Category: blahblahblah

Who CAN we trust with our stories?

After the disheartening response to the Disability Royal Commission finally came out last month, advocates and many others were left in literal tears, wondering what the point of a 4 -year commission that heard the many stories of violence, abuse, exploitation and neglect of disabled Australians was. Again this week, those who gave evidence to the gambling harms enquiry are wondering the same. Why should vulnerable people who have already suffered subject themselves to rehashing their stories for the amusement of government panels who have already seemed to have decided what actions they’ll take no matter how harrowing it gets?

Of course, it’s just everyone else’s turn to learn this after the continued deaths in custody of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, seemingly not even slowing since the 1987 Royal Commission. The Closing the Gap figures last week were going backwards in essential areas, with the stirred up racism and disappointment of “The Voice” brushed aside by our dear leader, who can’t commit to Makarrata, to Treaty, or even to Truth Telling, which is sorely needed. We need to face the fact that we’re continuing the horrors of the Stolen Generations with child protection policies and locking up Blak kids and that more of the same isn’t getting us anywhere.

And our Governments support for Genocidal Israel is not instilling confidence in their willingness to not continue the Genocide here.

Each day I get emailed surveys to do, to share my story with another Not For Profit, or the Greens (who I’m still deciding whether I’ll renew my membership of, got another reminder text today) or news of another Senate inquiry. I don’t know what to do with these. I fill some responses out myself, when I have the spoons, but I’m reluctant to pass them on anymore. Reluctant to ask that emotional labor of people who are already battling to get through their day-to-day life when I can’t seem to offer them examples of how it will change things for them or the people they care about.

A lot of my people are burning out at the moment, running themselves thin, with family deaths and health issues themselves, wanting to ramp up to see if we can force Labor’s hand ahead of the upcoming election, but also needing to focus on self-care, on mutual aid, on trying to do some positive things too to brighten their lives in the immediate sense.

I’m down a car this week, so out of routine. Bruce’ll fix in on the weekend. But I went across the road for some sun with the dog just now and that was nice, gave me some healing warmth. I’ll catch the train into town tomorrow for group and might make some time to wander along the streets and browse the shops. There’s a few op-shops there I haven’t been to in ages I might pick up something from.

Love yas x

Blue Koala at the rest stop in Port Macquarie

Twitter Jail

Welp, I’m in Twitter jail, apparently little right of appeal and may have just lost 17 years of my life for who knows what but probably just you know being on the right side of history over GENOCIDE and the like.

Ahem.

What a way to end an otherwise pretty good birthday week. Turned 42 on Monday, spent the day eating cake and hanging out with my partner.

Got a couple of gifts from Internet people, Ambrose sent lights and chockies and Trish send Japanese Snax. Bruce bought me a new monitor which should arrive today as an upgrade. The one he got me for me for my bday last year died in the move, which was sad.

The Lindt balls are long gone, and I need to figure out where the lights go around the outside of the house. Looking forward to trying all these snax!

So, a lot of plans have hit the wall, I want my Twitter account back, but I’m a bit crook and also tired and really don’t want to fight with fascists over this. Might just resurrect an alt on Monday and rebuild from there?

In the meantime, it’s probably a good thing I’ve started focusing more on this blog and running my life out of it in some ways – I made a support page with a donation form and my wishlist links for people to support me, I’ll add my other socials into my Contact page today and make sure links from there send people here instead of to a deleted Twitter page.

I have more things I want to write longform on, so maybe this is another nudge towards that? IDK. I’m sad.

You should all subscribe by email to this blog too, so they can’t keep us from each other xox

Happy EOFYS! (Don’t let the tax cuts overwhelm you on the way out)

You can’t have missed it. EVERY AUSTRALIAN TAXPAYER IS GETTING A TAX CUT. Well, anyone earning above the tax free threshold is. Anyone paying GST or excise other other taxes that disproportionally impact the poorer peeps only isn’t.

Apparently, recipients of the age pension, a disability support pension and carer payments will be able to earn more before their payments are reduced. Singles can now earn $212 a fortnight (previously $204) and couples can earn $372 (previously $360). Let’s ignore the face that those people are currently on sub-poverty level payments because they’re supposed to be caring for themselves or others full time and really shouldn’t have to go out to work for that elusive block of cheese. Aspirational cheese.

I’m still slightly bitter that the energy rebate is less, even though it was just stupid to begin with. Also jelly of those states going to elections getting extra from their state labor where GST splits have allowed it. My bill is only going up, and here I am hoping my stepson’s JobSeeker application gets approved before the next bill so we can use his backpay to pay that. Waiting time for Jobseeker is still about 12 weeks I hear, so it lines up.

