Where we at?

Got a rental inspection this Tuesday so tidying up. Yeah it’s soon, but I’ve generally had one a month after moving into a new place. We’ve already got it to a way better cleanliness standard than what we moved into, and Bruce has done amazing things in the yard. So as long as they don’t care about the burnt patch of lino from my little fire day two here, all it good. Sounds like Bruce’s kids and their mum finally have to move out of their place, so I’m crossing my fingers and toes for them to find a suitable rental.

Nobody Deserves Poverty

Still no internet. Called TPG this morning at the suggestion of NBN to see if there was any sooner install dates, no there isn’t Feb 29 is sooner than any others that are available – March 11 is where you’d be booked in for now. I also asked for a wireless dongle and they’re sending one with 60gig a month for three months on it – it’s more for Bruce than for me, his phone either isn’t liking being tethered all the time or was dying either way.

Trying to do little things that are really big things to work towards my goals this year. Got a busy Valentine’s Day coming up with the Kflay concert I’ve been dying for down at the Oxford Arts Factory! Gotta figure out how to do the Antipoverty Centre AGM before that – prolly just on my phone and get to Sydney early or something. We’ll see. I’m putting myself forward for a board role, so we’ll see how that goes. I’m actually nominating ahead unlike basically gatecrashing the AUWU AGM and elections and being relieved I missed out on the ordinary member role on their committee of management. Those selected are awesome and certainly deserved it.

One of the things I said I want to be able to do is go down to Sydney for things and be safe and sober and trust myself and be trusted by my partner. It’s been nearly three years since I’ve had a drink, and don’t really want to. But not yet to the point of coming off the Antabuse. Maybe this year.

Looks like I’m going to be doing more on the Nobody Deserves Poverty campaign this year too, at least up until the May Budget. Most Australians don’t think anyone does deserve to live in poverty, but seem to still excuse their politicians keeping welfare payments below the poverty line, so hopefully we can get more mainstream discussion on that (ugh, Facebook), get people talking about it and too their reps, get more organisations to sign on and push for welfare rates to be lifted above the poverty line in the May Budget. ALL payments, because yes, Jobseeker and Youth allowance are appallingly low, but carers, parenting and pensions are also still below the poverty line. A rising tide lifts all ships. And we need more voices of Welfare recipients in pollies’ ears when they’re still making comments about $180k not being a lot…

Nobody Deserves Poverty

We sold the AU so we now have money to repair the other Ford. And I can justify going full Hello Kitty on the Corolla. If you wanna help with the HelloKittyfication, there’s some items on my wishlist that would be sweet additions. That also means that some days I’m carless so really miss the NBN more and can’t wait til Feb 29 and decent internet and streaming my favourite games – hunting wabbits in Red Dead online and grinding in GTA. I have a couple of games I’ve downloaded to play offline, but I miss those one s in particular.

Opinion Pieces Wednesday, 19th January 2022 No one left behind in Labor blueprint for better future First published in the Australian on Jan 18 2022

Emma’s Kitchen Morisset

So we’ve started on trying to local takeaway options for our seventh meal of the week. We intended to get to Emma’s Kitchen last Friday but stopped at Cooranbong when we saw the Cob Shop van and had that (roadside cob loafs?! Awesome idea). But we made it there last night after the cool change came through, and they were yummy yummy burgers.

I had the Greek Lamb burger in the combo with chips with chicken salt and a can of Solo for $16. The chips were awesome, the burger so fresh 🙂

Bruce got the Chicken Caesar burger for $14 and the $10 cheeseburger. That cheeseburger was far from small and the chicken caesar exactly what you’d expect with bacon and a dressing.

We took the burgers and the dog to Cooranbong and ate near one of the cemeteries. enjoying that cool change and the breeze that same with it.

Emma’s Kitchen

FREEMANS DRIVE ROUNDABOUT, Morisset, NSW, Australia, New South Wales 0404 649 547

Monday to Friday – 4-8pm

Cool, the tax cuts are less shit. Now #RaiseTheRate above the poverty line so welfare recipients aren’t left further behind

A woman with a light blue tshirt with red text nobody left behind and white text *terms and conditions apply
Get yours from ArtistAffame

So, the stage three tax cuts are officially less unfair. Cool. They still aren’t necessary, and would be better spent on services.

But since you’re increasing the take home pay of everyone with a paid job, then hows about some scraps for the poorest? The 23 year old “kids” on youth allowance struggling on $320 a week? The 2.6 million carers out there, the ones on $400 a week while saving the taxpayer hundreds of thousands? The carer who gets nothing because their partner earns too much. The aged or disabled pensioner living below the poverty line while by definition unable to supplement their income with regular paid work.

I dunno man, people are feeling left behind.

Opinion Pieces Wednesday, 19th January 2022 No one left behind in Labor blueprint for better future First published in the Australian on Jan 18 2022

“What about me?” It’s clichĂ© but what we’re working with here

“As Labor politicians head to Canberra to discuss #CostOfLiving, #FOI reveals that, in the last 12 months, neither Minister Rishworth, Shorten or Collins have received briefings, reports or analyses on the effects of the cost-of-living crisis on welfare recipients. #fail #auspol”

Yeah, of course they haven’t. They run inquiries, make statements and chat to charities but don’t actually care about what it’s like to try to survive on welfare in this county.

Youth allowance is clearly the worst. with the politicians assuming you can both rely on your parents but they can’t have too much for you to be eligible. And it’s up til 24 years old… because we all know that you get a kids discount on food and rent til 24. Oh what, that was 12 for the kids meal? My bad.

The next table shows JobSeeker rates. $686 a fortnight if you’re partnered and your partner doesn’t earn much at all. $802.50 for singles. How DO people look for work on less than $50/day? or even on $57?

I get $59/day on DSP and I don’t have to leave the house and participate in society. Oh, I should be able to? Tell that to the cost of living committee.

And rent assistance? $85/week that just pushes up rents and makes it impossible for those not already receiving it to enter the rental market? Zoe, you have no idea, you think that it’s just a nice little supplement when really it’s just 18% of my rent. Forgive me for not being all grateful for the $13 a week extra I got just before my rent went up $60/week and we had to spend thousands moving.

I’m not feeling coherent yet, I’m only on my first diet coke, I didn’t sleep well and people were being loud and had the tv on this morning and I can’t process all that before say 10am.

I emailed Foodbank seeking more information about how donations work and who pays for what and why some places charge customers and some places aren’t allowed to but I didn’t get a response. I emailed TPG asking for use of a wifi modem til my innernet gets installed on Feb 29 and I didn’t get a response. I emailed Dan Repacholi to ask his to ask for an increase to welfare at the crisis meeting tomorrow but he just said he’s find out what was going to happen at the meeting himself and pass it on. Don’t shoot the messenger, even if he can shoot himself.

I’ll leave you with Nollsy while you email your local MP what would make a difference to you this cost of living crisis in the vain hope that they even have input into the process:

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?