Category: blahblahblah

And for our next stress – our house is being sold

This post was supposed to be a fun one about my new car. a blue 1998 Corolla we went up to Singleton to buy the other day. Her name is Bluey the Hello Kitty Corolla.

She doesn’t have any Hello Kitty yet, but by golly gee she will, and you can help this madness by buying me Hello Kitty car stuff like stickers and floor mats off my wishlist. I’ve got stickers coming to stickerbomb the dented left guard. The car is delightfully basic, manual window winders and the like. But it’s got great air con. We need to put in a new head unit, but we’re on that.

But no, of course, just as things were looking like settling down again, I missed a call coming back from taking my niece to her psych today, and it was the real estate. I call her back opening when she asked me how I was with well, always a bit wary when the real estate calls. She sounded so apologetic, but what can you do. We’re month to month, so we’ll have to wait and see if the buyers want vacant possession or to keep us on (presumably at increased rent). She did say if we find something we can give 21 days notice. but yeah. Let’s see how this goes.

I joked to Bruce at least our landlord didn’t die, only because my sister’s landlord died a few weeks ago and she’s seeing how that plays out. I’m thinking we need an old convent or similar to house us all, Growups and teens and tweens and kids and bebes and cats and dog and whoever else we pick up along the way.

SO yes, things are stressful.

We got my Nanna’s old fridge and bed on the weekend since her place has now sold, in an effort to accommodate the 3-4 adults and baby in this house depending on if my stepsons here for work too.

But how long we get to keep them here?

Argh

Hate the uncertainty. Hate it.

More musings on food banks

A tray of brawnies on the stove and a hand in front holding packet mix of greens vegemite brownies
The $1 Vegemite brownies I got from the church foodbanks were… odd. And they haven’t been finished off which usually happens to anything sweet in this house. I see why they were written off at the supermarket as not selling.

So, I was scrolling through Twitter and in amongst the horrors occurring in Palestine, I saw a few friends commenting on a post made by a chap named Kos Samaras , talking about how poor people are more concerned about the cost of living than deaths in Palestine. He made another one similar about the failed referendum. I’d link or share a screenshot, but I’m blocked. Kos is a Labor chap and lobbiest. So I guess he doesn’t like poor people speaking up for themselves. Kinda like how Van Badham blocked me not long after I replied to a post she (and Jane Caro and someone else echoed) asking about our experiences on welfare and I shared my story of being rejected for DSP. I mean t wasn’t in response to that post I was blocked, but it was the same week, she was just on a run of blocking people in the antipoverty space,

Anyways. In this thread, Greg Jericho (of Grog’s Gamut fame, ‘member when he was one of the first Aussie bloggers sacked over blogging?) posted a link to a recent Australia Institute report on Food Waste In Australia, with the overview talking about how food retailers actually profit from food waste, to the tune of $1.2 billion. How they do that is just another story of the rules allow you to make more money when you already have money – can’t sell something? Write it off as a loss and sell it cheap or donate it to Foodbank or Ozharvest and look like a hero while it doesn’t actually cost you anything. Meanwhile you can mark up your regular stock because things apparently are expensive, and you need to cover the cost of surveillance cameras, auto closing gates, racial profiling, and having guards follow Blak kids around the store (you’ve seen it happen), or just having your regular staff grabbing 4 year olds and accusing them of stealing.

It concerns me then that supermarkets and charities like Foodbank push for more financial incentives for Supermarkets to donate less desirable goods – whether they’re past their bet before days, a bit ugly or just not moving off the shelves – rather than advocating to raise income support or regulate how much profit Coles can make off a grocery shop so that we can buy the products we want when we want them and not have to rely on the “kindness” of others who make more money than us to get us these offcuts.

I still struggle with Woolies asking me (or anyone) for a 50 cent donation for foodbank at the checkout when the charities I buy my pantry goods from are charged for their orders of donated goods. Maybe I’m missing something? I’ve not gone into the nitty gritty of their annual reports  of the not for profits, but I still know I’m paying for that can of chickpeas from the church pantry.

