So, I got access to a FOI (freedom of information) request about a grant “Grant agreements and expenditure reports for identified grants with Oz Harvest, SecondBite, Foodbank Australia” through my Antipoverty Centre connections. I’d like to say it’s shocking but then it’s all so fucking broken out there than it doesn’t surprise me any more that these organisations use language like “capturing new markets” and talk about how the “gearing” of certain essential items is better than others and they’re happy to source from overseas if it means better gearing.
So one way Foodbank sources staples is the "collaborative supply program" where the supplier donates the indigents but foodbank pays for the production. Thus the Vetta povvo branded pasta for $1 at your local food pantry pic.twitter.com/5RR9ieFfSx
— 💜 phonakins 🍉 speak because your voice shakes (@phonakins) April 8, 2025
I did learn more about how their povvo pasta and similar “collaborative supply program” products work – the company donates the ingredients and Foodbank pays for the production (then on-sells the items to local food pantries aka “emergency relief organisations” EROs). They also purchase other staples direct at mates rates – at least 40% below retail price, more often 50%. Which again then gets sold onto local EROs for distribution (sale or giving out.
I also read about how the “food rescue” organisations like OzHarvest and SecondBite source extra produce if it’s in high demand – yeah they buy it using grant money. Not so food recue anymore.
One of the organisations also noted that there was high demand for gift cards – again not food rescue anymore – but that doesn’t help supply food on the ground if there’s a natural disaster.
So much money is spent on transport and warehousing and “relationships” and advertising and branding and so on.
The major supermarkets in this country – Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, IGA and Foodbank.
Just give people enough money to afford to feed themselves maybe? FFS
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).
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!
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’re here today to remember the absolute relief people felt when the Covid supplement was announced.
The coronavirus supplement in 2020 showed that governments can choose to lift people out of poverty overnight. With the supplement, people were happier and healthier – able to buy fresh fruit and vegetables and the medications they needed. Many were able to actually find work in this time without the added survival pressures of poverty. Keeping people in poverty is unnecessary, and subsidies are no substitute to giving people cash to support themselves.
It shouldn’t take a crisis for governments to support their people to thrive. Current rates for all welfare payments are currently under the poverty line leaving millions struggling to feed and house themselves, let alone have the health, money and energy to participate in their community.
As we approach a budget and an election, we implore the current and prospective governments to commit to raising the rate of all welfare payments above the poverty line immediately. If Labor wanted to they could pass it next week.
To a likely crossbench with the balance of power – what can you ask for for your communities that will lift standards of living across the board? Welfare above the poverty line for all – jobseekers, students, youth, parents, seniors, disabled people. None of them deserve poverty. Nobody Deserves Poverty.
The fabulous artwork commissioned from Judy Kuo to march 5 years since the Covid supplement. If you’d like to contribute to the fee for the commission this is the link. If you donate $25+ you’ll get a free poster of the piece.
Today I’m in Canberra for a press conference marking five years since the introduction of the “Covid Supplement” – $550 a fortnight added to welfare payments for some months in 2020 while the initial lockdowns were in effect. 99% of the reason for doing it had to be Morrison and co seeing the lines snaking out of Centrelink offices as casual and other workers were set aside. Personally, I was on a 20 hr/week contract, but usually working full time hours, but when disability respites and day programs shut down – the places where all my work was – I was cut back to 20 max, and took hours from others working above their contracted hours in group homes.
I went back onto JobSeeker at that time, able to receive the supplement only some weeks, other weeks topped up by the base payment depending on my hours and how many were at penalty rates for weekends and the like. It kept me ticking along, knowing that bills were covered. And when I did lose my job, JobSeeker was still higher than it is now, and easier to survive on (oh and rent was way less).
I was able to keep seeing my private psych occupational therapist who got me started on dialectical behavioural therapy while I was on the waitlist, again, for the centre for psychotherapy. She’s the one who got me over the line for my dsp application in the end so money well spent. I was helped by family to keep seeing her after the supplement went and before I got back into public psych. Many don’t have that though and would have just bounced around trying to make do.
Not everyone got the supplement though – for example those on DSP didn’t get the supplement and there were some seriously considering transferring to JobSeeker at that time to be able to actually have more money coming in (a terrible option for them which I hope very few took up and were able to get back onto DSP if they did). International students are other non-citizen workers were also left without any support while being limited in their options to work or leave the country.
Unlike JobKeeper which was giving to business under the pretense they’d keep workers on when in reality many just boosted their bottom lines with it – the supplement and also the cash stimulus payments went directly to the people, who were then able to spend it how they chose to survive and make their lives better in that time. Yes, this wound up back in the shop tils. But that’s win-win. People get things they need and want and businesses get to tick along.
Raising welfare permanently above the poverty line would do that too – people would be able to spend their money on the things they need to survive and thrive. That could be groceries or healthcare, but it can also be things to bring joy and peace, like art supplies, or seeing friends occasionally for a coffee (we all know the importance of coffee shops in the economy and media and therefor our lives) or whatever little things spark joy. People deserve joy.
Join us (a group of people from antipoverty organisations) on Monday night to reminisce about what having welfare payments above the poverty line actually did for people. It’s the day before Jim’s Election Budget, so have a think about what you would want him to put in it to make life livable for people on welfare payments.
It’s here guys! After the webpage being embargoed for what seemed like forever, the March 20 indexation of welfare payments has finally come out, and are you ready to spend up?
