The Foodbank Annual Hunger Report came out yesterday – one in three households now fall into the categories of food insecurity – kicking off the downhill to Christmas with the ramping up of the asks from Charities – including the Kmart / Salvos wishing tree (you know the one that Leigh gave the golden plated cheese platter to one year)
It’s a frenzy of poverty porn – the “good” people able to afford to put a present under the tree, the parents having to be grateful for whatever some their way, a toy of someone else’s choice rather than the money to buy what the kids actually wanted this year. The calls for donations for hampers – both cash and items – with charities setting the prices for the ones they ship to the local distributive sites. – an amount that could well buy someone more of what they and their family actually wanted on their table if they were allowed to just have money rather than the layers of inefficiency that come with charities in this country. 
Centrelink Cancellations also resumed yesterday – the ones they quietly switched off last year because they were either deemed illegal or they really thought it was only a matter of time til they were. Debts calculated through income-appointment are also being re-actioned after being on pause. More people on the edge, having their below the poverty line payments cancelled, paused or garnished.
Because all these things will “turn down the temperature” as the phrase of the week after the attack on Helen Haines. A story from the Guardian over the weekend started to touch on the issues in “the regions” – all issues in the cities but magnified the further you are from the even thousand postcodes. The lack of mental and other healthcare, NDIS eligibility, and lack of staff to support such schemes when you do “qualify”.
Renters are finally reaching their limits in what they can pay – which just forces those at the top of that pool into competing for the cheaper “less desirable” homes, pushing the pensioners and others on low incomes into the parks and carparks around town. A problem to be moved on. To be fought over whose problem it isn’t.
So, we’re tired, and hungry, lacking in access to health care and stable housing, but what does Foodbank suggest we do about the food insecurity part?
AS always, they call for MORE food relief, to expand the footprint of, what I refer to as “Australia’s third (or fourth, have you tried shopping at Aldi?) supermarkets” – surely with so many people accessing Foodbank-supplied charities the reach of the purple supermarket is getting up there, especially when you add the fleet of yellow OzHarvest trucks moving veges from place to place? With the amount of money donated to and granted to these charities, it really doesn’t seem unviable to have government subsidised or owned shops – take back the ownership over the money people are throwing into them already? It’s just that if it’s run by the government apparently it’s a bad thing and you need a layer of branding and staffing outside the APS to make it a good thing, actually. (I swear one of the unintended consequences of the NDIS was so many cringe names for support services). With the cost of diesel, the food and fuel miles must be adding up moving the food further than the intended point of purchase.
“Addressing income inadequacy” is how they’ve phrased raising welfare payments and ensuring wages keep up with the rapid increases in inflation on essential items. A reminder to the unionists – a livable welfare safety net only increases your bargaining power and boosts the wages of the poorest – many of whom are juggling welfare and work (as well as life and caring responsibilities). Housing – cost and availability, let alone suitability for an ageing and increasingly disabled population – is the HUGE issue not being addressed by current “affordable housing” and private investment.
As an aside – love me a good school breakfast program. Both for getting kids learning and taking pressure off families. But like all programs how do you cater for our loveable quirky kids who only eat dry home brand Nutrigrain in a pink bowl? *ahem*
I worry about “reducing stigma” as I don’t always think it’s really about external stigma. Some comes from actually making the end-users feel safe to access the services on offer in their communities. I know people who have trauma from religion and would not have been able to sit through the – just cringe to me – prayer before they started distribution at the local joint Salvos/Adventist weekly food pantry. It’s about the lady asking you to repeat yourself with a “please” when if you ask (I thought nicely enough) if it was okay to take a particular item. It’s a very personal thing, and “normalising” something that really shouldn’t be an every day or week thing isn’t helpful in my eyes. This isn’t normal. Being told to be grateful for a bag of veges that you have to throw out half of yourself isn’t NORMAL.
Normal is having the cash to buy at your local supermarket or other market. It’s being able to shop the bargains of end of day specials rather than relying on the distribution of these to the poors a day or so later at the food pantry – if you get there early enough to get one of the 8 bags on offer as it was this Monday.
I always say yes, there is a place for emergency food support – in disasters, if someone has to flee the family home, people are unwell. But this can be done through community care, or through the government, or, when people have enough to feed their own households having a little extra for Frank next door. it doesn’t take a network of purple and yellow trucks – people are still picking up food waste from local bakeries and supermarkets and taking it to share with those in need at the established food pantries regardless of how much they buy from Foodbank or Second Bite.
Less branding more community.