I noticed the other day that my local woolies accepts direct donated goods from customers for two local community centres via OzHarvest. And I checked, those then are free for the person off the street in need. So, please, do check where your donation is going, because it all feels like there’s a lot of money being passed around and written in spreadsheets only for the welfare class to be told to be happy they’re getting anything at all.

 

What are Foodbank prices really like?

I’d like to acknowledge that in having a car, the time and physical ability to shop around I am in a very priveledge position to even be able to venture to one or more foodbanks, along with having Coles, ALDI and Woolies in my town. I scour the catalogues like your granny would, and stretch my DSP far. I can walk away from a price I don’t find fair, many can’t and either have to pay the price offered or go without that item or another to compensate. 

People on welfare are the savviest shoppers around. They know when their preferred items are on special and where. You’ll remember your grandparents scripting and saving, carting their little granny trolley from shop to shop to gather their food for the fortnight on pension day. That’s what we all do now, but the pensions and certainly other payments like Youth Allowance and JobSeeker don’t go as far, so more and more people are using foodbanks for their regular grocery shops, if they have access to one, the car to get there or somehow luck out on one that delivers (Southlakes in my area does a $10 home delivered box of essentials each week, a rare gem) or is in walking or public transport distance.

Hours at the foodbanks are limited – for example the Salvos here is 10-1 Tuesday and Thursday, the community church 9-12 Thursday. And there’s often a line out the front, meaning people get there early (the oldies at the church I’ve seen at 8am for the $2 fresh fruit and veg boxes on offer at nine) or be prepared to hang around til it’s your turn. Which is fine again for those of us with time to kill, not if you’re wrangling toddlers or have mutual obligations with Centrelink, or medical appointments. Tensions can get high in the lines, everyone’s already on edge from *waves hands* life and all that, having to queue for a free bag of fruit and veges, or to get in to buy discounted items that you don’t have the usual choice over – no you can’t get the cereal the kids prefer or not get lavendar cos you hate it because if that’s what’s on offer and you need to fill that gap in your pantry or cleaning products, you get what’s on offer and at the price on offer. They say choice and control a lot on NDIS talk, people on welfare don’t have choice and control. Beggars can’t be choosers, but when someone cuts in line because they didn’t know the system or the supervisor makes you say please when you were being polite already…. that gets to you even when you’re usually easy-going.

Photo in a hall. There are fold out tables with boxes on them people are sorting groceries into the boxesA box o assorted groceries

Macquarie church at Cardiff does a $5 box weekly if you can get there between 1pm and 2.30pm

So, when you’re trying to stretch your budget and the foodbank is charging more than Woolies or Coles is you might question it. You might get told it’s the same as the supermarket, but it’s short dated so you think that’s not exactly fair. Or, it’s more expensive than the regular specials at the majors, or it’s a name brand but because your budget extends to home brand pricing, you can’t see how it’s fair to charge more than you’d pay for the home label or Aldi equivalent even though it has the shiny label.

Then you remember these items were donated by the supermarkets – written off for their own purposes to be seen as generous, or other shoppers have donated it at the checkout, paying full price for it with their own shopping…

Foodbank and Ozharvest collect donations, the most obvious ones those ones they ask for at the checkout. Presumably this goes to their transport costs, which would be substantial. But there’s also grants for these from all levels of government, and private donations. All these appeals for money and people wonder why they’re left paying $3 for a box of donated, short-dated weetbix.

On a white bench - a recycling bin, breadrolls, fruit buns, fingerbuns, sourdough
Free breads from the Friday foodbank

On Fridays I line up for my Ozharvest bag and breads (above) and then usually buy a bagful of groceries from certain shelves for $12. It’s $14 the first time, and $12 after that if you bring the bag bag to reuse. There’s always noodles and cereals, sauces I may or may not like, tins of chick peas and tomatoes. Other snacks and such vary. Again, you get a lot compared to full price, but it’s all short dated or past best before dates (they can sell it up to six months past a best before date). I just dislike that there’s no catering for special diets, wheat and carbs are king. And no preferences, just get what’s on offer.

