politics – phonakins

I got what I wanted for my 43rd Birthday (Takoyaki for lunch at Umi in Toronto) but what do I want from the 48th Parliament?

Labor is back with a bigger majority and only really needing to appease the Greens in the upper house to get anything done. But what will they use this for and will it be at all progressive? Or will they still pretend they can’t do things their supposed base want – such as all the local groups calling for sanctions on Israel, or community groups seeking investment in public housing or increased welfare payments – because I’m skeptical as always, and fell sad that I have to wait and see.

Takoyaki in a black moon shaped dish — Takoyaki, $10

But first – I turned 43 yesterday and all I wanted was to have Takoyaki and chill, and that I did!

Restaurant inside. Umi sign on wall, a fish lamp and Japanese script

Bruce and I dropped his car off for new tyres – finally spending the money I got from the selective schools supervision earlier this year – then we went to try Umi, the newer of the two Japanese restaurants in Toronto. It’s a bit less fancy that Mizumi which we’ve gone to for many birthdays since it’s been there, and it was very quiet being only 11am on a Tuesday, but there were a few people coming in for their Bento as we were heading out.

japanese lemonane and a coke — Ramune, $6

I normally get lemon iced tea with my Japanese food, but went the ramune today as a special treat. They were tempting me with grape soda though!

Miso soup in a black bowl — Miso soup, $4

We started with some miso soup, the takoyaki and some kara-age chicken. Bruce has been watching more Japanese and other Asian food tourism videos, such as from Dancing Bacons and making me want to travel and eat and eat and travel. But that’s not anywhere near in my future, so local it is!

Kara-age friend chicken with a side of saces — Kara-age chicken, $13

Obviously being my birthday we had to follow the tasty fried goodies with their Umi Supreme Variety of sashimi: Hamachi (Kingfish), Hotate (Scallop), Salmon, Tuna, Octopus (3 pcs each), and Salmon Roe. Love popping the little roe balls in my mouth lol. Tasty fresh fish!

Variety of sashimi: Hamachi (Kingfish), Hotate (Scallop), Salmon, Tuna, Octopus (3 pcs each), and Salmon Roe — Umi Supreme, $42

We left full and happy and in no mood for dessert, so picked up a tray of cake pieces from Coles to graze on later, and browsed some op shops til I got over it and just wanted to go home (via picking up the car with the fresh tyres and avoiding the traffic chaos that seemed to be everywhere yesterday!)

tray of cake slices - lemon tarts, brownies and berry and passionfruit cheesecake — Coles Cake Variety, $22

My parents got us a new coffee machine which was on special during the prime day sales and we’d had our eyes one. Slowly getting the hang on the manual pour and getting the accessories to help make the tasty morning brews.

I’ve also been spoiled by my internet friends, with some items off my wishlists coming already and a few more to come! (and I few I’ve bought with birthday money from other amazing souls!)

lilac backpack and pridge and coffees — Backpack from Leigh and porridge sachets and mocha sachets from Jave from my Amazon list

Hello kitty mug stack — Hello Kitty Mug Stack from Sally off my Amazon wishlist.

So, back to reality after a food coma Tuesday afternoon – I didn’t miss much from the first sitting day of the parliament – lots of speeches and ceremonies and the like. A rally and vigil for Palestine outside parliament has been ongoing and well attended.

They’re introducing the “20% off HECS” bill today which will help a few but again it’s a drop in the ocean compared to recent indexation amounts and the rapid increase in house prices which is the real reason university graduates can’t afford to buy homes, rather than their HECS stopping them.

Hounding people on low incomes for so-called "overpayments" based on dubious data is petty and cruel.

Labor's Centrelink payments are below the poverty line. The last thing recipients need is the Government pursuing them to disprove a dodgy – and often decades old – debt notice. pic.twitter.com/zaE3jalLqn

— Penny Allman-Payne (@senatorpennyqld) July 18, 2025

Historic welfare debts are back, with court backing to pursue them. Labor should have at least legislated the recommended 6 year limit on debt collection, like applies for ATO debts, but they chose not to. They have no excuse not to this term, with their majority overflowing to the opposition benches of the house, but really, they have no will to. Unfortunately there’s gonna be more ugly deaths they can be accounted for by neglect through state enforced poverty.

The red is the blood of Palestinians https://t.co/FvNEYisbvw

— 💜 phonakins 🍉 (@phonakins) July 22, 2025

Meanwhile we get an economic round table with tech, business and mining representatives, but no one from health or disability, even though “Delivering quality care more efficiently” is one of their “productivity pillars“?

