Destruction of Tenant’s Garden Shrine and Trees: Legal Implications and Remedies

Background of the Incident

Mar­garet Fran­cic, a ten­ant at Moun­tain­view Apart­ments (4/69 Alice St, Biggen­den QLD), has expe­ri­enced a series of dis­tress­ing actions by Queens­land Depart­ment of Hous­ing (Hous­ing Queens­land) and its con­trac­tors. On 21 May 2025, with­out any pri­or notice, a con­trac­tor crew bull­dozed and destroyed her per­son­al gar­den, which she describes as a reli­gious shrine con­tain­ing memo­r­i­al plants (jade, basil, worm­wood) and even the ash­es of deceased loved onesmayet.com.au. The bull­dozed soil, plant remains, and shrine objects were then care­less­ly dumped in a pile in her yard. Mar­garet was barred under threat of ten­an­cy breach from access­ing that area, effec­tive­ly pre­vent­ing her from retriev­ing her sacred itemsmayet.com.au. This gar­den had deep per­son­al sig­nif­i­cance – it was a memo­r­i­al altar for her late hus­band (nick­named “The Kaid­itcha Man” by local Indige­nous peo­ple) and oth­er loved ones, mak­ing its destruc­tion an irre­place­able lossmayet.com.au.

Ear­li­er, in March 2025, a Hous­ing con­trac­tor had already intim­i­dat­ed and mis­han­dled Margaret’s belong­ings. While Mar­garet was severe­ly ill, a con­trac­tor (report­ed­ly from “Shelley’s Clean­ing Ser­vices”) pres­sured his way in and removed items beyond what Mar­garet had agreed to, label­ing many per­son­al belong­ings as “rub­bish.” He threat­ened that “Hous­ing is com­ing in next week to bull­doze the lot” if she didn’t com­plyfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvffile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf. Mar­garet, feel­ing coerced and ill, told him to stop and leave. In the after­math, she found cher­ished items (like a scarf knit­ted by her late moth­er) thrown into a skip bin, soaked and ruinedfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf. She report­ed this to Hous­ing Queens­land, who reluc­tant­ly agreed to send a dif­fer­ent con­trac­tor lat­er, but no writ­ten notice of entry was ever pro­vid­ed for that inci­dentfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf.

By May 2025, the sit­u­a­tion esca­lat­ed with the unan­nounced bull­doz­ing of her gar­den shrine. On 22 May 2025, Mar­garet emailed the local Bund­aberg Hous­ing Ser­vice Cen­tre demand­ing the imme­di­ate return of the dirt, plants, and shrine items tak­en, char­ac­ter­iz­ing their removal as “theft by the Depart­ment of Hous­ing” and high­light­ing that the shrine con­tained her loved ones’ remainsmayet.com.au. In the same email, she implored that two mature bot­tle­brush trees in front of her home not be removed. These trees, she explained, are also part of her spir­i­tu­al shrines and serve as nest­ing habi­tat and food source for native birds. They are healthy, non-dan­ger­ous, and inte­gral to the local envi­ron­ment, with “no rea­son oth­er than mankind’s greed” to remove them. She not­ed that local bird pop­u­la­tions rely on these native flow­er­ing trees as nat­ur­al feed, espe­cial­ly as habi­tat is lost to devel­op­ment. The poten­tial removal of these trees caused her great anguishmayet.com.aumayet.com.au.

Breaches of Tenancy Law by Housing Queensland

Hous­ing Queensland’s actions appear to vio­late mul­ti­ple pro­vi­sions of Queensland’s Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies and Room­ing Accom­mo­da­tion Act 2008 (RTRA Act) and relat­ed reg­u­la­tions, which pro­tect ten­ants’ rights. Key breach­es include:

• Fail­ure to Give Notice of Entry: Under the RTRA Act, a landlord/agent must pro­vide a prop­er Entry Notice (Form 9) before enter­ing a rental premis­es for non-emer­gency rea­sonsrta.qld.gov.au. Except for gen­uine emer­gen­cies or to pro­tect the premis­es from immi­nent dam­age, the ten­ant is enti­tled to writ­ten notice in the approved form for each entryrta.qld.gov.au. Rou­tine grounds like per­form­ing main­te­nance or ren­o­va­tions require at least 48 hours notice to the ten­antrta.qld.gov.au. In Margaret’s case, Hous­ing Queens­land or its con­trac­tors entered her yard and removed/destroyed prop­er­ty with­out any pri­or notice or con­sent. There was no emer­gency at hand – the bull­doz­ing of a gar­den or prepa­ra­tion for ren­o­va­tions does not qual­i­fy as an emer­gency or urgent pro­tec­tion of the premis­es. By pro­ceed­ing “with­out notice” on 21 May, Hous­ing clear­ly breached the entry notice require­ments of the Actmayet.com.au. Mar­garet for­mal­ly cit­ed this in a Notice to Rem­e­dy Breach (Form 11), not­ing that on 5 June 2025 Hous­ing staff and builders were on the premis­es with “no Form 9 Notice of entry… fur­nished each day of entry”, con­tra­ven­ing RTRA Act sec­tions 192–193 which man­date noticefile-fys­plxno8d3jjff­mo­h9wzx.

• Inter­fer­ence with Qui­et Enjoy­ment: Queens­land ten­an­cy law guar­an­tees a tenant’s right to qui­et enjoy­ment of their home. The lessor must not inter­fere with the tenant’s rea­son­able peace, com­fort or pri­va­cy in using the premis­esrta.qld.gov.au. By law, the land­lord must take all rea­son­able steps to ensure the tenant’s qui­et enjoy­ment is not dis­rupt­edrta.qld.gov.au. In this case, bull­doz­ing a per­son­al gar­den sanc­tu­ary and con­tin­u­ous­ly send­ing work crews with­out notice (with loud con­struc­tion, threats of tree removal, etc.) is a seri­ous inter­fer­ence with Margaret’s peace and com­fort in her home. The RTA’s own guid­ance empha­sizes that owners/managers must not inter­fere with the tenant’s use of the premis­es, except as law­ful­ly allowedrta.qld.gov.au. Here, the actions were nei­ther law­ful nor rea­son­able. The stress and trau­ma inflict­ed – includ­ing the pub­lic humil­i­a­tion and intim­i­da­tion by staff and con­trac­tors – fur­ther breach the covenant of qui­et enjoy­ment that Mar­garet is enti­tled to as a ten­antmayet.com.aumayet.com.au.

