More musings on food banks

A tray of brawnies on the stove and a hand in front holding  packet mix of greens vegemite brownies
The $1 Vegemite brownies I got from the church foodbanks were… odd. And they haven’t been finished off which usually happens to anything sweet in this house. I see why they were written off at the supermarket as not selling.

So, I was scrolling through Twitter and in amongst the horrors occurring in Palestine, I saw a few friends commenting on a post made by a chap named Kos Samaras , talking about how poor people are more concerned about the cost of living than deaths in Palestine. He made another one similar about the failed referendum. I’d link or share a screenshot, but I’m blocked. Kos is a Labor chap and lobbiest. So I guess he doesn’t like poor people speaking up for themselves. Kinda like how Van Badham blocked me not long after I replied to a post she (and Jane Caro and someone else echoed) asking about our experiences on welfare and I shared my story of being rejected for DSP. I mean t wasn’t in response to that post I was blocked, but it was the same week, she was just on a run of blocking people in the antipoverty space,

Anyways. In this thread, Greg Jericho (of Grog’s Gamut fame, ‘member when he was one of the first Aussie bloggers sacked over blogging?) posted a link to a recent Australia Institute report on Food Waste In Australia, with the overview talking about how food retailers actually profit from food waste, to the tune of $1.2 billion. How they do that is just another story of the rules allow you to make more money when you already have money – can’t sell something? Write it off as a loss and sell it cheap or donate it to Foodbank or Ozharvest and look like a hero while it doesn’t actually cost you anything. Meanwhile you can mark up your regular stock because things apparently are expensive, and you need to cover the cost of surveillance cameras, auto closing gates, racial profiling, and having guards follow Blak kids around the store (you’ve seen it happen), or just having your regular staff grabbing 4 year olds and accusing them of stealing.

It concerns me then that supermarkets and charities like Foodbank push for more financial incentives for Supermarkets to donate less desirable goods – whether they’re past their bet before days, a bit ugly or just not moving off the shelves – rather than advocating to raise income support or regulate how much profit Coles can make off a grocery shop so that we can buy the products we want when we want them and not have to rely on the “kindness” of others who make more money than us to get us these offcuts.

I still struggle with Woolies asking me (or anyone) for a 50 cent donation for foodbank at the checkout when the charities I buy my pantry goods from are charged for their orders of donated goods. Maybe I’m missing something? I’ve not gone into the nitty gritty of their annual reports  of the not for profits, but I still know I’m paying for that can of chickpeas from the church pantry.

I noticed the other day that my local woolies accepts direct donated goods from customers for two local community centres via OzHarvest. And I checked, those then are free for the person off the street in need. So, please, do check where your donation is going, because it all feels like there’s a lot of money being passed around and written in spreadsheets only for the welfare class to be told to be happy they’re getting anything at all.

 

Upcoming Australian actions to Save Palestine – November 4-5

Skip to Content Stand With Palestine Take Action Volunteer Donate Email your MPs Events Resources Legal Aid Upcoming events Sunday, November 5 - Melbourne Protest: Keep Standing With Palestine! 12:00 pm, State Library Victoria Event Details Sunday, November 5 - Brisbane Rally for Palestine 3:00 pm, Queens Gardens Event Details Sunday, November 5 - Perth Protest: Stop the Genocide in Gaza 12:30 pm, Forrest Place Event Details Sat, November 4 - Newcastle Stop the Genocide in Gaza! Free Palestine! 1:00 pm, Newcastle Museum Event Details Saturday, November 4 - Geelong Free Palestine Rally and March 12:00 pm, Little Malop Street Event Details Saturday, November 4 - Sydney Protest: Stop the Genocide in Gaza! 1:00 pm, Hyde Park (North) Event Details Sat, November 4 - Canberra Stop the Genocide in Gaza - Palestine Rally 1:00 pm, Garema Place Event Details Saturday, November 4 - Hobart Stand With Gaza: Saturday Vigils 1:00 pm, Hobart Town Hall Event Details Sunday, November 5 - Adelaide Free Palestine, Free Gaza: Keep Up the Protests 2:00 pm, Parliament House Event Details STAND WITH PALESTINE We stand in solidarity with the First Nations of this place, and recognise their enduring connection to Country. Soverignty was never ceded, and this is and will always be Aboriginal land.

