With MPs heading back to Canberra, what’s on your wishlist this cost-of-living crisis?

Saturday afternoon saw a flutter of tweets speculating about what might be served up to us plebs after Labor MPs return to Canberra early to solve the cost-of-living crisis and their slump in the important but not important at all polls.

I have my theories about what is possible and likely. And since I have a personal blog I get to write about them, with no qualifications other than I, too, am here in this country at this time, reading news and feeling the vibes.

Extending the energy rebates – This is an easy one as they’re only set for this financial year, so Labor will pop them into the May budget and probably even further expanded. I know they vary by state, but people already receiving concessions on their bills here in NSW got $125 a quarter off their bills automatically, and it was recently expanded to more families, but you have to apply. Not sure if they’ll up the value, or give it to more people. But it will be there for 24/25 and in place for the 2025 election.

Increasing the energy supplement in welfare payments – This famously hasn’t risen since its introduction in 2013 is it isn’t indexed. I get $10.60 a fortnight as a partnered disability pensioner. Could I see them doubling that supplement? Maybe? No, it’s not a huge amount extra, but it’d be extra targeted at the poorest on a hot item. It wouldn’t come in immediately though, might not even be til September if it’s a May Budget item.

Back to school payments – Yeah, it’s always a hot topic at this time of year, how expensive it is to send kids to public school, uniform and shoe costs, materials, backpacks, laptops and more. But it seems more pointed this year, perhaps it comes alongside the increasing stories of families living in tents, when they then have to find money for a laptop, let alone a place to reliably use it or charge it. It would be popular and really couldn’t be criticised. Cash payments to parents of school aged kids, non-means tested would be the fastest way and the most effective – but they do love their vouchers :/ It would take immediate heat off the government too, because they’ll need sometime that looks like it’s happening NOW, and feeding a clothing kids looks good.

Welfare Payments – I don’t see an increase to base rates happening this budget outside indexation, which is why I think the energy supplement may be a way to go about increasing the amount people are getting slightly, without angering the usual. I mean I WANT them to raise all payments above the poverty line, and I will push for that and ask for that and make arguments for it. But I don’t see it coming from this meeting, and not in the May budget. Would we believe them in they take it the the election though without any significant movement in the previous years? Yeah nah. That ship has sailed for Labor and unless they do blindside us in May with significant increases, particularly at the JobSeeker and Youth Allowance rates, noone’s going to believe their “good intentions” come 2025.

Rejig of Stage Three – Greg Jericho and The Australia Institute have done the legwork for them, giving them a model that flattens out the cuts a bit more while not removing them completely. You need to remember Labor voted for the bill in the first place and have been extremely insistent on keeping that promise to the top end. It also leaves them with money to put towards those other payments. I mean, they COULD just bring back the Low and Middle Income Tax Offset that was so sorely missed last year, that hit a lot of people unexpectedly. It’s an option. They won’t scrap stage three though.

A picture of Lego Unikitty with a tie and glasses drawn on, speech bubble with the quote “Business, business, business. Numbers. Is this working?”

Business business business (is this working?) – I really don’t know or care what they do for businesses, I’m sure that there will be heaps. Yeah, my partner is self employed but we really don’t get any of the subsidies and such that are out there at this level *shrugs*

From the previous cost of living measures that haven’t excited me all that much, I don’t think this meeting will bring more rent assistance, and while personally more money is nice rent assistance is way too little too late and not given to enough people. They need to buy more public housing now, since building is going to take forever. Acquire vacant properties, put them in the public housing pool in a couple of months. Maybe they’ll extended the increased medicare bulk billing incentive? But to who and how? And is it too late with doctors dropping bulk billing as I type? They won’t do anything with medicines, that was already a big one. Unless they lower the safety nets? Personally I need less upfront costs for medical care and medicines, not rebates that kick in later. If I avoid the doctor cos the upfront cost is too high, I’ll never reach the safety net. And I’ll be more expensive down the track.

What do you think will come out of Wednesday’s meeting and the May budget and will it actually make a difference to you?