• Destruc­tion of Tenant’s Prop­er­ty (Conversion/Trespass to Goods): A land­lord does not have the right to remove or destroy a tenant’s belong­ings dur­ing a ten­an­cy with­out con­sent or a law­ful order. There are pro­ce­dures in the RTRA Act for deal­ing with goods after a ten­an­cy ends (for exam­ple, aban­doned goods must be stored or dealt with per spe­cif­ic rules), but dur­ing an active ten­an­cy, the tenant’s belong­ings are invi­o­lable. By bull­doz­ing and dis­pos­ing of Margaret’s plants, soil, and memo­r­i­al objects, Hous­ing Queens­land (through its con­trac­tors) effec­tive­ly took or destroyed her per­son­al prop­er­ty with­out per­mis­sion. This can be seen as an act of con­ver­sion (deny­ing the tenant’s own­er­ship rights) or tres­pass to goods. At min­i­mum, it is a clear breach of the ten­an­cy agree­ment, which implic­it­ly allows the ten­ant to have and enjoy her pos­ses­sions on the premis­es. Even if Hous­ing mis­tak­en­ly viewed the gar­den items as “rub­bish,” they had no author­i­ty to remove them uni­lat­er­al­ly. Accord­ing to ten­an­cy experts, if a land­lord improp­er­ly dis­pos­es of a tenant’s belong­ings, the ten­ant can seek com­pen­sa­tion for the loss or dam­agecalibrerealestate.com.au. Such actions by a land­lord are not only con­tract breach­es but can attract legal lia­bil­i­ty. Mar­garet has called this inci­dent “theft by the Depart­ment of Hous­ing,” and indeed, the lack of any legal process or notice in seiz­ing her prop­er­ty gives that claim mer­it.

• No Oppor­tu­ni­ty to Rem­e­dy or Col­lect Items: Even in cas­es where land­lords law­ful­ly remove ten­ant goods (e.g. after a ten­an­cy ends), they must fol­low strict rules like giv­ing notice to col­lect goods or stor­ing items above a cer­tain val­uecalibrerealestate.com.au. In Margaret’s sit­u­a­tion, she was nev­er giv­en a chance to save her plants or shrine arti­cles. In fact, after the ini­tial contractor’s threat in March, Hous­ing explic­it­ly for­bade her from access­ing her yard under threat of legal action, mean­ing when they dumped the bull­dozed shrine remains in a cor­ner of the yard, she couldn’t even retrieve themmayet.com.au. This cal­lous behav­ior exac­er­bates the breach – it’s not only that her belong­ings were destroyed, but she was then pre­vent­ed from sal­vaging what she could see in plain sight. This is an extra­or­di­nary denial of basic prop­er­ty rights and ten­an­cy rights.

• Poten­tial Retal­ia­to­ry or Unlaw­ful Evic­tion Tac­tics: The aggres­sive demands that ten­ants “move every­thing or it will be bull­dozed” and threats of “Hous­ing com­ing in to bull­doze” could be inter­pret­ed as attempts to force com­pli­ance or even dri­ve ten­ants out. All res­i­dents in the com­plex are on pub­lic hous­ing ten­an­cies (most­ly senior or dis­abled), and they report feel­ing bul­lied and unsafemayet.com.aumayet.com.au. The law pro­tects ten­ants from retal­ia­to­ry action and harass­ment. While Hous­ing Queens­land osten­si­bly is per­form­ing “ren­o­va­tions,” the man­ner in which it’s being done – with­out prop­er process and with men­ac­ing warn­ings – skirts close to con­struc­tive evic­tion or harass­ment, which ten­ants can chal­lenge via the RTA or QCAT. Notably, Queensland’s ten­an­cy law for­bids lessors from chang­ing locks, remov­ing doors, or seiz­ing prop­er­ty to force a ten­ant out – these are unlaw­ful evic­tions. While Hous­ing hasn’t direct­ly tried to evict Mar­garet, the cumu­la­tive pres­sure of destroy­ing her belong­ings and degrad­ing her liv­ing envi­ron­ment could be viewed as under­min­ing her ten­an­cy rights to the point of deny­ing her the nor­mal use of the prop­er­ty.

In sum­ma­ry, Hous­ing Queensland’s con­duct demon­stra­bly breached the RTRA Act by enter­ing with­out notice and by fail­ing to respect the tenant’s qui­et enjoy­ment and prop­er­ty. These breach­es gave Mar­garet grounds to issue for­mal Notices to Rem­e­dy Breach to the Depart­ment of Hous­ing. When a land­lord fails to rem­e­dy such breach­es with­in the required 7‑day peri­odfile-fys­plxno8d3jjff­mo­h9wzxfile-fys­plxno8d3jjff­mo­h9wzx, the ten­ant can pur­sue dis­pute res­o­lu­tion through the Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Author­i­ty (RTA) and ulti­mate­ly seek orders or com­pen­sa­tion from the Queens­land Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (QCAT).

Destruction of a Religious Shrine – Human Rights and Cultural Violations

One of the most trou­bling aspects of this case is that Margaret’s gar­den was not just a col­lec­tion of plants – it was a reli­gious and spir­i­tu­al shrine. She had imbued the space with deep mean­ing, ded­i­cat­ing it to deceased fam­i­ly mem­bers. In fact, the soil and planters con­tained the cre­mat­ed remains (ash­es) of loved ones, mak­ing the gar­den lit­er­al­ly a rest­ing place for themmayet.com.au. The two bot­tle­brush trees at the front of her home are like­wise sacred in her belief sys­tem, sym­bol­iz­ing what she calls her “Twin Sen­tinels” – liv­ing altars hon­or­ing her Moth­er Earth god­dess and her late sis­termayet.com.au. Mar­garet iden­ti­fies as Pagan, and the pres­ence of these trees and gar­dens are inte­gral to her reli­gious prac­tice and heal­ing. Remov­ing or destroy­ing them is not a triv­ial land­scap­ing mat­ter; it con­sti­tutes an affront to her free­dom of reli­gion and cul­tur­al rights.

Under the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld), every per­son has the right to free­dom of thought, con­science, reli­gion, and belief. This includes the free­dom to observe or prac­tice their reli­gion indi­vid­u­al­ly and in com­mu­ni­ty, in pub­lic or pri­vatequeenslandlawhandbook.org.auqueenslandlawhandbook.org.au. By raz­ing her pri­vate reli­gious shrine with­out notice or dia­logue, Hous­ing Queens­land (as a pub­lic enti­ty) arguably inter­fered with Margaret’s abil­i­ty to man­i­fest her beliefs. The law does allow rea­son­able lim­its on rights (for exam­ple, if an act was nec­es­sary for pub­lic safe­ty or prop­er­ty man­age­ment, and no less restric­tive alter­na­tive exist­ed)queenslandlawhandbook.org.au. How­ev­er, it is hard to see how bull­doz­ing a tenant’s memo­r­i­al gar­den pass­es any test of neces­si­ty or pro­por­tion­al­i­ty. There was no urgent need to remove those plants; indeed, Housing’s jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for much of the works is ques­tion­able (as not­ed, the trees might be removed to install a new let­ter­box – a triv­ial rea­son giv­en their sig­nif­i­cancemayet.com.au). The destruc­tion of a reli­gious altar with­out con­sul­ta­tion or accom­mo­da­tion appears to be an arbi­trary and unlaw­ful intru­sion on her reli­gious free­dom, fail­ing to meet the Human Rights Act’s require­ments that pub­lic author­i­ties act com­pat­i­bly with human rights.