From https://www.standwithpalestine.au/events

Saturday, November 4

Sydney https://www.facebook.com/events/876606550689595

Protest: Stop the Genocide in Gaza!
1:00 pm, Hyde Park (North)

Newcastle https://www.facebook.com/events/1078164973182712/

Stop the Genocide in Gaza! Free Palestine!
1:00 pm, Newcastle Museum

Canberra https://www.facebook.com/events/659937209614006

Stop the Genocide in Gaza – Palestine Rally
1:00 pm, Garema Place

Hobart https://www.facebook.com/events/864009691604358/870902164248444

Stand With Gaza: Saturday Vigils
1:00 pm, Hobart Town Hall

Geelong https://www.facebook.com/events/864009691604358/870902164248444

Free Palestine Rally and March
12:00 pm, Little Malop Street

Sunday, November 5

Brisbane https://www.facebook.com/events/3629479243938913

Rally for Palestine
3:00 pm, Queens Gardens

Adelaide https://www.facebook.com/events/1258080934861619

Free Palestine, Free Gaza: Keep Up the Protests
2:00 pm, Parliament House

Melbourne https://www.facebook.com/events/679755940780706

Protest: Keep Standing With Palestine!
12:00 pm, State Library Victoria

Perth https://www.facebook.com/events/247511958303158

Protest: Stop the Genocide in Gaza
12:30 pm, Forrest Place

I’ll be at Newcastle on Sat.

EMAIL YOUR MP https://www.standwithpalestine.au/email-mps

“NOT IN OUR NAME!” JEWISH PROTESTORS LOCKED BY THEIR NECKS IN OFFICE OF FEDERAL DEFENCE MINISTER RICHARD MARLES

10:00 am WEDNESDAY 1st NOVEMBER 2023
Anti-Zionist Jewish activists have led an occupation and staged a ritual inside the office of
Defence Minister Richard Marles at 90-92 Broughman St. Geelong. A number of protestors
have secured themselves by their necks in the office’s reception using bicycle locks and are
refusing to leave. Others have blockaded the office’s main entrance and raised banners
reading ‘Stop The Genocide’, ‘Not In Our Name’, ‘Disarm Israel’, and ‘ALP Supports Ethnic
Cleansing’.
The group – made up of members of Jewish, Aboriginal, and other communities – demands
that Marles and the Federal Labor Government withdraw diplomatic, economic and military
support for Israel’s decades-long occupation of Palestine. They call upon Marles to condemn
Israel’s devastating bombardment of Gaza and the West Bank. In the words of Jewish
demonstrator Nevo Zisin:
“I condemn the use of Jewish grief and trauma as justification for committing a
genocide against another people. The ongoing occupation and ethnic cleansing of
Palestinian people goes against my Jewish values”.
Antimilitarist activist Zelda Grimshaw also took part and had this to say:
“The ALP’s Richard Marles acts as a broker for major international weapons deals.
Taxpayer dollars should not be funnelled into the pockets of giant weapons
corporations. Australian-made weapons should not be trained on the people of
Gaza.”
Noemie Huttner-Koros, a Jewish artist and writer, said:
“As a descendant of Holocaust survivors, I refuse to let Israel’s far-right government
weaponise our grief, pain and fear for the purpose of war crimes, invasion and
genocide. We want to show Jewish people in the diaspora that we can speak up.
Jews & Palestinians can and do live together. I see it as my ancestral duty to fight for
justice, peace and liberation for all.”
Another Demonstrator said:
“As an anti-Zionist Jew from a lineage of non-Zionist Jews, speaking out against
racism and settler-colonialism honours my Jewish ancestors. Jewish resistance to
Zionism is older than the Israeli regime itself.”

For further comment and media, please contact:
Dr. Shoshana Rosenberg: 0452 205 028; shoshana.k.rosenberg@gmail.com
Noemie Huttner-Koros: 0432 925 664; noemie.hk@gmail.com
Declan Furber Gillick: 0488127993; management@declanfurbergillick.com
Zelda Grimshaw: 0407757367; zelda@wagepeaceau.org

 

 

Israel bombed a hospital, she exclaims as she returns to the dishes

Senator Fatima Payne: The killing of innocent civilians in Israel should be condemned and we condemn it. The killing of innocent civilians in Palestine should also be condemned and we must condemn it. The international community loudly and proudly condemned Russia’s occupation of Ukraine when it started attacking Ukraine in 2014 yet today the world watches as the state of Israel deprives the entire population—men, women and children—of the basic necessities of life: food, water, electricity, gas and medicines. We must condemn it.

Israeli missiles strike residential dwellings, civilians, multistorey apartments, health facilities as well as places of worship, indiscriminately killing men, women and children. We must condemn it. Human Rights Watch confirms that Israel is using white phosphorous in Gaza. That violates the international humanitarian law prohibition. We must condemn it.

