What do you mean I’m disappointed in Jim’s Election Budget? I thought I’d given up hoping for better from Labor by now.

I went to Canberra last week, it was fun, tiring and good to spend time with the people who I work with every day, but in person. It was to mark 5 years since the Covid supplement was introduced, but it was also to get our own stuff in the media before the Budget this week and the inventible election being called (today).

Nothing about us without us

I felt a bit like a “cosplay lobbyist” to co-opt an insult (cosplay socialist I think?) wandering the halls of Parliament House. I was even on the radio Thursday morning and in the paper this week.

My quote for the Antipoverty Centre Budget media release:

With politicians themselves this year reminding us that budgets are about choices – it’s infuriating, but not unexpected, that Labor have chosen to keep millions in poverty by refusing to raise welfare above the poverty line. Instead, they give cash to power companies and pretend that it’s responsible to give short term bill cuts rather than plan ambitiously for the future.

I have “thoughts” on the budget but here’s a couple:

Chalmers says jobseeker rate not raised because it is indexed The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, was asked on RN Breakfast why the government hadn't lifted the rate of jobseeker, and instead chose to cut taxes. Chalmers said jobseeker is indexed (which means it automatically goes up every year - though advocates have said it's by not nearly enough), while taxes are not. He also argues that other measures for health and education have helped those on jobseeker payments. "The single rate of jobseeker, I think from memory, is $138 higher than when we came to office. And part of that, but not all of that, is that we gave a permanent increase to jobseeker in one of our budgets, we found room to do that from budget to budget, you use a different combination of ways to help with the cost of living in this budget, tax cuts for every taxpayer, strengthening Medicare, because more bulk billing means less pressure on families. Cheaper medicines, cutting student debt and the energy rebates as well."

They could have raised the tax free threshold rather than giving a percentage tax cut. This would have helped everyone, but it would have helped those at the bottom the most – those on JobSeeker whose every dollar earned is taxed and then starts to eat into their payments because the tax free threshold is less than the single jobseeker payment and your JS started to reduce when you earn $150 a fortnight.

I’d argue for the tax free threshold to be above the poverty line. You should certainly let people get to poverty level earnings before you start taxing them, particularly if you’re not giving them enough to live off to start with through welfare.

Welfare support While the surprise of tax cuts sweetened the budget news for many, those on income support payments were overlooked. In particular were those on jobseeker payments, which remain on levels below the poverty line. The government's own Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee released its 2025 report earlier in March recommending the jobseeker rate be increased to 90% of the aged pension. But despite a number of advocacy groups pushing for a boost to the payments, it was nowhere to be seen in Tuesday's release. Rental relief Another area hurting the bottom lines of many Australians is housing - whether they're renting or buying. Unlike last year's budget, this one did not raise the commonwealth rent assistance rates, which helped shave off about 1.3% in rental increases across the country.

OMG stop asking for welfare BELOW the poverty line. I’m looking at ACOSS and any other organisations that claim to speak for welfare recipients because they know what’s best for us. Pensions are below the poverty line, and people are struggling on them. Your cite them all the time saying how people are struggling on pensions and yet you ask for LESS for others. Well done.

“Mutual” obligations aren’t really a part of the budget but I hear Labor are cutting Social Services staff – maybe you can keep current service levels that have improved a bit since you came in if you also remove mutual obligations. They’re turning out to be looking pretty illegal on top of their well known cruelty.

Indexation came in – I’m going to be getting more rental relief from May 19 when I don’t have to pay thee $1.50 a fortnight for the direct debit of my rent anymore than the 80c from rent assistance indexation :/

I also got to relive some feels – my food blogging days were mostly in Canberra, so got my “nooooo you can’t eat that til I take a photo” back on!

Dinner at Thai Cornar:

Fried Tofu
Beef Massumum
Dim Sims
Curry Puffs
Pad Thai

Wasn’t going to bother with brekkie at the hotel, but then I had to hang back a bit later to do the phone interview (travel all the way to Canberra just to talk to ABC Newcastle – but they asked for a Hunter person if there was one and that was me!) SO I got the $12 breakfast pack at the hotel and had it with my instant coffee….