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Human Rights Act pro­tects the right to pri­va­cy and home, shield­ing indi­vid­u­als from unlaw­ful or arbi­trary inter­fer­ence with their home and fam­i­ly lifequeenslandlawhandbook.org.au. A tenant’s “home” under this right isn’t lim­it­ed to the four walls of the unit – it can extend to the yard or out­door areas that are part of the tenant’s liv­ing envi­ron­ment. Bull­doz­ing Margaret’s yard and shrine can be seen as a seri­ous inter­fer­ence with her home life and per­son­al pri­va­cy. It was done in an “unlaw­ful” and “arbi­trary” man­ner (unlaw­ful, since it vio­lat­ed ten­an­cy laws, and arbi­trary, since it was done with­out fair warn­ing or clear ratio­nale). Queensland’s Human Rights Com­mis­sion notes that deci­sions or actions in pub­lic hous­ing ten­an­cies can engage the right to pri­va­cy and home, and must not be imple­ment­ed in an arbi­trary wayqueenslandlawhandbook.org.au. Hous­ing Queensland’s actions here seem the def­i­n­i­tion of arbi­trary – tar­get­ing some­thing deeply per­son­al to the ten­ant with no due process.

It’s also worth not­ing cul­tur­al rights: While Mar­garet does not explic­it­ly iden­ti­fy as Indige­nous (she is a Pagan of Euro­pean descent), she invokes the Indige­nous con­cept of the “Kaid­itcha Man” for her late hus­band and ven­er­ates nature akin to Indige­nous spir­i­tu­al­i­tymayet.com.au. The Human Rights Act (sec­tion 28) specif­i­cal­ly pro­tects the cul­tur­al rights of Abo­rig­i­nal and Tor­res Strait Islander peo­ples, includ­ing main­tain­ing spir­i­tu­al rela­tion­ships with land and resources. If any aspect of her shrine or the land has Indige­nous cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance (for exam­ple, if her late hus­band was Indige­nous or if local Indige­nous elders view the site as cul­tur­al­ly impor­tant due to his nick­name or pres­ence), then Hous­ing Queens­land could also be tram­pling on those pro­tect­ed cul­tur­al rights. Even apart from for­mal Indige­nous cul­ture, Margaret’s own cul­tur­al and spir­i­tu­al iden­ti­ty is tied to that gar­den and those trees. The total lack of respect or accom­mo­da­tion for her beliefs by Hous­ing staff – who treat­ed her altar as “junk” – is evi­dent in how con­trac­tors laughed and dis­missed her con­cerns. In a record­ed con­ver­sa­tion, a contractor’s “con­de­scend­ing atti­tude” was not­ed as he told her to “take it up with Hous­ing” and showed no remorsemayet.com.aumayet.com.au. This reflects a pro­found insen­si­tiv­i­ty that bor­ders on reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion.

Under the Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act 1991 (Qld), dis­crim­i­na­tion on the basis of reli­gion in accom­mo­da­tion is unlaw­ful. If Hous­ing staff knew the sig­nif­i­cance of the shrine (Mar­garet refers to it as a reli­gious altar and pre­sum­ably com­mu­ni­cat­ed its impor­tance) and still will­ful­ly destroyed it or allowed its destruc­tion, one could argue they effec­tive­ly treat­ed her less favor­ably because of her reli­gious beliefs. At the very least, their fail­ure to accom­mo­date her spir­i­tu­al needs – espe­cial­ly giv­en she made them known – is alarm­ing. Mar­garet her­self asserts that this con­duct “may amount to dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion under the ADA and the Human Rights Act”, draw­ing a par­al­lel that could equal­ly apply to reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tionmayet.com.au. In either case, Hous­ing Queens­land is a pub­lic author­i­ty that must act com­pat­i­bly with human rights and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion laws, and it appears to have failed to do so in this instance.

In sum­ma­ry, the bull­doz­ing of the shrine and the planned removal of the sacred trees vio­late Margaret’s fun­da­men­tal rights. They are not mere­ly con­trac­tu­al breach­es, but also raise human rights con­cerns (free­dom of reli­gion, pri­va­cy of home) and pos­si­bly dis­crim­i­na­tion based on her beliefs. This adds moral and legal weight to her case – any res­o­lu­tion should rec­og­nize and attempt to redress the cultural/spiritual harm caused, not just the phys­i­cal dam­age.

Environmental and Community Impact of Removing Native Trees

The two bot­tle­brush trees at the front of Margaret’s home are not only spir­i­tu­al­ly sig­nif­i­cant to her, but also eco­log­i­cal­ly impor­tant. Bot­tle­brush­es (genus Cal­lis­te­mon, also known as Melaleu­ca) are Aus­tralian native flow­er­ing trees that pro­duce nec­tar-rich blos­soms, attract­ing a wide vari­ety of native birds (hon­eyeaters, lori­keets, etc.) and insects. Mar­garet has observed “hun­dreds of dif­fer­ent species of Aus­tralian bird” vis­it­ing these trees reg­u­lar­lymayet.com.au. They serve as nest­ing sites and a “well-uti­lized food source” in an area where nat­ur­al habi­tats are dwin­dlingmayet.com.au. In fact, she turned her front yard into what she calls the “Biggen­den Bird Break­fast Bar,” an infor­mal con­ser­va­tion and edu­ca­tion project. She feeds, observes, and doc­u­ments the wildlife in those trees, shar­ing this with an online com­mu­ni­ty of over 5,500 fol­low­ers to edu­cate oth­ers about Aus­tralian native birdsmayet.com.au. The local com­mu­ni­ty, upon learn­ing of Housing’s plan to fell the trees, is said to be “in uproar” over this deci­sionmayet.com.au.

From an envi­ron­men­tal law per­spec­tive, while a landown­er gen­er­al­ly can trim or remove trees on their prop­er­ty, there are still con­sid­er­a­tions:

• Wildlife Pro­tec­tion: All native birds in Queens­land are pro­tect­ed under the Nature Con­ser­va­tion Act 1992. It is unlaw­ful to harm pro­tect­ed fau­na. Destroy­ing an active bird nest (for exam­ple, if eggs or chicks are present) can be con­sid­ered harm­ing the ani­mals. If these bot­tle­brush trees have active nests or are cru­cial habi­tat for threat­ened species, remov­ing them with­out prop­er assess­ment or tim­ing could breach wildlife reg­u­la­tions. At min­i­mum, it is stan­dard prac­tice to avoid tree removal dur­ing nest­ing sea­son or to have a fau­na spot­ter involved if required. Mar­garet explic­it­ly notes that no “eco­log­i­cal assess­ments” or spe­cial pre­cau­tions have been men­tioned by Hous­ingmayet.com.au.

• Local Coun­cil Reg­u­la­tions: Many local coun­cils have tree pro­tec­tion or veg­e­ta­tion man­age­ment rules, espe­cial­ly for mature trees or for habi­tat trees. Biggen­den falls under the North Bur­nett Region­al Coun­cil. If these bot­tle­brush­es are on the property’s land, Hous­ing (as a state enti­ty) might not be strict­ly bound by coun­cil tree preser­va­tion orders, but it is still good gov­er­nance to fol­low them. Some coun­cils require per­mits to remove trees above a cer­tain size or of cer­tain species. It’s unclear if Hous­ing sought any such approval. The fact that the rea­son giv­en for removal is to install a large let­ter­box struc­ture or for a “mis­guid­ed design” pref­er­encemayet.com.aumayet.com.au sug­gests this is not a safe­ty neces­si­ty but rather aes­thet­ic or con­ve­nience-based. Remov­ing healthy native trees for such a rea­son, with­out explor­ing alter­na­tives (like plac­ing mail­box­es else­where), reflects poor envi­ron­men­tal stew­ard­ship.