Groceries on a bench: Granola, crackers, milk , tins, noodles, cake mixes, sauces

That foodbank has a bunch of other shelves of individually priced goods they’ve purchased from Foodbank the charity. Please forgive the quality of the photos, I wasn’t supposed to be taking photos at all for privacy reasons but there’s noone in them….

Cans on a foodbank shelf. The photo is a little blurry

How much would you expect to pay for a can of beans at the foodbank? $1? Free? How about “2 for $4”? (Yes you can just buy one can, yes it’s bloody annoying that it’s ticketed that way casting more confusing into already meh situations) $2? Well, the beans are $2.20 at Coles, so that’s a fair price, according to this place. They figure since it’s less than full price of the supermarket it’s fair. And of course you don’t HAVE to buy it there, but as a poor person you expect that you’ll be getting a good price, right? Especially since you wouldn’t be buying Edgell if you were at coles, it’d be the $1.10 home brand option. screen cap from coles website Tins of beans for $2.20 a can

The little church foodbank I go to on Thursdays sells tins of beans for $1. I might get them if I need the ingredient for something but usually I’ll pick up a tin of something at ALDI.

Cans and other products ona foodbank shelf

How about cleaning products? Pine o Clean full price is $8 for 1.25L at the majors, but you can get a homebrand bottle for $2.50. At the first foodbank, they have them “2 for $12” or $6 a bottle. SO less than the brand, but more than homebrand. Plus you don’t get choice over scent. And I never would buy brand cleaners full price. A small Morning Fresh is $5.50 full price, but the various sizes are half price most weeks at either Coles or Woolies. There’s many cheaper dishwashing liquid options out there as you know – Choice ranks a bunch of them on their website. I usually just get and am happy with the ALDI one. Oh and the foodbank price? $3.

Pine o clean and toilet blech on a shelf morning fresh

How about milk? HOW ABOUT MILK? You ask. We know the pice of milk at the supermarket is a hot topic. It’s $4.50 for three litres at ALDI,  $4.80 at Coles. Remember when it was $1 a liter? lol Longlife milk is another option – Aldi 1L $1.59, 2L $3.09. Homebrand about the same $1.60,

long life full cream milk and vegemite on a foodbank shelfgroceries on a foodbank shelf

SO, what’s the foodbank asking for 2L of longlife Aldi full cream milk? $3 at one, $2.50 at the other. Or $2.50 for two 1L skim at the little church foodbank.

the $1.50 and 2 for $1.50 items at my local foodbank

Want non-dairy milk? $3 for a litre.

teabags, condenced milk, ling life nut milks

Now, TREATS is some we’re told we shouldn’t have, we shouldn’t buy a pack of biscuits and stick to noodles. But YOU DO DESERVE NICE THINGS. But you should be able to get them for a reasonable price. I look at the catalogues every Wednesday to see what’s half price at woolies, you can usually get a half price block of Cadbury or Nestle at one of Coles or Woolies. Never pay full price for brands.

BUT, let’s treat ourselves, we’re at the foodbank, depressed about the cost of groceries and food and life. SO, how about a chockie? Well you could pay $2 for a three pack of these Nutella biscuits, best before 28/09/2023. Or you could have gotten four packs for $1 at the little church the day before. Big W has them for $2.50, presumably with a longer best before date.

A dissplay of nutella bisuitsA dispplay of nutella bisuits

screenshot of nutelle biscuits from Big W website.

So yes, they’re cheaper than the full priced ones. But you don’t have the choice you do at the supermarket, and they have very short best before dates, which certainly works into how much you should pay, which is why Woolies donated this stuff in the first place. Choice matters. Being able to keep it more than a week matters.

Groceries on my nech
$18 at the little church foodbank

 

Other foodbank services might charge a membership fee. Or have a certain purchase amount before you can get the free bread. Rules vary, and this is just my little selection in my area. And I’m not doing this just to complain. But foodbanks aren’t free. And people need to know this, either so they know where their donations at the checkout are going or what if means when Coles and Woollies write off their products to charity. But also so you don’t go to a foodbank hungry, broke and tired and expect something for free. Because yes places do emergency free hampers, but again that usually means going through a social worker and there’s even less choice then.Good luck out there. You deserve to have nice things.