Don't be misled by false claims that pensions are up.
They've not gone up more than indexation for the last 3 years.
On my partner rate pension, I’ll be getting $3.50 “extra” a fortnight in my bank account. Looking at yesterday’s Aldi receipt, that’s worth about 600g of tomatoes or 3 tins of tuna or 2 UHT milks.
Who will be the first Labor MP to brag about this? I am going to mail them a 'bragged about automatic indexation again award' award pic.twitter.com/CzK6hup4wY
Let’s add in that 80c rent assistance “boost” and the $4.30 a fortnight covers a couple tins of dog food. And you know that’s where I spend my money first before anything for us lol Fortunately my rent only went up $10 a week last year so I’m not as behind as some who’ll lose out from this, especially if the thresholds mean their rent assistance goes down this year :/ Looking to my Aldi receipt there is nothing under 80c on there, even my mineral water is 89c a bottle.
Rent assistance indexation
For those on jobseeker, $3.10 a fortnight will find its way to your account. And the supplements aren’t going up any of course.
JobSeeker indexation
They better not dare use us as election fodder. We will kick back.
If you appreciate my posts, please subscribe to get them free in your email as soon as I hit publish. Please also consider supporting me or buying me a present if you have the spare cash (welfare recipients please DO NOT BUY)
Been doing some reminiscing of sorts in preparations for the 5th anniversary or the COVID supplement and the long pause of “mutual” obligations. I was NOT in a good place back then, but I was getting the covid supplement after my hours got dramatically cut after disability respites and day programs closed down and we got cut to minimum contracted hours wherever they could place us in residential settings. I was then still getting it when I did eventually lose my job, and was looking at my bank statements shocked to see my total Newstart payment (single) including rent assistance was only $90 less than my (partner) DSP and rent assistance now – $970 vs $1061.60.
We’re getting the “boost” of, I’m told, 0.4% thanks to low inflation from March $20, which’ll take it to around $1065, give or take. Thanks Labor!
The best part of getting DSP was the removal of mutual obligations. It left me free to participate in therapy, do my little advocacy stuff, help family and friends, and just exist peacefully as possible. I’ve actually been doing a small amount of paid work in the past year, mostly online, but also exam supervision and before that election work. Stuff I can do when I have the energy and mental capacity and things that take my interest. I’ve had people approach me about applying for (social) media work with more hours, and I’m not up for that yet consistently but yeah, I’m starting to see more how that could work for me, and for them, and the knowledge that I might actually be a useful engine is nice. It’s also great to know that I do have the DSP to back me up, even if I am working, if I need to step back there’s that.
Being on DSP and my own timetable means I can also torture myself by watching Senate estimates, such as the session last week with DEWR Secretary Natalie James and Minister Murray Watt.
The government has not investigated the deaths of those who had their payments unlawfully cancelled, nor have they been instructed to do so either. It's time to end "mutual" obligations once and for all. 🧵 pic.twitter.com/96r1TMZH53
— Antipoverty Centre (@antipovertycent) March 2, 2025
Yesterday during senate estimates the government admitted they think their welfare compliance system may not be operating lawfully. Watch 👇🏻 pic.twitter.com/ilgY3A3DAP
What I got from the session was that the department is not confident that people aren’t being suspended due to errors with their system. What they have done is stopped cancellations at this point, more due to the recent discovery that their guidelines say they’re not meant to cut off anyone who doesn’t have any money saved (which is basically everyone) – but that doesn’t mean they can’t just keep suspending people, which is effectively the same since you have no money if you’re not getting your welfare payment.
So the department doesn’t know if they’re cutting people off incorrectly (let alone illegally) and they seem to be happy to continue with enforcing mutual obligations. They’re happy with how it’s going, and seem more concerned about “provider viability” than whether people are being left without any money to feed and house themselves, about whether they’re putting people in danger of suicide or other misadventure.
And that’s just those ten. We know others who are still owed money from being cut off incorrectly or illegally who haven’t received repayment, so there’s likely more out there who aren’t doing so well.
It’s a mess. And that’s without even getting to the well known issues people have with their providers cutting them off because they weren’t marked present for a meeting, or demanding people complete phone meetings in a cyclone when mutual obligations have been stopped in preparation for a disaster.
(I’m also concerned for the staff who are presumably at home preparing themselves and being made to make unnecessary phone calls to people)
I haven’t heard if the pause has even gone through to people on the Workforce Australia app or by SMS, but wouldn’t be surprised if people are notified after the fact like during the rolling pause at the start of the year.
So yeah, a sorta apology (“I absolutely and unreservedly apologise on behalf of the department that we cannot have full confidence in this system delivering what it’s intended to deliver”) for a known error but keeping the system that is still possibly illegally cutting people off their tiny subsistence payments while you get it looked into isn’t going to cut it anymore. You can’t just say sorry for a known error that’s killed people, and have related errors still under investigations and needing to be paid back (let alone compensated) and still say you trust in the system and are happy to have it doing this because you aren’t turning your mind to it.
Suspend mutual obligations now, while you get your house in order. But why would you when nothing but promotions and excuses came from Robodebt.
And that’s before we actually talk about how much harm, rather than the expected help, is caused by “providers”.
(Preferably get rid of them altogether and create a voluntary, effective, public job-getting support service that people actually WANT to engage with)
But my updated GTA has downloaded and I’m gonna go cause some chaos.