• Cli­mate and Ameni­ty: These trees like­ly pro­vide shade and cool­ing (which is par­tic­u­lar­ly impor­tant for Mar­garet, who not­ed they are her only morn­ing shade and she delib­er­ate­ly does not use arti­fi­cial shadesmayet.com.au). Remov­ing them could increase heat and glare into her unit, reduc­ing her com­fort (and even rais­ing cool­ing costs). The trees also block her unit from direct line-of-sight of neigh­bors who have harassed her, thus serv­ing as a nat­ur­al pri­va­cy and safe­ty screen in line with her domes­tic vio­lence safe­ty planmayet.com.aumayet.com.au. All res­i­dents ben­e­fit from the green­ery – espe­cial­ly in a seniors com­plex, gar­dens and birds can great­ly improve men­tal health and qual­i­ty of life. By clear­ing green spaces and trees, Hous­ing is arguably degrad­ing the ameni­ty and liv­abil­i­ty of the com­plex, some­thing that could be rel­e­vant if ten­ants seek a rent reduc­tion or com­pen­sa­tion for loss of ameni­ty. It also con­tra­dicts the complex’s very name “Moun­tain­view Apart­ments,” as Mar­garet poignant­ly notes: the con­struc­tion and planned tree removal would “com­plete­ly obstruct [the] sacred view” of Mount Walsh and ruin the char­ac­ter of the placemayet.com.au.

In com­mu­ni­ty terms, this issue extends beyond one ten­ant. Oth­er elder­ly ten­ants at 69 Alice Street have also been fright­ened by Housing’s aggres­sive ren­o­va­tion approach. For exam­ple, one 81-year-old res­i­dent (in Unit 6) was giv­en an ulti­ma­tum by con­trac­tors to clear out his gar­den shed with­in two hours or see it all bull­dozed; he fran­ti­cal­ly com­plied using a mobil­i­ty scoot­er and trail­er, in great dis­tressmayet.com.au. Such sto­ries under­score a pat­tern of dis­re­gard for res­i­dents’ wel­fare and the com­mu­nal envi­ron­ment. The ten­ants, many of whom are in their 70s-90s and dis­abled, were nev­er con­sult­ed about the ren­o­va­tion plans that affect their homes and envi­ron­mentmayet.com.aumayet.com.au. This lack of con­sul­ta­tion not only offends the community’s sense of respect, but may vio­late pro­ce­dur­al fair­ness prin­ci­ples (espe­cial­ly since pub­lic hous­ing providers should engage with ten­ants on major changes).

In sum­ma­ry, the removal of the bot­tle­brush trees would have neg­a­tive eco­log­i­cal impacts (loss of habi­tat and food for wildlife) and neg­a­tive human impacts (loss of shade, beau­ty, and emo­tion­al sup­port for res­i­dents). There appears to be no com­pelling safe­ty rea­son to remove them – they are not inva­sive or dan­ger­ous. Indeed, Mar­garet describes them as “beau­ti­ful healthy” spec­i­mens that ben­e­fit every­onemayet.com.aumayet.com.au. Chop­ping them down pri­mar­i­ly for a minor infra­struc­ture change (mail­box­es) or a “clean” design shows a dis­re­gard for envi­ron­men­tal val­ues and the voic­es of the com­mu­ni­ty. Margaret’s fight to save these trees can be seen as both a per­son­al spir­i­tu­al bat­tle and a broad­er envi­ron­men­tal cause. It would be pru­dent for Hous­ing Queens­land to halt any removal until a prop­er review is done, includ­ing envi­ron­men­tal con­sid­er­a­tions and gen­uine con­sul­ta­tion with ten­ants and pos­si­bly local wildlife experts.

Impact on Health and Disability Rights

Mar­garet is not only a ten­ant but also a per­son with doc­u­ment­ed dis­abil­i­ties and health issues. She suf­fers from com­plex trau­ma (C‑PTSD), hear­ing loss (she men­tions deaf­ness), autism, severe aller­gies, and phys­i­cal health prob­lems aggra­vat­ed by stressmayet.com.aumayet.com.au. Hous­ing Queens­land was aware of her con­di­tion – she had pro­vid­ed them with a psy­chi­atric report detail­ing her PTSD, and infor­ma­tion about her extreme aller­giesmayet.com.au. Under these cir­cum­stances, the Depart­ment has height­ened oblig­a­tions to avoid actions that could fore­see­ably wors­en her health or dis­crim­i­nate against her due to her dis­abil­i­ties.

Sev­er­al key points stand out:

• Fail­ure to Pro­vide Rea­son­able Accom­mo­da­tions: As Mar­garet notes, Hous­ing staff are legal­ly oblig­at­ed to con­sult with her respect­ful­ly and ensure their actions do not aggra­vate her con­di­tion, offer­ing rea­son­able adjust­ments as need­edmayet.com.au. This prin­ci­ple aris­es from both the Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act 1991 (which requires land­lords to not dis­crim­i­nate on basis of impair­ment and to accom­mo­date spe­cial needs unless it caus­es unjus­ti­fi­able hard­ship) and the spir­it of the Human Rights Act 2019 (the right to equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion, and to ser­vices adapt­ed to per­sons with dis­abil­i­ties). In prac­tice, rea­son­able accom­mo­da­tions could have includ­ed: com­mu­ni­cat­ing with her in her pre­ferred mode (she says email is her only safe acces­si­ble com­mu­ni­ca­tion method due to her deaf­ness)mayet.com.au; sched­ul­ing works in a way that min­i­mizes dis­tress; allow­ing her addi­tion­al time or help to move items impor­tant to her; or con­sult­ing on alter­na­tives giv­en her aller­gies (for instance, not pil­ing up “piles of dirt and for­eign mate­r­i­al” near her unit which could trig­ger aller­gic reac­tionsmayet.com.au). Instead, Hous­ing staff and con­trac­tors did the oppo­site – they ignored her emails and pleas, they pro­ceed­ed with loud con­struc­tion (jack­ham­mers, bull­doz­ers) that was psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly desta­bi­liz­ing (trig­ger­ing her trau­ma and destroy­ing her cop­ing out­lets like the gar­den and birds), and they even exposed her to health haz­ards (dust, pos­si­bly moldy items in skips, etc.). This neglect of her stat­ed needs is not only cal­lous, but could be con­strued as indi­rect dis­crim­i­na­tion – apply­ing the “one size fits all” approach to ren­o­va­tions with­out mod­i­fi­ca­tions, despite know­ing it would par­tic­u­lar­ly harm her.