Coffee at Parliament House with macadamia cheesecake:

Got the see the carpark the CEO Vinnies sleepout was in last year. 

Post presser lunch at the Kingston Hotel – giant parmi!

And my bewbs made this really good Crikey article from press conference day:

‘We call that social murder’: Five years on from COVID supplement payments, more of us live in poverty

Get the poster by donating to the artist fund or wait til they go on sale soon (there will be ones available for those who can’t afford to pay)

Get the tee from Mel’s redbubble shop.

Support The Antipoverty Centre and The Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union (AUWU) so they can continue to send welfare recipients to events to represent ourselves in political discourse.

Support my personal endeavours by sending cash or buying me treats off my wishlists.

Talking about talking about poverty

Last night’s workshop was intense, but thank you for the opportunity to have my say!

My brief for last night was “How people in poverty communicate online, to each other, our allies and our detractors”

Social media and other online communities are a literal lifeline to people on welfare – It’s a relatively cheap way to get social contact using tools we already have to have for all the external obligations. 

For me it’s been an escape from IRL pressures  but also finding community and people with the same experiences-  you can vent about something and others might not have a solution but they can sympathise and they do that thing where they rely their similar experience and you feel less alone. Sometimes we can work through things together and solve problems  – with government, finding out about a program that isn’t advertised, with sourcing money for things, but often it’s just learning that you’re not a complete outlier. 

Just by sharing your experience you can reveal things to the general public that they just don’t realise – from the fact that you have to pay at foodbanks to reality of upfront costs for medicare items being the barrier to going at all regardless of how much you get back, or how much or how little indexation on payments is by showing them the raw dollar figures. 

Controlling your narrative in some way is more and more important whether that be on your own blog, or even on social media sites owned by someone else (no matter how little you align with their politics), it’s your post, you own it in that it has your name on it it’s not a part of a report or selectively quoted in media. Please do lock your account when needed, turn off replies, mute and block people liberally. 

Detractors: I try not to focus on them at a personal level – I might use their negative statements about poverty or disability or welfare to have my own rant from my own point of view, and that’s for the benefit of people who see themselves as allies and might want to both sides things, bringing it back to a real person. My blog posts are about showing what my life is like – and in relation to whatever has prompted it – I will try to pull facts and examples into it but sometimes it just becomes a rant. And that’s okay because it’s my space to have that rant. I want to be able to write more considered posts that actually have research and drafts, but my favourite posts are all off the cuff and in response to something immediate. 

Allies: These are the ones I put time into trying to convince of things, that we deserve things to be good not just slightly better. Also other people on or have previously been on welfare are sometimes hard to convince they deserve/d better and that it’s actually really hard now. 

Community – I suppose a huge frustration I’m having at the moment is the mismatch between the messaging from Labor and what they’ve really delivered for welfare recipients and this being reflected in their media. In opposition people felt they were on the side of ppl on welfare – but the rhetoric has switched back to workers only. Deserving/undeserving poor. The housing and cost of living crisis is being felt by everyone, which is up and down for empathy – people are seeing that it can be difficult for anyone, but 

Welfare recipients -are sick of politicians’ shit and the media and peak groups using them but nothing coming of it. 


What to think about when having conversations in an election context:

Bringing it back to reality – mantras or the parties are only as good as what they actually vote for – whether that’s to do with rhetoric in opposition about welfare or climate change, Promises like cashless debit card – cemented it in for some.

Labor – I’m not here to attack Labor, I’ll criticise anyone, and try to point out how they act in practice, and how it’s worth preferencing other parties or candidates over them if they would push for XYZ that you support in the event of a hung parliament – eg dental for kids is topical because of Tanya saying how Greens should be taking credit even though Labor legislated it to get Greens guarantee of supply for Gillard. 

Like many of you know it just hurts people more when politicians pretend or insist they care about you but then fail to actually do anything concrete to support you. 