One of our local Labor MPs (and deputy speaker) was boasting about their 25% increase in food relief and “financial wellbeing” support – such as financial counselors and food and petrol vouchers and more money for food banks. This is not something to celebrate. You CANNOT budget your way out of poverty – when welfare is half the poverty line you just cannot find that extra money. More happy snaps and warehouses rented, which people just can’t afford to feed and house themselves and their families? Not a win Sharon.

One of my Antipoverty Centre comrades gave me a great birthday present – a few more FOI requests on food relief charities to go through when I can focus on them. Let’s see how they manage to leverage their gearing this year or whatever business words they use for being a middleman between actual humans and often unsuitable food. GO you guys!

Promises, Promises – Health Announceables vs Their Likely Reality this Election

(aka why GPs aren’t going to go back to bulk billing but it might save the few remaining bulk billing practices if you’re lucky to have one near you that caters for ongoing patients and more complex needs aka not an urgent care clinic which has a place but isn’t the answer we’re looking for)

Upcoming Changes to Bulk Billing Incentives in General PracticeStrengthening Medicare with more bulk billing from 1 Nov 2025. The Australian Government is investing $7.9 billion to expand eligibility for bulk billing incentives to all Australians and establish the Bulk Billing Practice Incentive Program to support general practices to bulk bill all patients — The Claim

So, this is the measure that Labor reckons will get bulk billing at GP’s back to 90% of consults. It was a key part of the campaign, along with more urgent care clinics – which are GP practices you can drop into for a one-off consult for something acute but not needing hospital – like back pain or a sprain or something. They say go there for a break but I’m not confident all centres have X-rays so it’d be best to check your local one before deciding there over the Emergency room.

The first version of the increased bulk billing incentives came in for kids and concession card holders in November 2023. If your doctor took it on that’s awesome, but very few did in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie. One local practice will do it for under 14s and over 65s, but not for concession card holders between those ages (or 15-17 year old kids). Most practices, including the one I go to has a discounted upfront fee for concession card holds – some have different levels for blue and green concession card holders and for kids. Upfront GP costs about $100 here with Medicare card only and $80ish for concession, with the $42 rebate for a standard level B consult.

The extra incentive, depending on location, gives an extra $20+ per consult to the practice, if they bulk bill the patient. There’s a loading of 12.5% too in the new version if they bulk bill all patients. They also need patients enrolled in MyMedicare, yeah yet another program rather than upping the medicare benefit paid across the board.

The patient des not get this if they’re privately billed. SO most of us are still going to be out of pocket $40-$60 a visit if we can afford to front up the cash. So, many are still stuck rationing their ongoing healthcare to if they can afford it, or if they can GET to a urgent care clinic (not at all easy by public transport) or waiting it out til it’s an emergency and being thankful in NSW that if you have a concession card you can get free ambulance.

Personally, I’m continuing to schedule my GP appointments for ongoing care and scripts around pension days so I know I’ll have the money upfront. But not everyone can work that, or be able to be down $40-60 after the appointment even with rebates being paid back that night – and not everyone even has a regular GP or one taking on patients in their area.

We’ve used the urgent care clinic for stuff, but it’s completely unsuitable for mental health care or anything ongoing physically.

The base rebate needs to be higher – enough to either incentivise bulk billing or to allow people to get the money together to go knowing they’ll get most of it back to then be able to afford their regular expenses or medications that are prescribed.

Another announceable at the end of April was the “1800MEDICARE“..

Whether you need expert health advice or reassurance, the registered nurses at 1800MEDICARE will be there all day, every day, to provide advice and refer you to the health service you need – whether that’s your regular GP, the local hospital or a Medicare Urgent Care Clinic.

So, at the initial level, the 1800MEDICARE number and service is a rebranding of the Health Direct line, staffed by nurses 24/7 in conjunction with the states. I’ve used that service personally and at work, and have been transferred to them from 000 (don’t worry it wasn’t life threatening) for more thorough triage and consult.

What 1800MEDICARE is adding to this is a GP service between 6pm and 8am, able to give you a prescription after hours when urgent care clinics aren’t open. For me, if I got a script from them it might be helpful and I could fill it at 8:30am weekdays locally when the chemist opened, or if some one was able to drive there’s chemists 15 minutes away open 9-4 Sat, 9-2 Sundays. They can order bloods I guess to then get done in business hours? But I’m not really sure how much more they can offer that the nurse line can’t. So it’s a helpful extra service, but not going to solve the problem people have of not being able to afford to have an ongoing GP.