• Psy­cho­log­i­cal Harm and Re-trauma­ti­za­tion: The man­ner in which Hous­ing and its agents dealt with Mar­garet was high­ly trau­mat­ic. She describes feel­ing unsafe in her home, degrad­ed, vio­lat­ed, and her PTSD symp­toms wors­en­ingfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvfmayet.com.au. Pub­lic humil­i­a­tion by a Hous­ing offi­cer (she recalls being dis­missed and patron­ized pub­licly by a staff mem­ber named Court­ney, and threat­ened regard­ing her ten­an­cy) has fur­ther erod­ed her men­tal well­be­ingmayet.com.au. Giv­en her back­ground as a domes­tic vio­lence sur­vivor, the pow­er­less­ness and intim­i­da­tion she expe­ri­enced in these inci­dents have effec­tive­ly under­mined her recov­ery and sense of safe­ty. Indeed, the two trees slat­ed for removal were a cru­cial part of her safe­ty plan against DV, block­ing the line of sight of two neigh­bor­ing men who had abused or assault­ed her in the pastmayet.com.aumayet.com.au. Remov­ing those trees would lit­er­al­ly and sym­bol­i­cal­ly strip away a lay­er of secu­ri­ty that had allowed her a mea­sure of peace. Housing’s dis­re­gard for this (despite being told) is a grave fail­ure of duty of care, espe­cial­ly in a DV con­textmayet.com.au.

• Health Haz­ards from Ren­o­va­tions: The ongo­ing ren­o­va­tion works at the com­plex have cre­at­ed con­stant noise (“cement jack­ham­mers and drills going all day…the noise is unbear­able”mayet.com.au) and dust. For some­one with sen­so­ry sen­si­tiv­i­ties (autism) and severe aller­gies, this envi­ron­ment can be debil­i­tat­ing. Mar­garet notes that Hous­ing dumped piles of dirt in her back­yard know­ing her aller­gies, which she per­ceives as anoth­er fig­u­ra­tive “slap in the face”mayet.com.au. While ren­o­va­tions inevitably cause some dis­rup­tion, a land­lord should mit­i­gate impact on vul­ner­a­ble ten­ants – for exam­ple, by offer­ing tem­po­rary relo­ca­tion dur­ing the nois­i­est phas­es, or at least noti­fy­ing and pro­vid­ing pro­tec­tive mea­sures. In this case, Hous­ing did not even give for­mal notice, let alone accom­mo­da­tions. The result is that Margaret’s health has been put at risk: she men­tioned mal­nu­tri­tion and low body weight pre­vi­ous­lyfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf, and the stress has like­ly com­pound­ed that. By ignor­ing med­ical infor­ma­tion she pro­vid­ed, Hous­ing could be seen as vio­lat­ing sec­tion 36 of the Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Act (fail­ure to accom­mo­date spe­cial needs aris­ing from impair­ment) or even breach­ing the Queens­land Hous­ing Department’s own poli­cies on sup­port­ing ten­ants with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties.

• Pos­si­ble Dis­abil­i­ty Dis­crim­i­na­tion: Mar­garet explic­it­ly rais­es that the con­duct of Hous­ing may con­sti­tute dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion under lawmayet.com.au. Dis­crim­i­na­tion can be direct (treat­ing her unfair­ly because of her dis­abil­i­ties) or indi­rect (impos­ing the same con­di­tions on her as every­one, but those con­di­tions dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly harm her and are not rea­son­able in the cir­cum­stances). We see ele­ments of both. For instance, Hous­ing staff alleged­ly tar­get­ed her for pub­lic humil­i­a­tion and threats, arguably because she was a vocal com­plainant – one might infer they did not take her seri­ous­ly due to stig­ma­tiz­ing her as a “dif­fi­cult” dis­abled ten­ant (her com­mu­ni­ca­tions being ignored while oth­ers might not be). More clear­ly, indi­rect dis­crim­i­na­tion is evi­dent in how Hous­ing car­ried out a construction/maintenance project uni­form­ly across the com­plex with­out adjust­ments for those with spe­cial needs. They imposed a require­ment that every­one endure the works or move their belong­ings with­in short dead­lines – a require­ment that was much hard­er for her as a dis­abled per­son to meet (e.g. she phys­i­cal­ly could not clear her gar­den in 2 hours or even at all in her con­di­tion, and psy­cho­log­i­cal­ly could not cope with the sud­den loss). Under the ADA, such a prac­tice could be unlaw­ful if it’s not rea­son­able. Giv­en that alter­na­tives were avail­able (e.g., sched­ule around her, involve sup­port ser­vices, or, fun­da­men­tal­ly, con­sult with her to address con­cerns), it’s arguable Hous­ing failed its duty.

• Human Rights Act – Recog­ni­tion and Equal­i­ty: Sec­tion 15 of the Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) guar­an­tees recog­ni­tion and equal­i­ty before the law, and sec­tion 11 binds pub­lic enti­ties (like Hous­ing Queens­land) to act in a way that is com­pat­i­ble with human rights. Treat­ing a per­son with dis­abil­i­ty with dis­mis­sive­ness and not tak­ing into account her par­tic­u­lar vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties can vio­late the right to equal­i­ty and non-dis­crim­i­na­tion. More­over, the Act’s pre­am­ble and pur­pose empha­size the val­ue of human dig­ni­ty. The way Mar­garet was treat­ed – threat­ened, ignored, and not accord­ed dig­ni­ty in deci­sion-mak­ing about her own home – appears incon­sis­tent with those prin­ci­ples. In her com­mu­ni­ca­tion to QCAT, she urged the Tri­bunal to con­sid­er that Housing’s con­duct has “wors­ened [her] con­di­tion and made [her] feel unsafe in [her] home” and to direct Hous­ing to respect res­i­dents’ health con­di­tions and rights mov­ing for­wardmayet.com.aumayet.com.au.

In sum, Hous­ing Queensland’s approach dis­as­trous­ly failed to account for Margaret’s dis­abil­i­ties and health. What should have been a col­lab­o­ra­tive, sen­si­tive process (if ren­o­va­tions were need­ed) instead became a source of trau­ma. This not only strength­ens her case for relief (e.g., she could seek an injunc­tion or com­pen­sa­tion cit­ing the harm done to her health), but could expose Hous­ing to claims under dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion laws. It’s quite pos­si­ble that mul­ti­ple legal avenues will over­lap: a ten­an­cy breach case in QCAT, and a dis­abil­i­ty dis­crim­i­na­tion com­plaint through the Queens­land Human Rights Com­mis­sion. Indeed, the facts here would jus­ti­fy engag­ing both, to ensure holis­tic con­sid­er­a­tion of her rights.