 

My NBN now won’t be installed til Feb 29? But I was supposed to propose that day!

Yes, the internet connection saga continues.

A brief recap.

Found out we were moving here early December and called TPG to arrange the move on November 22. Initially I was a little disappointed that I’d only get NBN 25 here, but when I was on the phone the guy said, s’all good, aftr the move you’ll be contacted by NBN to upgrade to fibre to the premises within a couple of months. Cool, I can deal with that.

We do the major move on December 5, and I get a text saying install will be on Friday. Well, at least I read it as the 8th of December, because that was the same week, and not the date actually in the text, 08/01/2024.

So I realise that my internet won’t be connected for another month and I give TPG a call on the Friday, assuming that it was a mistake and I could get it that year.

No, apparently I couldn’t and the 8th was the first available appointment from NBNco. Lack of technicians and high demand, apparently. I cried, yeah. Classy, hey? The woman on the phone consoles me and says best she can do is the 5th, would I take that. I do of course.

And then I wait. And Christmas comes and goes. The kids have moved out, New Years is done, ad I’m home on January 5, awaiting the technician. After watching videos about the install and getting half a dozen texts confirming that install on the 5th and that someone would be home.

Oh and they debit the usual $75 that morning for the slow plan.

I get to 10, and I get the text that they’ll be calling me about the install. then a few minutes later one rescheduling the install til the 17th. Yeah, no happy.

 

Talked to them and cried. And they agree to credit my account and see about a cash refund but couldn’t guarantee that.

Then I get the text telling me it’ll be between 8 and 12 the Saturday.

11ish Saturday the tech calls me to tell me he’s on a job that’s taking forever 45 minutes away on the other side of the lake, and he’ll text to let me know when he’s on his way.

I see him about 3.45pm.

He does his thing, installs the necessary hardware in the house. But he can’t complete the job, since there’s no a connection to the house he can use, and the pit has asbestos, and he doesn’t have the tickets for that but someone should be out within the week.

I get the refund credited back to my bank. That’s nice.

Time passes and late last week, early this week techies work in the pit and connect fibre from two houses down to ours and then presumably to our house when they’re digging right outside my wall.

And then I wait.

Two more texts. Identical.

Noone calls in the first 24 hours period, nor the second. I’m at group lamenting my lack on connectivity because all I really wanna do is go rabbit and deer hunting in Red Dead Online, but I take a breath and say I’ll call this afternoon if I don’t hear anything.

And then I get the text at the start of the post, saying my install date in Feb 29. First of all I look at Bruce and ask if there’s a Feb 29th this year. Yeah, there is. So, I finish sorting my pills and call TPG.

Maybe my mistake is I didn’t cry, but they couldn’t offer me anything better, citing message from NBN saying that’s the best that they can do due to staffing and demand.

I don’t really know what happened to just getting NBN 25 in the mean time either, I asked and was told no this is what we’re doing with the fibre since the fibre’s ready to go.

So, I’m relived I stuck with my big Aldi mobile plan that’s I’ve accumulated data on. That recharged overnight for $95 (I was going to go down to the $55 plan with just me and Bruce with the kids doing their own thing). So at least I didn’t chance going to the smaller plan this week. So, We’ve got plenty of data to use tethering our phones to our PCs, but I can’t get back to doing a bunch of the online stuff that require more reliable service – for example I can watch streams but they cut out or slow regularly, no chance I could upstream or play online games.

I can still talk shit on Twitter, and NBN co has just contacted me there to follow up on this saga, so let’s see how that goes?

Ahh nothing hopeful

In the meantime, any ladies out there planning to propose to their men on February 29, since that’s apparently the only day we should do it?

 

 

How Labor Ensured the Death of Universal Bulk Billing

Yes yes, the LNP froze the Medicare rebates for years, pushing GPs away from being able to bulk bill all their patients, but many still chose to bulk bill, or offered bulk billing to kids and concession card holders. Others moved to private billing entirely, with some offering a slightly lower upfront cost if you’re a cardholder, but not all.