AUWU meetup at Bernie’s Bar Newcastle

Thanks to everyone who came to the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union meetup in Newcastle today and thanks to Bernie’s Bar for hosting us! Here’s some pics from the arvo of awesome people and yummy food!

Because I was super excited when reading the menu, Dan arranged for there to be fairy bread on arrival. Traditional, sliced white bread with margarine and all. Truly the party food of the unemployed worker.

Beanies, scarves and factsheets on a table

I brought along factsheets (downloadable here) and Nobody Deserves Poverty beanies and scarves for all – you can buy one in solidarity for $30 a piece on the website to support the work AUWU does and help fund these beanies for us!

Chicken burger with saladVege burger with chips

Burgers were had – Beef Brisket, Chick and Vego options (with Gluten free and vegan available too) and omg the chippies were great!! The bar wasn’t open to the public at the time, but they accommodated our request to turn down the music and turn off the glitter ball, as cool as it was.

beef brisket burget and chips

It was great to chat with a great group of people, some employed some not, some students, other applying for the DSP. All having experienced the wonder that is the Australian welfare system, and all agreeing it’s only getting harder to navigate and stay afloat on, by design.

We’d love to organise more meetups and more official events for AUWU members and supported in the Newcastle are (or Central Coast even, if anyone’s keen for a Gosford meet hit me up on the AUWU Discord or Twitter and we can work together to organise something and I’ll hop a train down! choo choo!)

 

But WHO matters, Jim?

Treasury released their Measuring What Matters framework Friday morning with press release and interviews, buzzwords and smiling photos. I admit to having bad feelings towards the word wellbeing. It’s so often used along with things like self-care to put personal responsibility front and centre of your ills, and that your own failings and failure to address them in an acceptable way are why you continue to suffer. The wellness industry is designed to make healthy people that little bit healthier, and the neoliberal economy of hours to for people to make more (money usually) with what they already have.

Stats are great, I love a good statistic that shows whether there’s any measurable change over time in something. The government already has many statistics at its fingers. from job numbers, to how many children are living in poverty, to food waste, to koalas numbers and more.

(not that they care to include poverty or child poverty as wellbeing measures)

They have committees and qualitative research. They the Closing the Gap reports for Indigenous people that are announced and seem to change very little. They have ignored stark recommendations from royal commissions, from committees they commissioned themselves with their preferred contributors. They have us writing letters and sharing our stories every day. But the people on the ground are disappointed and don’t really feel like another way of looking at things will offer any change on the ground.

How’s the wellbeing is going in relation to the “five key wellbeing themes”?

  • Healthy: A society in which people feel well and are in good physical and mental health, can access services when they need, and have the information they require to take action to improve their health.

“Feel Well” gotta love the nerfing of it already. Not be well, don’t be sick, don’t have longterm chronic pain that they can’t get medication for. But then, if you could get the medications best suited to your pain you may actually get to feel well. Let’s do that! Drugs for the masses! At least then it’s a bearable existence, masking the existential dread and foreboding planetary death from climate change. What? The planet will still be here but humans will get wiped out? even better, We suck. Let the orcas take over.

Good physical and mental health: My friends over on JobSeeker are eating one meal a day, getting scurvy, diabetes has spiked after repeated Covid infections. Nobody can get in to see a psych, and if they can there’s only 10 subsidised Medicare sessions now so you can only deal with things for an hour, once a month, ignoring school holidays. And don’t waste those sessions trying to get someone who fits and offers the sort of therapy that works for you. In and out. A dabble of CBT to dull the mild anxiety. Anything more, well that’s too complax, maybe you should access community or NDIS? lol nah. Not likely, and not without a costly diagnosis. I was saying the other day I just need a cool $10k so I can get the adults in my life long overdue ADHD/Autism assessments, because we all have some sort of spicy brain divergency, it’d just be nice to know what type and mix and whether there’s a chance very expensive stimulant medications might make us more productive members of society.