Legal Remedies and Actions Available

Giv­en the mul­ti­tude of issues – ten­an­cy breach­es, prop­er­ty loss, human rights infringe­ments – Mar­garet has sev­er­al chan­nels to pur­sue for jus­tice and rem­e­dy. She has already begun tak­ing action, as evi­denced by her cor­re­spon­dence and fil­ings. Below is an out­line of reme­dies and their sta­tus:

• Notice to Rem­e­dy Breach (Form 11): This is the first for­mal step with­in the RTRA frame­work. Mar­garet has issued at least one Form 11 notice to the Depart­ment of Hous­ing. One notice (dat­ed ~27 May 2025) addressed the “theft and destruc­tion of [the] reli­gious shrine” and the degrad­ing treat­ment by con­trac­tors, and anoth­er notice (9 June 2025) cit­ed the ille­gal entry on 5 June and fail­ure to pro­vide noticesfile-fys­plxno8d3jjff­mo­h9wzxfile-fys­plxno8d3jjff­mo­h9wzx. By law, Hous­ing had 7 days to rem­e­dy each breach. Reme­di­al action in this con­text could include return­ing her belong­ings (or what remains of them), ceas­ing unlaw­ful entries, pro­vid­ing prop­er notices going for­ward, halt­ing fur­ther removals (like the trees) until law­ful process is fol­lowed, and offer­ing com­pen­sa­tion or restora­tion for what was destroyed. As of 16 June 2025 (the end of the rem­e­dy peri­od for the 9 June notice), it’s unclear if Hous­ing for­mal­ly respond­ed or rec­ti­fied any­thing. If Hous­ing did not ade­quate­ly rem­e­dy the breach­es by the dead­lines, Mar­garet is enti­tled to esca­late the mat­ter.

• RTA Dis­pute Res­o­lu­tion: For many ten­an­cy dis­putes in QLD, the next step after an unreme­died Form 11 is to file a dis­pute res­o­lu­tion request with the Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Author­i­ty. The RTA’s free con­cil­i­a­tion ser­vice would then attempt to help the par­ties reach an agree­ment. Issues like prop­er­ty dam­age or com­pen­sa­tion nor­mal­ly go through this process before QCAT. How­ev­er, cer­tain mat­ters are clas­si­fied as “urgent” appli­ca­tions to QCAT that do not require pri­or con­cil­i­a­tion – these include dis­putes about unlaw­ful entry, and appli­ca­tions for injunc­tions to stop a par­ty breach­ing the agree­ment. Giv­en the ongo­ing nature of the breach (e.g., Hous­ing con­tin­u­ing to be on-site with­out notice, and impend­ing tree removal), Margaret’s sit­u­a­tion like­ly qual­i­fies as urgent. For exam­ple, if she wants to pre­vent the removal of the bot­tle­brush trees, she could seek an urgent order from QCAT to restrain the land­lord from alter­ing the premis­es or remov­ing those trees on the basis that it’s a breach of her agree­ment and caus­es her irrepara­ble harm. Urgent QCAT appli­ca­tions can be made with­out an RTA ref­er­ence num­ber when time is of the essencerta.qld.gov.aurta.qld.gov.au. It appears Mar­garet has indeed been try­ing to get QCAT’s atten­tion quick­ly – she men­tions sub­mit­ting three appli­ca­tions to QCAT in late May (pos­si­bly seek­ing inter­im orders)mayet.com.au.

• Queens­land Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (QCAT): In QCAT, Mar­garet can pur­sue mul­ti­ple reme­dies:

  • An order for com­pen­sa­tion for the damaged/destroyed prop­er­ty (e.g., the val­ue of her gar­den plants, mate­ri­als, and sen­ti­men­tal items – though mon­ey can’t tru­ly com­pen­sate the sen­ti­men­tal val­ue, QCAT can award an amount for their loss). She could also claim for the stress and incon­ve­nience caused, though per­son­al injury/mental anguish is not typ­i­cal­ly com­pen­sat­ed in ten­an­cy cas­es, it can be indi­rect­ly reflect­ed if her enjoy­ment of the premis­es was reduced (pos­si­bly a rent reduc­tion or nom­i­nal dam­ages for breach).

  • An order requir­ing the land­lord to refrain from fur­ther breach, i.e., to abide by the Act’s entry pro­vi­sions and not remove any more of her prop­er­ty or the trees with­out prop­er process. QCAT can make orders to enforce the ten­an­cy agree­ment or the Act, which could include for­bid­ding cer­tain actions by the land­lord that would breach qui­et enjoy­ment.

  • An order ter­mi­nat­ing the ten­an­cy and allow­ing her to leave (with com­pen­sa­tion) if she felt she can­not con­tin­ue liv­ing there due to the breach. This would be a last resort if the sit­u­a­tion is unre­solv­able. The RTRA Act allows a ten­ant to apply for ter­mi­na­tion if the landlord’s breach is seri­ous and not reme­died (for exam­ple, caus­ing the premis­es to be unfit or the tenant’s safe­ty at risk). How­ev­er, Mar­garet has expressed that this is her home and she seems to want to stay with prop­er accom­mo­da­tions – so ter­mi­na­tion is like­ly not her pre­ferred out­come.

  • Impor­tant­ly, QCAT and Human Rights: Since this dis­pute involves a pub­lic enti­ty, QCAT is required to con­sid­er the Human Rights Act in mak­ing its deci­sion. Mar­garet has for­mal­ly drawn QCAT’s atten­tion to her human rights (cit­ing dis­crim­i­na­tion and her rights to reli­gion and pri­va­cy)mayet.com.aumayet.com.au. QCAT could, in its orders, acknowl­edge the breach­es of her human rights and make direc­tives accord­ing­ly. For exam­ple, it could declare that the destruc­tion of the shrine was unlaw­ful and that Hous­ing must con­sult and accom­mo­date her reli­gious and dis­abil­i­ty needs hence­forthmayet.com.au. She has specif­i­cal­ly asked for a dec­la­ra­tion that fail­ure to accom­mo­date her dis­abil­i­ty is unlaw­ful dis­crim­i­na­tionmayet.com.au – while QCAT’s ten­an­cy juris­dic­tion might not nor­mal­ly issue “dec­la­ra­tions” in the human rights sense, under the Human Rights Act it can make a deter­mi­na­tion of incom­pat­i­bil­i­ty or at least note the vio­la­tions as part of the ten­an­cy order.

• Queens­land Human Rights Com­mis­sion (QHRC) Com­plaint: Sep­a­rate­ly from the ten­an­cy route, Mar­garet can lodge a com­plaint with the QHRC (for­mer­ly the Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion Com­mis­sion). This could cov­er both dis­abil­i­ty and reli­gious dis­crim­i­na­tion, as well as a direct human rights com­plaint. The QHRC would inves­ti­gate and attempt to con­cil­i­ate the com­plaint. If unre­solved, she could poten­tial­ly take the dis­crim­i­na­tion case to the Queens­land Civ­il and Admin­is­tra­tive Tri­bunal (in its dis­crim­i­na­tion juris­dic­tion) or even to the courts for human rights enforce­ment. The advan­tage of a QHRC com­plaint is that it brings in the broad­er pic­ture of rights, allow­ing for reme­dies like apolo­gies, train­ing for staff, or pol­i­cy changes, in addi­tion to com­pen­sa­tion. Giv­en the sys­temic nature of what she’s describ­ing (a “pat­tern of abuse, coer­cion, and neglect” by Hous­ingfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf, and oth­er res­i­dents affect­ed), a QHRC process might push the Depart­ment to insti­tute pol­i­cy changes or staff train­ing to pre­vent future occur­rences.