In all the cases where the GP is choosing to bulk bill or take a lower upfront payment they are effectively having to absorb that cost into the practice and have to covered by full fee paying patients.

But the changed to have a different bulk billing incentive for those that have a concession card and those that don’t has certainly stopped some bulk billing non-eligible patients, as they would then be worth $13 less per consultation, and where is the sense of obligation to bulk bill regular patients if they are worth less on the books than those with concessions and kids?

The RACGPs recommends a level B consult fee of just over $100. So, when they bulk-bill a patient, they are accepting a lower payment than if they charged them privately. If they private bill though, the patient will only get the regular rebate back, and that $20 is lost to the empty promises.

Who does the bulk billing incentive apply to? This incentive only applies to the following vulnerable patient groups, and only if they are bulk billed: Children under 16 years Commonwealth concession card holders (Centrelink or DVA cards): Pensioner Concession Card Health Care Card Commonwealth Seniors Health Card How much is the bulk billing incentive? The bulk billing incentive applies to eligible patients as per the following locations: Metro (MMM1): $20.65 Regional centres (MMM2): $30.15 Large-medium rural towns (MMM3-4): $31.95 Small rural towns (MMM5): $34.05 Remote communities (MMM6): $35.80 Very remote communities (MMM7): $39.65

So, when Labor defend the stage three tax cuts with the bulk billing incentives and the chance they make a difference to people’s ability to access the medical care they need, I laugh and cry.

If you’re on $45k, you’re unlikely to have a health care card (you might if you have a family member with a disability) so your 43c a week isn’t exactly going to cover the $90 upfront my GP charges, or the $70 with concession. You might be able to buy some of that “summer sports gear” for a certain upcoming long weekend, but you won’t be able to cover the “$30” meds that went up to $31.60 on Jan 1.

So, while the LNP starved Medicare, by creating a three-tier system, Labor are killing the last of the will for universal bulk-billing. So every time they tout the tripled bulk billing incentive, remember that it only applies to kids under 16, concession card holders and some eligible Indigenous Australians, and so leaves out the precious middle Australia that I thought they were trying to win over? No?

Who even is the Labor target market these days?

First week back on EveryPlate

Aaaaand it’s good to be back with some sort of order, this time in the form of getting the ingredients for 6 meals a week delivered by EveryPlate and me not having to think too much after 5pm. Started Monday with chicken penne since Bruce’s son was over and the pasta usually goes a long way.

Bruce picked the nachos for Wednesday night. Crisped up the tortillas just right in the oven.

I thought I’d try getting a fish since there was one on the regular menu – they’re usually only on the upgrade ones that end up being $10 more for the meal for us two so I don’t. This was butter and garlicky yums.

Yeah, this was good.

Stretched this one by using oven fries that we’ve been trying to clear from the fridge since the kids moved out.

Tatery cottage pie!

And this week:

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25 degrees at 8am

What do you mean it was hot last night? I mean it was warm though the day, but it just didn’t cook down. And here’s the proof from the Govee tracker I have set up in my bedroom to report back to Better Renting’s summer tracking.

And this was after Bruce put the aircon back on in the living room around 3am to hopefully push some relief down the hallway to us. We had our ceiling fan and Bunnings fan going all night, window was open, closed it when the aircon went back on, but no luck. No wonder I had to strip off and woke up feeling dehydrated and grumpy.

The news keep talking about the humidity and the high dew point, and yeah, while the temp’s only been a tad over thirty you start dripping when you leave your car or and other aircon. Even had the fogging up glasses going in one transition this morning!

So I don’t know the best approach. Our new home has an air con in the living room, where we spend our days so we use that. But we’d gotten used to having the aircon in the sleeping area from sleeping in the living room at the last place after the kids and bub moved in. We have a spare queen mattress from the bed that’s not assembled so we could drag that to the living room for the next month or so for spells sleeping out here. The mattress is okay but not ideal like that.

Decisions decisions.

a frozen fruit

In the mean time, it’s snacks of Frozen Poppers and Zooper Doopers to keep the sugar and the spirits up. At least Zooper Doopers were half price when I was at woolies yesterday!