Have the information they need to improve their health: back once more on the individual to use their own choices to improve their health while government deliberately holds back the resources to do that in the name of austerity and continue to approve coal mines. But sure I can fix myself if I make the right choices. Personal responsibility….

  • Secure: A society where people live peacefully, feel safe, have financial security and access to housing.

Apparently “live peacefully” means no peaceful protesting of the destruction of the planet. Be polite, don’t kick up a fuss, accept what Master says what is best for you. While Europe floods and burns simultaneously, we’re locking up people for disrupting traffic. While governments talk climate, they approve more coal mines and still don’t find a good way to tax them to high heaven so if they’re going to raise the temperature another 2 degrees they could at lease pay for us to put in air conditioning.

Who has financial security? The go got their 19 Billion dollar buffer, so maybe it’s theirs that matters. There’s no guarantee of stable housing at the rental level, and even home owners – double incomes, kids or no kids, are stretching and stretching to make their mortgages, with the Great Australian Dream of home ownership passing many by. We have a central bank that states it want 1% more of the population to lose their jobs to stop inflation, but no word from the government from how those people are supposed to survive until they’re needed again, since the JobSeeker payment remains, by choice, below half the poverty line.

So the wanna be homeowners, the ones that in previous generations would be in their houses establishing life, and feeling settled, are still in the rental market. Rental properties are being hoarded, it’s not the people with the second house for retirement security we’re talking about here, it’s the multi-generational property hoarders, where Billy gets 10  houses by the time he’s finished uni on the back of Mum and Dad’s equity and the rent paid by tennants. They’re the ones raising the rents and colluding with the property managers to keep the game running. They’re the ones, along with the investment funds, calling in towards the end of the auction to outbid the young professional couple with a baby on the way.

Public housing is an endangered commodity, being demolished around the country as we speak, being replaced to social and affordable housing, being privatised, but made into something for someone else to profit off. Housing waiting lists are a decade long, and emergency accommodation is capped. Again, people are left to fend for themselves, off the gerousity of others, from family and friends, leaving those who are disconnected and isolated already with nowhere to to and those others stressed about outstaying their welcome.

My grandparents were given a fishing shack across the creek from where I live now by family when they got married because they had nothing. But from there they were able to raise a family and live a stable life there. My mother was able to save a deposit for a house before she got married and she and Dad paid that off. But my generation is a generation of renters and the next generation is one of couch surfers.

  • Sustainable: A society that sustainably uses natural and financial resources, protects and repairs the environment and builds resilience to combat challenges.

“Sustainable” you say? This is again where the governments say they can’t raise welfare because they need to have money for the future. This is where climate policy gets muddled once more with the financial outlays of equipping people to deal with the now inevitable climate-related disasters. Where politicians can promise more fire trucks while approving more coal mines and say they have a balance. Where they can encourage and financially incentivise homeowners to switch from gas to electricity and solar, while leaving public housing uninsulated and reliant on grid power.

Sustainable for me is budgeting my spoons for the day the week or the month. Where I budget how I can with the money I get from the DSP, to make sure I pay my regular bills, to make sure while my balance may be zero on pension eve, it hopefully doesn’t get overdrawn, and I can start the next fortnight afresh. Resilience for me is getting my morning chores done so I can be free to help others with the rest of my day. Sustainable is what they want from the NDIS, and that gets sustained by them not approving or being difficult about plans, discouraging people from applying or asking for what they need, and having others pick up the gaps. Sustained by the labours of love others can provide, and if you don’t have those supports you go back to missing out.

  • Cohesive: A society that supports connections with family, friends and the community, values diversity, and promotes belonging and culture.

Cohesion. Getting along. Mateship? Inclusion, acceptance, tolerance. Throw some more words in there, but hopefully we’re honouring people’s cultures and individuality, but also not letting an obsessive minority run wild, endagering the safety of others. Extremisim in all its forms in a danger and the sensible centre needs to use caution about how much both-sidesing they allow, especially when one side merely believes the other side are less than human and need to be eliminated. TERFs and Nazis, Islamists and Christianist, Zionists and Nationalists have found their little niche of identify built on their own feelings of superiority and need to claim that right at all costs.