• Ombuds­man / Admin­is­tra­tive Appeals: Because this is a gov­ern­ment body, Mar­garet has also sought an admin­is­tra­tive review of Housing’s deci­sions. She ref­er­enced fil­ing a Form 23 – QCAT Admin­is­tra­tive Appeal on 28 May 2025mayet.com.au. It sounds like she attempt­ed to trig­ger an inter­nal or exter­nal review of the Department’s admin­is­tra­tive actions (such as the deci­sion to ren­o­vate with­out con­sul­ta­tion, or the deci­sion to remove her gar­den). QCAT’s abil­i­ty to hear admin­is­tra­tive review of a Hous­ing deci­sion would depend on whether there’s a legal­ly review­able deci­sion (for exam­ple, under the Hous­ing Act or a spe­cif­ic pro­gram). Many ten­an­cy issues are not “admin­is­tra­tive deci­sions” in the judi­cial review sense, but rather con­trac­tu­al mat­ters. How­ev­er, since she framed it as an “Appeal of an Admin­is­tra­tive Deci­sion”, pos­si­bly she is invok­ing the Human Rights Act’s pro­vi­sion that she can seek relief for human rights breach­es in any legal pro­ceed­ing. If QCAT declined those appli­ca­tions (“3 filed, 3 failed to pass sub­mis­sion” sug­gests QCAT might have reject­ed them on pro­ce­dur­al grounds)mayet.com.au, she might need to redi­rect those efforts to the QHRC or Ombuds­man.

  The Queens­land Ombuds­man can inves­ti­gate com­plaints of mal­ad­min­is­tra­tion by gov­ern­ment agen­cies, includ­ing pub­lic hous­ing. The Ombuds­man could look at whether Hous­ing Queens­land fol­lowed prop­er pro­ce­dures, whether they act­ed fair­ly and rea­son­ably. While the Ombuds­man can­not award com­pen­sa­tion, a report or inter­ven­tion from that office might pres­sure the Depart­ment to rem­e­dy the sit­u­a­tion (for instance, to apol­o­gize, replace what can be replaced, and cor­rect its process­es). Giv­en the egre­gious nature of the com­plaint (destroy­ing a tenant’s prop­er­ty and sanc­tu­ary with­out notice), the Ombuds­man might take inter­est if a for­mal com­plaint is lodged.

• Police Report: Mar­garet called it “theft” – indeed, tak­ing someone’s prop­er­ty inten­tion­al­ly with­out con­sent can be a crim­i­nal offense. In prac­tice, police are often reluc­tant to get involved in land­lord-ten­ant dis­putes, treat­ing them as civ­il mat­ters, espe­cial­ly if the land­lord might claim it was “debris” or “autho­rized work.” How­ev­er, since she asserts that human remains were in the soil tak­en, this rais­es a sen­si­tive issue. If she can sub­stan­ti­ate that (e.g. show that ash­es or bone frag­ments of a per­son were in the bull­dozed area), the police might view the destruc­tion as either theft of those remains or at least prop­er­ty dam­age. In Queens­land, inter­fer­ing with a grave or human remains is a crim­i­nal offense – though a gar­den shrine isn’t a for­mal grave, moral­ly it has sim­i­lar weight. Even if police don’t lay charges, hav­ing a police report on file could help under­score the seri­ous­ness. It might also be use­ful if insur­ance claims are involved (if she had any insur­ance that could cov­er some loss­es, they’d ask for a police event num­ber).

• Polit­i­cal and Pub­lic Pres­sure: Out­side legal avenues, Mar­garet has been active­ly **doc­u­ment­ing every­thing (pho­tos, video record­ings, writ­ten inci­dent reports)mayet.com.au and pub­li­ciz­ing her plight via her web­site and pre­sum­ably social media. Pub­lic pres­sure can be a pow­er­ful tool, espe­cial­ly since this involves a gov­ern­ment depart­ment. She has ral­lied an online com­mu­ni­ty (the bird lovers, etc.), and it’s pos­si­ble to engage local media or state MPs. A local news sto­ry about a “Hous­ing Dept bull­dozes woman’s memo­r­i­al gar­den” would like­ly embar­rass the Depart­ment and could spur quick­er reme­di­a­tion. Writ­ing to the Min­is­ter for Hous­ing or her state MP with all this doc­u­men­ta­tion is anoth­er approach – often such com­plaints, when they reach high lev­els, prompt an inter­nal review or at least a pause in con­test­ed actions (like tree removals) until it’s resolved.

• Restora­tive Actions Sought: In her com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Mar­garet has out­lined what she wants to see hap­pen. These include:

  • That Hous­ing cease the removal of trees and any fur­ther destruc­tion of ten­ants’ prop­er­tymayet.com.aumayet.com.au.

  • That her shrine/garden be restored as much as pos­si­ble – obvi­ous­ly they can­not undo the phys­i­cal destruc­tion, but per­haps Hous­ing could, for instance, replant new mature plants of sim­i­lar type, return the soil (if still on site) to her in a usable way, and allow her to rebuild her altar. While it won’t be the same, a gen­uine attempt at resti­tu­tion would be appro­pri­ate.

  • Return of any sal­vage­able items: If the con­trac­tors still have any of her things (for exam­ple, if some plants were scooped and dumped else­where, or per­son­al objects were tak­en to a tip but not destroyed), they should be returned. She explic­it­ly request­ed the “dirt, gar­den bits, jade, basil and worm­wood” be imme­di­ate­ly returned to hermayet.com.au. Even if mixed togeth­er, giv­ing her that mate­r­i­al might allow her to sift for remains or replant cut­tings.

  • Com­pen­sa­tion for dam­ages: She hasn’t put a dol­lar fig­ure yet (she said “I do not know yet the val­ue of every­thing they destroyed” in her email), but part of any res­o­lu­tion should involve either mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion or rent abate­ments. For instance, her Vic­tims of Crime pay­out mon­ey was invest­ed in that gar­den – those costs (plants, mate­ri­als) are cal­cu­la­blemayet.com.au. The emo­tion­al val­ue is incal­cu­la­ble but could be acknowl­edged via a high­er gen­er­al dam­ages sum if it went to a tri­bunal deci­sion.

  • Pol­i­cy change and account­abil­i­ty: Mar­garet seeks more than per­son­al rem­e­dy; she’s fight­ing for sys­temic change. In her QCAT fil­ing, she sought orders that Hous­ing must devel­op a fair con­sul­ta­tion process with res­i­dents and respect spiritual/personal prop­er­ty, and a find­ing that staff act­ed out­side their law­ful author­i­ty and dis­crim­i­nat­edmayet.com.au. While QCAT may or may not issue such broad orders, these points could be tak­en up by the Department’s inter­nal com­plaint unit or the Ombuds­man. At min­i­mum, Hous­ing should issue an apol­o­gy and com­mit to train­ing its staff (and con­trac­tors) on how to engage with ten­ants, espe­cial­ly those with vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties, in any future main­te­nance or rede­vel­op­ment projects.

