When new social housing tenants in Australia were told that they would no longer be offered a home for life, the thinking behind the policy was that when they found work and their income rose they would be moved out to make way for a poorer family. The strategy foreshadows plans contained in the UK government's localism bill, currently going through the Lords, to allow England's social landlords to offer fixed-term tenancies of as little as two years to new tenants. But Chris Martin, senior policy officer of the Tenants' Union of New South Wales, has a warning for the UK's housing minister: "This policy hasn't freed up any social housing, it hasn't moved the waiting list, and has actually discouraged people from working." Read more on the Guardian website.