Media needs to be aware of their role in platforming hate speech or unscientific arguments that put feelings ahead of rights. Publications need to recall the sub editors and fact checkers from the cull and put them to work ensuring that what they are scaring the public this week is actually accurate and not just repeating rumours and hate. They need to check the backgrounds of who they’re getting quote from, and remember that having Dr or Professor as their title doesn’t mean any expertise in the field being discussed.

The party that promised that the lions will eat the faces of those you fear with not hesitate to et them on you when you outlive your usefulness – queer people aligning themselves with anti-trans hate groups shouldn’t be surprised when their hard fought rights are struck down next and they are not longer loved by the right.

  • Prosperous: A society that has a dynamic, strong economy, invests in people’s skills and education, and provides broad opportunities for employment and well-paid, secure jobs.

Prosperity gospel is something that was talked about a lot in the dying days of the Morrison government. While the Pentecostal types have their own ways of profiting from it, the notions that acquiring wealth and property as a moral good seems to permeate the landlord class of Australia. The rest of us are filthy renters, welfare cheats and ne’er do-wells. We may be worthy of the charity of welfare if we come on hard times, or we may not be if we’re Dole Bludgers or Welfare Queens. We are assumed to be cheating the system and bending or breaking the rules because politicians do it all the time so why wouldn’t we? Sure, break the rules to get your sub-poverty dole check, I’ve said it before I don’t care if Gina Reinhardt’s latest boy toy gets JobSeeker, so long as someone who is a payment away from starving or losing their kids and house doesn’t get cutoff because of a quirk in the system, Services Australia not answering the phone or a job Provider who is trigger happy on the suspension of payments. You can’t prosper when you can’t afford to survive. You can’t thrive when you’re looking over your shoulder.

You also can’t take advantage of any of the “opportunities” that come up to study at TAFE for free if your payment doesn’t cover your rent and food, and your job provider is pushing you to apply for work that isn’t compatible with your timetable. People drop out every day because they need to take on a shift and can’t attend enough uni to graduate. They still end up with unpayable HECS debts that go up by more than people can repay even when they do have a steady graduate job. There’s no rooms for special intests or diabilities, or learning that your own pace. You can’t participate in a way that works for you, that is sustainable for you, the computer will say no.

Prosperity Gospel, The The Prosperity Gospel (PG) is a fast-growing theologically conservative movement frequently associated with Pentecostalism, evangelicalism, and charismatic Christianity that emphasizes believers’ abilities to transcend poverty and/or illness through devotion and positive confession. The PG is popular among impoverished communities, where at best it is considered to offer the poor a means of imagining and reaching for better lives (at times accompanied by sound financial advice), and at worst is criticized as predatory and manipulative, particularly when churches or pastors require heavy tithing. Members of the socioeconomic elite may also be drawn to PG messages, which affirm the religious and spiritual legitimacy of wealth accumulation and reinforce a worldview in which financial success is an indicator of moral soundness.

Do I look like I’m despairing for the future? Well I am, but also for the present. It’s my birthday today, and while I’m getting too old for it to be a thing, it’s always a good time to reflect. I’m okay with my day to day life, I love helping my friends and my family, looking after myself and my partner, pottering around with my dog in the morning, I just wish and hope to help push for the government to do more to help everyone, and to not makes things worse.

You have all your numbers, your recommendations, your experts and your committees. They all point to investing more in your people directly, by Raising the Rate of welfare, but building more public housing, by letting people get on their days because you know what, most people know what they are good at and what works for them? We want government support because you have to money to help us, and the responsibility to ensure your citizens survive and thrive.

People want to feel like they matter. “No-one left behind” is YOUR slogan Jim. You all seemed so promising from opposition, well you at least you said the right things. People matter, no corporations. Voter, not donors. Please listen to us.