  Anoth­er con­crete rem­e­dy: Hous­ing might con­sid­er relo­cat­ing Mar­garet (and/or oth­er affect­ed ten­ants) to an equiv­a­lent or bet­ter prop­er­ty, if that is some­thing she desires. Some­times, when a ten­an­cy rela­tion­ship breaks down or the prop­er­ty is becom­ing a con­struc­tion zone, the Depart­ment can offer a trans­fer to a dif­fer­ent unit or com­plex as a solu­tion. How­ev­er, this should be entire­ly Margaret’s choice – she shouldn’t be forced out of her home because of their mis­takes. Her writ­ings sug­gest she does not want to be dis­placed; she wants the sit­u­a­tion improved at her cur­rent home.

In con­clu­sion, Mar­garet has a robust set of legal rights on her side and mul­ti­ple fora to assert them. The rec­om­mend­ed course is to con­tin­ue press­ing on all fronts: fol­low through with the QCAT appli­ca­tion (for urgent orders to stop tree removal and for com­pen­sa­tion), engage with the RTA/conciliation process if it pro­ceeds, and con­cur­rent­ly file a Human Rights/Discrimination com­plaint to address the larg­er issues. Keep­ing thor­ough doc­u­men­ta­tion and seek­ing sup­port from advo­ca­cy groups (for instance, a ten­ant advo­ca­cy ser­vice or a dis­abil­i­ty legal ser­vice) will bol­ster her case. Giv­en the evi­dence, Hous­ing Queens­land would be well-advised to set­tle this mat­ter by meet­ing her rea­son­able demands (stop destroy­ing prop­er­ty, make amends, respect her rights) rather than face legal sanc­tions and pub­lic cen­sure.

Conclusion

The case of Mar­garet Fran­cic ver­sus Hous­ing Queens­land high­lights a dis­turb­ing clash between a tenant’s rights and a bureau­crat­ic approach to prop­er­ty man­age­ment. What should have been a coop­er­a­tive effort to main­tain or improve a hous­ing com­plex has instead result­ed in irrepara­ble per­son­al loss, trau­ma, and rights vio­la­tions. The Depart­ment of Housing’s con­trac­tors and staff, through a mix of heavy-hand­ed­ness and neg­li­gence, have bull­dozed not just a gar­den, but a place of grief and heal­ing, vio­lat­ing both the ten­an­cy laws of Queens­land and the fun­da­men­tal human rights of the ten­ant.

Mov­ing for­ward, there is a clear need for reme­dies and changes. Legal­ly, Hous­ing Queens­land is on notice for mul­ti­ple breach­es – they must return or com­pen­sate for Margaret’s prop­er­ty, refrain from fur­ther uni­lat­er­al actions (like cut­ting down her sacred bot­tle­brush trees), and ensure all future entries or works com­ply ful­ly with the RTRA Act. On a human lev­el, they owe her a pro­found apol­o­gy and an acknowl­edge­ment of the cul­tur­al, spir­i­tu­al, and emo­tion­al harm they have caused. This sit­u­a­tion also calls for the Depart­ment to re-eval­u­ate how it engages with vul­ner­a­ble ten­ants: con­sul­ta­tion, respect, and rea­son­able accom­mo­da­tion are not option­al, they are required by law and basic decen­cymayet.com.aumayet.com.au.

Margaret’s fight is emblem­at­ic of a larg­er issue – the pow­er imbal­ance in pub­lic hous­ing and the impor­tance of treat­ing ten­ants not as pas­sive sub­jects of pol­i­cy, but as peo­ple with rights, dig­ni­ties, and in many cas­es, deep ties to their homes. Her resilience in doc­u­ment­ing and chal­leng­ing these wrongs not only serves her inter­ests but shines a light for oth­er ten­ants who may be expe­ri­enc­ing sim­i­lar treat­ment in silence.

In sum­ma­ry, the destruc­tion of her gar­den shrine was unlaw­ful and avoid­able. The removal of the beloved bot­tle­brush trees would com­pound that injus­tice with envi­ron­men­tal and spir­i­tu­al loss. All rel­e­vant laws and prin­ci­ples – from the Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Act to the Anti-Dis­crim­i­na­tion and Human Rights Acts – side with Margaret’s posi­tion that what occurred was wrong. Now, it is up to the mech­a­nisms of jus­tice (and the Department’s own con­science) to rec­ti­fy the sit­u­a­tion. If Hous­ing Queens­land prompt­ly address­es the breach­es, com­pen­sates the loss, and alters its approach, it can per­haps restore some of Margaret’s faith that her rights are rec­og­nized. Fail­ing that, QCAT and oth­er author­i­ties are empow­ered to enforce those rights.

Ulti­mate­ly, this case serves as a potent reminder: a person’s home, how­ev­er hum­ble, is their sanc­tu­ary, and nei­ther land­lord nor gov­ern­ment agency can intrude into that sanc­tu­ary – let alone destroy it – with­out con­se­quence. The hope is that by assert­ing her rights, Mar­garet will not only reclaim her peace and com­fort, but also ensure that no oth­er ten­ant endures such a trau­ma at the hands of those entrust­ed with pro­vid­ing shel­ter.

Sources:

• Queens­land Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies and Room­ing Accom­mo­da­tion Act 2008 – sec­tions on notice of entry and qui­et enjoy­mentrta.qld.gov.aurta.qld.gov.au

• Queens­land Res­i­den­tial Ten­an­cies Author­i­ty – Rules of entry – Gen­er­al ten­an­cies (fact sheet)rta.qld.gov.aurta.qld.gov.au

• Queens­land Law Hand­book – Rights and Oblig­a­tions of Ten­ants and Land­lords (landlord’s duty not to inter­fere with tenant’s peace, com­fort, pri­va­cy)queenslandlawhandbook.org.au

• Queens­land Law Hand­book – Deal­ing with Goods Left Behind (tenant’s rights to com­pen­sa­tion if land­lord improp­er­ly dis­pos­es of belong­ings)calibrerealestate.com.au

• Email from Mar­garet Fran­cic to Hous­ing (22 May 2025) – descrip­tion of shrine destruc­tion and demand for return of itemsmayet.com.au

• “Queens­land Hous­ing Hor­ror 2024” – Mayet’s Blog/Documentation of Events (detail­ing bull­doz­ing of shrine on 21 May, lack of notice, impact on ten­ant and oth­er res­i­dents)mayet.com.aumayet.com.au

• Inci­dent Report by Mar­garet Fran­cic (27 March 2025 inci­dent) – details of con­trac­tor intim­i­da­tion and threats to bull­doze, no notice giv­enfile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvffile-jbd5stqhch­ne­me­femj2kvf

• Mar­garet Francic’s QCAT Appeal Let­ter (28 May 2025) – state­ments on dis­abil­i­ty rights and dis­crim­i­na­tion, requests for ordersmayet.com.aumayet.com.au

• Human Rights Act 2019 (Qld) – Sec­tion 20 (Free­dom of reli­gion)queenslandlawhandbook.org.au; Sec­tion 25 (Pri­va­cy and home)queenslandlawhandbook.org.au – as inter­pret­ed by QLD Law Hand­book and QHRC resources.

• Margaret’s “Grounds for Admin­is­tra­tive Review” (from blog) – spe­cif­ic impacts on her gar­den, trees, safe­ty plan, and cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cancemayet.com.aumayet.com.au.