Hey if it’s good enough to acknowledge that Defense and the Industries that make the money off it need two portfolios, why not come out and admit that’s what you and the minister for Charities are really about, with his stated aims to double donations to charities by 2030, ensuring that government has less to do with supporting people than supporting the well-meaning white women that do.
Meanwhile, Tony Burke has given up on ignoring Workforce Australia and is reminiscing about the glory days of introducing the policy that ensure refugees that arrived by boat wouldn’t settle in this country, leading the many years of deaths and torture on nearby dentition islands. Murray Watt has picked up Employment, and is soon to learn that it’s like herding cats rather than sheep and you should just give in to the evidence based demands of livable welfare payments and scrap punitive policies like Work for the Dole and the Cashless Welfare cards in all their forms.
Shorten has reinforced his true white-supremacist/Eugenicist leaning by becoming a founding member of Labor Friends of Israel, whatever the fuck that is, and Peter Kahill wants to maintain social cohesion and the veneer of niceness with the special envoy role while no-one wants to touch the Islamophobia special envoy and Albo’s hoping that, like the prospect of a Republic will be quickly forgotten.
It’s the run-up to the election for sure, whether they call it early or we get to hold out til May, but it’s where we’re at.
Did you miss me while I was Twitter banned? I’m back baby!
Mother knows best, they say. But sometimes mother takes too much time considering Father’s feelings and need for things to remain the same forever and bites her tongue at the key moment to keep the peace, and nothing changes, or, it gets worse.
Why yes, I am a well-meaning white woman. And *gasp* I used to be a lady who lunched, flying to different capital cities, but mostly Melbourne, to discuss the future of that well know white woman profession, Speech Pathology. (I was ACT Branch president of Speech Pathology Australia for 4 years, and there were many white woman lunches). I’m white, university educated and if I didn’t have all this anxiety I’d probably exude a little more authority on topics I may speak on, even if I speak over someone with better ideas and more experience. But does this actually help the situation? Do we achieve the incremental change that was probably coming anyway, thank the bread givers for the crumbs and wait for the next convenient time to ask for a little more? Or do we push harder, and make people uncomfortable, and make them question their priorities. Is my priority the seat at the table or making sure there’s more diversity at the table, or is it flipping the kitchen table and finding a new way to have this conversation?
Well meaning student speech pathologists
Well-meaning white women are well skilled in trying to achieve what is important FOR the people they advocate for. I’ll go back to speech pathology because it’s where I’ve been for an example. It’s important that Grandad doesn’t aspirate on liquids after his stroke right, because this might lead to a chest infection and aspiration pneumonia can lead to death. So it’s important FOR Grandpa that, since there’s evidence he aspirates on his beer with his mates (some goes into his lungs rather than being swallowed cleanly), he is advised that he mustn’t drink beer any more, or perhaps have it thickened to a safer consistency. Grandpa smiles and nods at the young lady offering this advice and thickener samples, but then has a beer anyway, dealing with the coughing and the risk this yeasty treat might cause him.
But what’s important TO Grandpa here is the ritual of having his beer. It’s being able to have that normality after other aspects of his life have been taken away from him after the stroke. He may not have his license any more so has lost that independence, or he takes his other beverages thickened when at home – his wife thickens his tea and he reluctantly sips from a thickened bottle of cordial to stay hydrated in summer. But he knows the risks he takes, he’s read the brochures from the health service, he’s discussed it with his wife. So there’s duty of care and dignity of risk.
Another classic well meaning white woman is the child protection worker, who of course has a myriad of factors to take into account for a child’s safety, but may not consider that cultural safety is just as important as not being exposed to certain dangers. It’s a fine line that the well-meaning white woman walks, with policies and procedures, her own experiences and ideas of what’s right, and the threats to the status quo of trying things a different way. I don’t envy those roles, I probably could work in them and then find myself burnt out so fast from trying to just get it right.
But it’s when there’s not an imminent danger when the well-meaning white woman’s reluctance to ask for, or to DEMAND more, from those running the show or holding the purse strings needs to be examined, picked apart and thrown out. She needs to be willing to stop playing nice, stop upholding her place at the table, stop being so deferent and polite about it all. You need to start pulling your support when they just keep pretending to listen to you but then give nothing.
Lidia Thorpe at the Midwinter Ball
I’m referring here to all the committees and consultations that have come and gone over the first two years of Labor in the disability and welfare spheres. The Voice referendum and how quickly nothing came of that once the no vote was clear. How Lidia Thorpe and other Blak women who pointed out the obvious flaws of the Voice as it stood were thrown under the bus to keep things nice within their parties and organisations. How the Economic Inclusion Committee, run by well meaning white woman Jenny Macklin, put their evidence based arguments for significant increases to welfare to the Labor party that neat two weeks before budgets TWICE, in order to there be nothing done, and for ACOSS and other saying Thank you for $20 here and there, and more money for Commonwealth Rent Assistance that just pushes rents along their merry way and doesn’t achieve change in the lives of people who don’t have a roof over their head or if they do can’t afford the other necessities in life.
