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

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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?

 

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?