a family member of a typical Aussie family. It is simialr to comparing a Greek, Italian family to a suburban Aussie family.

I can also say, that my post wasn't speaking about 3 billion people as awhole. I said "most chinese", "some Asian cultures", "Chinese culture" etc. I will admit to generalising in my post, but i also say that i was defining a sub element in my generalisations by saying things like "most chinese" "some asian cultures" etc.

I also said in my post that i don't know everything about Chinese culture and i also said something along the lines of Cultural studies being a never ending study - that is, it isn't black and white.

I make no apology for having a bias towards the Chinese culture(s). It is my life, my knowledge and my experience.

But i still do not understand why you personalise this debate by declaring i don't have a Taiwanese wife...


g

 

[on the move]

okay had another read of this longer than Ben-Hur thread I realise you only trying to explain why the landlady invited her family, although a bit silly. I withdraw doubting you have a taiwanese wife, but I still say culture does not mean much in this global village and instant electronic world. The immaturity of the post originator shows and there may be ulterior motive.

 

[joanmc]

just to weigh in here....
I discussed this thread (and in particular gg's original post describing his take on general chinese culture) with my hubby and SIL who are chinese and they reckon he hit the nail on the head. That is exactly how they were raised. But living here for a few decades has changed how they feel about quite a lot of things. They are more ocker than me half the time! BBQs, beer and fishing!

we are nowhere near a global village yet as the original poster proved I think.

 

[on the move]

Another giant paint brush ! Did you and your brothers and sisters, or the neighbours, or your relatives, teach the exactly same values to your/their children ? We are all brought up differently. Not a global village ? This is sad when there are still people think otherwise.
What does the SUPPOSINGLY chinese culture got to do with an individual landlady ALLEGEDLLY trying to rort the system ?!!!!!

 

[josko]

Chinese Culture was brought up because of your comment here:

A person's behavior has nothing to do with where he/she was born !

The debate concerning Cultural differences began with your reference.

Nothing in reference was made as to why a Cultural Difference has contributed to any offence to the ATO.

The reference was to why a Chinese person might often bring members of their family to stay with them on perhaps a consistant basis.

It simply frustrates me how a person cannot mention the word "Chinese", "Asian", "Indian" etc without having nasty undertones and the suggestion of racist inclinations thrown at them.

Even when that person has married, or was born into a culturally different family!

Regards JO

 

[willfong]

I am Chinese by race (born and raised in S E Asia rather than China though) and I'll be the first one to admit that it is indeed in many Asian cultures to rort the system to get ahead. Kids learn this by example by looking at how the adults around them operate. The more honest people who do the right things will be labelled as 'stupid' because we don't take the advantage (despite it being illegal).

If you think about it, their mindset is formed by the fact that many of these Asian governments have (or had) a history of being corrupt so a big chunk of their tax money would just go to the pockets of some government officials rather than used for infrastructure and community like they are supposed to. Added to that most of them don't have social safety net (your own savings and the goodwill of your extended family is your only safety net there) so most end up with this mentality.

My parents and sibling are the type of landlords you complain about, not declaring rental income to ATO, and most of my Asian friends will do things like this or commit insurance frauds for tiny financial gains without blinking their eyes if they think they can get away with it. They don't think of it as wrong as they have different values.

There is hope though, as myself and Joan's husband and SIL have proven. Given enough time (may be the next generation for some), we do change our mindset and throw away some of our bad habits.

 

[ianvestor]

I don't see them as bad habits at all, just different habits.

 

[fokas]

I don't see them as bad habits at all, just different habits.

Even if said habits are illegal you still don't see them as 'bad'?

 

[Perp]

Maybe it's just me, but I assumed OTM and gg1965 are actually on the same side of this discussion, ie both resent Chinese being painted in an unkind manner because of the actions of one landlady (who most of us think hasn't done much wrong anyway).

I thought OTM was confusing gg1965 with Lou:

I am glad you are moving too.

This is definitely talking about Lou.

A frustrated academic is exactly right, same as our now infamous prof Keen. You claim you have a taiwanese wife (like some of my best friends are ...... ) , I doubt very much. I sensed there is a racial bias in your thread, as are some of the other replies.

