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
— đ phonakins đ 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.Â
Post presser lunch at the Kingston Hotel – giant parmi!
And my bewbs made this really good Crikey article from press conference day:
Weâre 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 â 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 shouldnât 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.
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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, butÂ
Welfare recipients -are sick of politicians’ shit and the media and peak groups using them but nothing coming of it.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.Â
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.
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