If you need urgent GP care that can’t wait for your regular GP to be available, the triage nurses will connect you to a free telehealth session with a 1800MEDICARE GP via phone or video, available all weekend and weeknights between 6pm and 8am.

On your phone and in the comfort of your home, a 1800MEDICARE GP will provide the free care you need, like an emergency prescription for your regular medication, or treatment for an illness or injury.

I’m currently waiting for my GP to call, since I changed my appointment today to telehealth since I’ve been snotting up the place. After the call, reception will call me to get my card details for the $80 fee, of which I’ll get $42.85 back from Medicare this evening. Fortunately I have been into the clinic in the last 12 months so I AM eligible for the rebate.

So I’ll save the mental health promises and anything else I think of for next time.

Love yas!

So, Labor, are you going to use your power for the good of the vulnerable or for the good of your donors?

Ahh, well, that was a little disappointing. I remember last election, when Labor got in my mental health nurse saying “you must be happy with that result” and I was extremely cautious in my response, feeling like I was expected to be happy, but very much wanting to wait and see how it panned out for me and the causes I care about.

It all started here.

Growing up, mum was in and out of hospital. Rheumatoid arthritis crippled her joints and she was on the invalid pension.

We lived in public housing. And having a safe, secure roof over our heads meant everything.

For me, politics has always been personal.… pic.twitter.com/7rursL5YCu

— Anthony Albanese (@AlboMP) May 2, 2025

The night before this weekend’s election, Albo wheeled out his childhood and how that set him up for success, and boy were we cynical in response. I mean, Labor has not helped people like his mother at all. Public housing is barely a thing and dwindling slowly. Yes, there may be “social” housing builds but the rent is higher and the conditions less kind to tenants. DSP and other pensions have not gone up this term, despite Labor members claiming so. The only increase in them has been due to legislated inflation and much of that because inflation was so high when Labor came in.

The $20 a week that Jobseekers and Youth received is long gone and was less than the previous governments increase ($25/week) in real dollars.

Rent assistance for those 14% of welfare recipients who get it has gone up to a whole $100/week max with those two “real” increases this last three years. It still isn’t giving people access to private rentals in this country, with Anglicare’s latest snapshot showing someone like Albo’s mum (who would have been unlikely to get DSP for arthritis these days but would have benefitted from Labor reinstating single parent payment for kids up to 14) not being able to afford any private rentals in the greater Sydney area.

So, on Saturday night I had two reactions, one was disappointment and skepticism that Labor will do anything progressive with their second term and continue as they have the last three years – fiddling around the edges, saying they can’t be too bold, working with the LNP to pass watered down legislation like the NACC through the senate. The other part of me wants to be hopeful that the “just give them time” people actually were right and they will actually be bold this term because they have no opposition to fear losing to. (I really don’t believe this but I WANT to be proven wrong about this for so many reasons)

"If we were going to make changes, then why haven’t we?"

can I apply that to everything else we thought you'd make changes on @AlboMP?https://t.co/6RMoeRl0HH pic.twitter.com/KOugbIODEr

— 💜 phonakins 🍉 speak because your voice shakes (@phonakins) May 1, 2025

Our work here has barely begun. We saw the glimmers of hope that there was becoming enough glaring evidence before the election that the suspensions to payments and compulsory activities for JobSeekers and younger disability pension recipients were illegal as well as useless and expensive to administer for few positive and many negative impacts.

One in 5 adult suicides are on the JobSeeker payment. Fourteen per cent are on the Disability Support Pension.

Something needs to give – payments needs to be raised above the poverty line. The country can “afford” it, it won’t impact your precious inflation in any significant way, and the benefits to the health and happiness of people should be enough to sway even the most miserly. It’s the right thing to do.

There ARE easy fixes, and the government has the evidence it needs to implement them. It just needs to want to do it and stop sacrificing the poor.

6 weeks until the People Against Poverty Summit. Trying to get my rest on so I can get back into helping with preparations and be able to travel u there for in and a few other things we may plan for the week before or after. I worked Friday and Saturday supervising exams which rekt me and gave me a cold, and I’m trying to remind myself I made the right call to decline working the Sunday at the last minute even though the money would have been great it would have knocked me out for the week for sure. Pacing pacing, both physically and socially – it takes a lot out of me.

There was a pre-conference online session last week on running a street kitchen – given the despair some a feeling it’s worth a watch if you want some ideas for help to help people practically in your immediate community.

If you’re in a position to help us with the costs of getting people in poverty to the conference, consider donating here. Or if you’re able to host someone from out of town or want help to attend, check the linktree.

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).

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:

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.

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:

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