How you can have another post-budget lunch with the treasurer and listen to his spiel on “responsible” measures that don’t impact inflation, but don’t impact anything else really. Jim Chalmers refers to the conversations Australian families are having around their kitchen tables, about what he thinks they are talking about anyway. If you have a kitchen table, what are your conversations about? The people who are left behind are still left behind, and fall even further behind if you don’t even let them catch up.
Julian Hill was in my dreams last night, I was remembering before the start of the most recent Workforce Australia enquiry he had a video call with some of use from AUWU and the Antipoverty Centre, telling us how much he looked forward to our input and how much he valued our lived experience. And then he proceeded to reaffirm the myth of the dole bludger and the value of work for the dole at any chance he got. And what did we get from that? More reassurance that better things aren’t possible and that the status quo must be maintained. And there’s still silence on what the government will do about the recommendations from the Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People With Disability. So we see more puff pieces about scented candles being made for sub-minimum wage while their employers make money off their labour and have expenses covered by the NDIS but crickets on raising the wages of disabled people to the same level as everyone else. They’re supposed to go to half the minimum wage this year and to minimum wage by 2034, in case you were wondering what was recommended.
Julian Hill is asked why Labor outsources employment services & isn't rebuilding a public service
"You couldn't do it" because "all of the service provision is sitting outside in privates & not for profits"
So, while these little committees and organisations may look nice, if you’re not working to include the voices of “others” – those actually affected by the policies you make you crust discussing day in day out, to actually listen to them, to amplify them, to give them prominence about your own, are you actually going to achieve change, or are you working to maintain the status quo, to ensure your organisation keeps getting a seat at the big boys table, the funding grant, because you tell them what they want to hear and let them make the bare minimum change. You get your car lease renewed for another year, your seat in parliament, and they system keeps ticking along while nothing really changes and people continue to suffer.
Palestinians don’t have ten years for nice little motions that maintain the status quo, that uphold apartheid Israel. Homeless people are dying in the cold, but, sure, worry about how raising welfare to the poverty line might affect inflation (when your committees say it won’t) and continue to cosplay homelessness in CEO sleepouts in secure underground carparks, while you have the power to legislate meaningful, immediate change.
So, as a well meaning white woman, I need to step back and reflect on how I’m enabling the status quo by allowing other voices to be silenced because they don’t use the right words or have the right educational background. Am I just paying lip service to lived experience or am I amplifying the knowledge and strengths of people whose voice may not be so polite and tidy, but have the knowledge and the experience to express the need for real reform.
Even if you think you can say it better, stand back, give someone else a chance. They may very well be better than you. Isn’t that scary?
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.
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.
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
I wonder what would happen if Canberra rough sleepers set up for a night in the APH underground carpark https://t.co/SP1ppHRBBx
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.
Jim Chalmers spruiked the simplicity of his first budget, but as the price of items rises faster than the rate of welfare – is it really ‘bread and butter’ for struggling households? #QandApic.twitter.com/p0eECVajlR
A couple of days ago we heard that there was gonna be some sort of increase to the useless rent assistance payment in this budget. That turned out to be 10% from September 20’s next indexation, up to $9/week depending on how much you already get, if you’re one of people who can actually access it. If my rent goes up less than $10/week at the end of the year (if I’m lucky enough to get a renewed lease hey) I’ll be shocked. Shocked.
5000 people on JobSeeker who have assessed work capacity of <15 hours (and by all rights should be on DSP if the rules for that weren’t so restrictive) will get a slightly higher rate of Jobseeker, like the over 55s who have been on Jobseeker for 9 months or more. I guess it’s their substitute for not having a sickness benefit – so Cancer patients can afford to pay for parking at the hospital for treatment or something.
No actual JobSeeker or other welfare increases, despite the hopes and prayers of the community sector and the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. Thoughts and prayers that I beg them to at least persist with for the next 12 months, because Labor can’t be re-electable without a plan to bring welfare payments to the poverty line in their 2025 election promises.
The $300 energy bill subsidy for all is less than pensioners and families got this financial year (you might be getting some extra in Qld or WA from their state labor governments going to elections this year), and won’t be felt by those who don’t need it and $50 less subsidy a quarter WILL be felt by me. So Yeah. Not impressed. Also, straight to the billing company, quarter by quarter no chance of using it in one hit to catch up or to use for something else. (or someone else if you want to spend your subsidies and tax cuts on Andrew Leigh’s dream of a doubled charity sector by 2030).
Medicines are being capped at their current top rates ($7.70 for pensioners, $31.60 for everyone else) for a few years. So that’ll mean getting less behind, something I yelled about them doing sooner, and yay they’ve done it. Which is great, cos I’ve been having health concerns, and having to pay upfront for the GP isn’t going anywhere for most of us as most GPs haven’t returned to bulk billing, and the average gap in $44 a session now. My scans and blood tests were bulk billed last week, but still need $76 upfront for an appointment for follow-up so I’m going on Friday, pension day!
I’ll leave you with the darling Catherine Caine, brains behind Nobody Deserves Poverty, and her budget reaction from last night.