The price tag of Israel’s right to defend itself cannot be the destruction of Palestine. Israel’s right to defend its civilians cannot equate to the annihilation of Palestinian civilians. I hereby call for an immediate ceasefire to come into effect, alongside many world leaders and experts. Food, water, medicine and humanitarian aid need to be allowed to get through and reach the victims. Mediation and talks need to start, as obviously violence has not solved anything for the past 75 years, and a just and long-lasting solution needs to be sorted out.

I roll some more marbles, drop some more fantasy units in the games that I play quite passively with twitch streamers, in the other window I scroll through tweets, playing speeches by world leaders, interviews of ordinary people. People excuse the genocide of the Palestinian people, saying they literally did this to themselves, of course.

I just want to buy a Palestinian flag marble, there’s an Israeli one. Consume my way through this. Like buying a Kuffiya with purple in the weave to wear this summer to keep the sun off my pale skin, Or in solidarity at at Rally, a rally they try to scare us off from going to with threats of random searches or fines and imprisonment. Because order is more important in so-called Australia than justice, be it social or climate. Keep the peace, keep the status quo, however racist that may be.

Israel bombed a hospital. 500 to a thousand people dead. Patients, homeless, internal refugees, doctors, nurses, teachers, the disabled who had nowhere else to go.

But what if Hamas were hiding under there?

What if?

Whatif Hamas were hiding in your town. Holding a meeting at the Workers Club, storing weapons in the highschool hall. Sure, wipe out your city, your town, It’s for the overall good, what’s 500 more brown lives.

Oh but this is where I have to condemn Hamas’ attack on Israel, and the kidnappings of Israeli civilians. And I do. Hamas should not have done that. They should also not have been able to sneak in under the gaze of the most technologically advance military in the world. Australia buys its Centrelink surveillance tech from Israel, they don’t need our military aid.

Hamas aren’t the good guys. But neither is the state of Israel.

(I pause to hang out my washing inbetween rain showers)

I curse that the kids bring out all their plates and cups to wash at once, but am pleased to have running water to wash with, food to feed them, a safe place for them and the baby to sleep. “First world problems” we say as we deal with out day to day mental health or cost of living pressures, holding baby Emery tight while babies are bombed evacuating as directed by their oppressors.

We voted against the Voice to parliament. The least we could do, give Blak people an advisory voice to the colonial government. My electorate voted over 70% no. I’m not surprised. One booth, Wollombi, yoted majority yes. I voted yes in a referendum we shouldn’t have had a say in.

But what do you expect? They say the voting pattern was similar to that of the 1999 republic vote that I missed out on by a year, the same seats leaning yea and no, The spread very similar, the same people voting for the status quo. The same people being blamed for being uneducated and poor, The same people being fundamentally happy with being a British colony, and even if we do think we should move forward from that, it’s not the pressing thing that people who are living day to day care to debate.

Yes, we are a racist country. If was the racist no, not the sovereign no, or the disengaged no that won on the day. You see this here in the gloating in the facebook groups, the Blak kids being followed in the supermarkets, the white people claiming they’re just as discriminated against as Aboriginal people.

But the disinformation comes through. I was waiting at the foodbank for the afternoon free pies, there was a small group discussing the referendum and how the new world order had something to do with it. How Covid was a conspiracy to make someone money, how this one guys was beaten up in school by black kids so that means they can’t be racismed against.

“It’s okay to be white” was a motion in our parliament, just as “Israel has a right to defend itself” too precedence over condemning their war crimes. Nazi’s in Melbourne get an armed escort home on the train while they harass and intimidate anyone not white. They take the chance to yell anti-Semitic slurs and graffiti while also calling the Palestinian protestors terrorists.

I just go back to making my cupcakes and doing my little chores.

Making my little family’s life worth living.

lemon cupcakes

The Stress of Rental Inspections done for another ?Three ?Six months

Our rental changed real estate agents a couple of months back, and one of the first things they did was to book an inspection time, three months after our last one, mostly so they can get a baseline on the place, but also the do the check in if we’ve wrecked the joint thing. This rental I’ve had 2 inspections a year – they can legally do four if they want – so it was a shock to get notice of this one. Also an added stress given we weren’t sure if they’d be okay with Bruce’s daughter, their partner and the bub having moved in two months ago, and how long they’ll be here is unknown.

It was a great excuse to get the place clean though, and nag the kids into cleaning up their area. But it’s a stress, because our lease says two people, so they could use that against us if they wanted us out.

But it was fine, and now I can stare at the wall for the afternoon and try to get my brain back. Hopefully we’ll be offered a new lease, Bruce said they said the owners wanted us to stay on forever, well until they want to redevelop the place, which would be years off. So, fingers crossed. And fingers crossed it’s not too much of an increase. Cos while this place isn’t all that, it’s still a land lords world out there :/