Fear based messaging – you’ll have it worse under LNP etc is doing my head in- well I need carrots not sticks – I want Labor to promise me a god time not threaten a bad time with someone else.

So I’m hitting publish on this, not because it’s finished or at all refined but because I have other things to focus on today – Heading to Canberra tomorrow for a press conference on Thursday morning to mark 5 years since the covid supplement changed people’s lives for the better.

If you wanna catch up, come along for brekkie/coffee at Parliament House beforehand – RSVP here

Banner image for Marking the 5 year COVID supplement anniversary at Parliament House

 

 

Things I wanna do in 2025 (sorta resolutions)

  1. Write more. Longer form blog posts that I actually edit, save drafts of and put some research into. As well as my preferred something got me ranting so I turned it into a blog post *hit send* posts.
  2. Get more people subscribed to my blog. You can subscribe to new posts here. You can also sign up to make a monthly contribution here or once off or see my wishlists and buy me something useful or fun or both. Perhaps I could do some exclusive content for sponsors, but I’m not up to that yet.
  3. Save up and start the Autism and ADHD assessment process. I’m 42 and probably have about that long left, so want to try to go into it understanding myself and doing the best for me.
  4. Stream more. Play more games.
  5. Help out with the niblings more.
  6. Be true to myself. Whatever that means.
  7. Use more alt text.

The image depicts a person holding a dark bottle of Fizzero non-alcoholic sparkling white wine. The person has medium-length hair and is wearing glasses with a dark frame. They are wearing a white shirt adorned with playful, pastel-colored illustrations such as game controllers, cats, and other whimsical designs, alongside words like "MEOW." In the background, part of a wall and a portion of a flag or banner with purple and blue hues are visible.

Cheers.

Thank You

Thank you for a good 2024. Yes, you. If you’ve been in my life this year, I’ve been better for it. Maybe you’ve helped me out with something tricky, maybe I’ve helped you. Maybe you’re a pain but I’ve grown in some way through our interactions. Maybe you subscribe to this blog. Maybe you’ve sent me money or gifts in appreciation of my blogging or social media. Maybe you’re family. Maybe you’re the family I’ve made.

My most popular post this year was Hey, have you tried shopping at Aldi? (and other unhelpful advice given to people on welfare). That was closely followed by Food banks are just a more expensive way to get food that isn’t necessarily suitable to poor people: Prove me wrong. (See I am still a food blogger).

Most of you came here from Twitter. And mostly from so-called Australia.

Thank you for a good blogging year.

 

OMG it’s just a fucking window display and Palestinian Jews and Muslims and Christians like Jesus are being slaughtered in tents

So yeah I fucking love Xmas frivolity. I have my tree up and will be getting all the Xmas tees and skirts and dresses out as soon as I have a couple days sunshine to pop them through the wash. If Mary was trying to make her way back to the right town for the census this year she’d be herded from on place to another and would be counting her blessings even more if she got a manger and wasn’t in a refugee tent with planes and drones and soldiers all around.

If I was in Melbourne I’d go look at the windows at Myer each year. It’s totally up my alley. But you know, it’s not ruining Xmas to have a protest interrupt the opening. If it ruins your Xmas to not see the windows on Sunday this weekend, then, wow. Wow is all I have for you.

Your kids won’t mind if they have to go next Saturday instead. Of after school. Or any other day up til early January when they take them down. But I don’t think they kids will be the ones sad about it and I feel like the kids have more compassion for the other kids their age around the world than any adult who’s kicking up a fuss about this.

The mass exodus to Bluesky makes me sad. I mean I guess I’ll end up there if that’s what happens but I’m holding on to twitter as long as I can. I fkn live there babes. And I was already planning on hosting the #PoveratiXmas giving tree across both sites, so look for that hype at the start of December and get your wishlists and mutual aid requests ready, and hopefully some secret santa-ing will happen. Again super worried it’ll be a flop, but people have told me that they’ve been enjoying putting their wishes down so that’s sweet.

But I’m also just gonna play more video games I think hah.

 

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