Without sounding like he's changing who he's talking to, OTM is now definitely referring to gg1965. I thought OTM got upset because he thought somebody who claimed to have a Taiwanese wife (gg1965) was making disparaging comments about the Chinese (Lou), and this was where things got confused for OTM.

OTM, I confess that gg1965's comments seemed highly accurate to me, too, as somebody who lives with a Vietnamese family and has had many Chinese as tenants and employees. I don't think gg1965 was criticising the culture, he was describing it. If you judge that description to be negative, that sounds like your issue, not gg1965's. And if you're more familiar with Chinese culture than gg1965 and wish to dispute his characterisation, then please state what you think was inaccurate.

I can't remotely agree that an individual's behaviour is not influenced by the culture in which they were raised; it's as widely accepted as the Earth circling the Sun.

There's a huge difference between equality and uniformity. We do live in a global village, and we should weigh every individual as equally valuable. (This is one of my core beliefs and has been discussed on the forum many times.) But that doesn't mean that we're all the same.

I think what you were saying is that we shouldn't judge people based on the culture they're from, but as we find them (ie as an individual). Nor should we judge a culture, based on the actions of individuals from that culture. But actually, to be really fair, you do have to know something about the person's culture and take that into consideration, because a person's motives are more important than their behaviour, in terms of judging their character. (Obviously not in terms of the impact on others.)

Let's say in culture A it's disrespectful to wear shoes inside the house. In culture B, they have a belief that feet are dirty, revolting things to see, and should always remain covered. If a person from culture B comes into your home with their shoes on, they're trying to be polite based on their cultural beliefs. Yet a person from culture A might assume that they're being very disrespectful! You have to take a person's cultural beliefs into account in order to know why they're behaving in a certain way. Some things - eg murdering people for material gain - are pretty universally condemned, but very few things are universally accepted as cultural norms.

 

[GreatPig]

I still say culture does not mean much in this global village and instant electronic world

To the older generations at least, culture can be everything. That's why immigrants have a tendency to form cultural communities and deal mainly within them. Sure, their children born and raised in Australia tend to assimilate much better, but even then the bulk of their friends are often from the same culture.

My wife is Chinese from Vietnam, in her 50s. All her close friends are either Chinese or Vietnamese, as are the other friends of those friends, most of her kids' friends are Vietnamese (or rather, from Vietnamese families - they're technically Australian), every Vietnamese wedding I've been to has had 200-300 guests of which the number of non-Asian guests could be counted on one hand (and are often likely to be work-mates), my wife favours Vietnamese and Chinese functions, likes to be close to Vietnamese and Chinese shopping areas for the types of shops they have and because she feels more comfortable dealing with other Vietnamese/Chinese people, nearly always gets Vietnamese tradespeople in when we need work done (their quotes are often less than half the price of more "Australian" places, and not always because they're not declaring income), and always consults other Chinese and Vietnamese people on important matters, such as auspicious dates for weddings and other functions, the "correct" protocols to observe for special occasions, and so on.

In short, nearly everything she does and thinks is influenced by her Chinese and Vietnamese cultural heritage. Of course she's only been in Australia for about 30 years, so maybe she just needs more time to assimilate.

GP

 

[ianvestor]

Even if said habits are illegal you still don't see them as 'bad'?

I most certainly DO NOT define good and bad by what's legal and illegal. The authorities would just love that, wouldn't they?

No, morality and legality don't come together all that often in my opinion.

 

[josko]

Hi Ozperp,

I also read they are on the same side in their opinion of Lou or rather what she should do.

It was when the issue of Race Versus Culture came into it that some difference of opinion arose, I think.

We certainly need a little Chinese or Italian Culture in our family. My parents were English born - I was adopted as you know - but talk about a disfunctional family.

You have to take a person's cultural beliefs into account in order to know why they're behaving in a certain way.

Exactly!

To cap on what you have said - I believe we understand Lou's Landlord a little more in regards to her family frequently visiting due to the fact that Lou mentioned she was Chinese.

Regards JO

 

[ianvestor]

Thanks Ozperp/Josko for reminding me of a relevant quote:

The map is not the territory. Everything we experience is just a map of the territory. We can never experience the territory, only ever the map. Everyone has their own map of the territory based on their own previous experiences. Forgiveness is the ultimate freedom. Forgiveness comes when one realises that everyone acts upon the territory according to their own map.