I’ll be relieved when tomorrow comes and the mailing lists I’m signed up for for various organisations with charitable status will stop asking for end-of financial year contributions. Though I have shared this one for Southlakes, the local community support organisaion near me that’s run on the smell of an oily rag, feeding families each week after Centrelink refers them their way rather then government deigning it time to Raise the Rate above the poverty line.

$12 bag of expired food items from a foodbank

I’ve starting attending rental inspections for the step-kid and bub to mover back to Newcastle, there’s so little out there and so many families at each inspection. At least we all have housing, it’s not ideal but it’s shelter.

Foodbank Fizzies

Oh, I used to be a food blogger, trying the latest products, writing up the cafes, and justifying my wine habit with blog posts. But that’s changed now, and while you’ll get the occasional local takeaway review, I’m not first out the gate to try the latest new product, it doesn’t land on my doorstep with a bow and props, a letter with keywords and samples to giveaway to readers and friends.

No, now I satisfy my need to try something new, and my desire to not exist solely on diet coke (pffft) I’ll get a can or bottle or two from the mixed collection of drinks that the foodbanks tend to have. A treat, often ranging up to $1 a piece, but cheaper than the shelf price and considered a donation to help their work. Sometimes, like the experience will be bad – there’s a reason these didn’t sell at the major supermarkets and made their way here. Or they might be out of date and TASTE out of date – flat, stale (yes, drinks can taste stale). But some are winners.

Like these fancy sodas. Lemon Squash and a Yuzu spritz. Fancy pants but I totally get it. There’s apparently also jalapeno and lime, which I gave a miss as I’m a wuss with chili.

There is no “right way” to protest or otherwise advocate for change

Be polite they say, don’t graffiti they say, don’t smash a window to break un unjust law. Don’t block the road, don’t camp there. Fill out this complaint form, submit to this enquiry, accept the status quo.

I’ve always been a “good girl”, not rocking the boat, trying to make peace in a house, in a group. Trying to keep things calm at the expense of what I believed was just. So I’m new to all this. New to rocking the boat. Hell  I’ve not yet don’t a port blockade because my father works the tugs and my mother doesn’t approve. But I’m learning what boundaries I’m happy to push, while maintaining the fluffy pink outer shell and making others comfortable.

The federal Health Minister has visited the Hunter, announcing a new urgent care clinic for either Newcastle, or Lake Macquarie.While it’s good news for patients, some say more needs to be done to improve access to bulk-billing.
Recently on the local news, complaining that no-one bulk bills anymore – video is here

Protest can’t be effective if it doesn’t inconvenience SOMEONE. I find extreme weather cause by climate change pretty inconvenient, the people being killed by it the ecosystems being destroyed, so I don’t see it as an overreaction to block a coal train to disrupt supply or shut down peak hour traffic to bring attention to the cause. You’ll never make everyone happy.

This week was winter solstice, and Vinnies’ biggest fundraising gig of the year – the CEO sleepout. This is where bosses and other bigwigs pretend to be homeless for a night by sleeping in brand new Kathmandu sleeping bags with Visy branded cardboard to protect them from any elements that may appear in the football field or parliament underground carpark that night. They get to network and go to sleep with a full belly, able to sleep through the night undisturbed by the weather, nightmares from trauma, police moving them on, critters at their toes or dickheads walking home from the pub trying to provoke them

How lovely and clean is the parliament house underground carpark? There’s toilet onsite, and guards to keep away those pesky actual homeless people who might see it as better than sleeping under the Lake Burley Griffin bridges. People have been pointing out the flaws in the event for years.

Mel aka Artist Affame is a good friend and recently too on the convener role at the Antipoverty Centre. She uses her wealth of “lived experience” to advocate for change, using her art to bring more eyes in, and has learned amazingly well how to express herself through her art and writing, and through the “proper channels” of meeting with politicians and attending consultation events and being generally awesome.

That didn’t stop her state’s premier’s media teams from blocking her on Twitter this week for questioning why he’d do the CEO sleepout when he has the power to actually change things for poor and homeless people in South Australia. or Vinnies themselves from also blocking her this week (they’ve previously blocked other antipoverty activists) after questioning the efficacy of the sleepout, and why they’d be doing that while still exploiting people through work for the dole. But I don’t think we have laws here where you can’t block your constituents for asking questions of you.

So, we’ll keep taking you petitions to ignore, making submission you’ll ignore and going through peer led advocacy which you’ll ignore, while you have lunch with ACOSS and still ignore their recommendations to stop keeping people poor. We held out hope that the Robodebt’s revealed horrors would be dealt with by the corruption commission, but no, people just got to remain nameless and move on. So, at some stage people are going to get more than a little frustrated that going through the right channels, being polite, being calm, that they’re not getting them anywhere.

And then we’ll see things burn.

drawing of a frog with a molitov cocktail with text be the light you want to see in the world