Tag: raise the rate

Xmas Shutdown – Much needed time off for Volunteers, but here’s how long til the Food Banks reopen

Second last morning for my regular food bank this morning. After Wednesday 11/12 they reopen on January 6. Knowing them, they’ll be delivering emergency hampers this whole time. Emergency hampers not funded by the government, but from funds they’re raised through the year from community members and local businesses.

They’re frantically prepping for their Xmas party Sunday. They have gifts for 2000 kids and hundreds of hampers. They’re even doing gift cards for teens, getting donations for them from local businesses.

palates of standard $25 foodbank hampers

Another local foodbank closes Wed 18th at lunchtime, reopens January 13. Another weekly one does their last $15 hampers on the 19th and then comes back Jan 16.

last year's foodbank christmas hamper

Obviously, all these volunteers well and truly deserve a break, and school holidays and Christmas means less people available to help out. A few more just generally close for school holidays (so not back until February). So then, people are left to their own devices, a time when schools are closed, work schedules are thrown out (sometimes way more work sometimes way less), Centrelink reporting is earlier and people either get paid earlier with the public holidays or they miss the early reporting date and have to stretch til the payment comes through.

We also all know the chaos of holiday grocery shopping, even on more generous budgets.

So, on this day where Youth Payment indexation has been advertised – up to $24.30 extra a fortnight from Jan 1 – and organisations are asking the government to raise the rate of welfare payments, let’s aim for better and ask for ALL payments to be raised above the poverty line – at last $88 a day if we go with the Henderson Poverty Line. People need money to survive, they can’t actually access safety nets like food banks all year around, give them the dignity of choosing and buying their own food – for Christmas and for every day.

Food banks are just a more expensive way to get food that isn’t necessarily suitable to poor people: Prove me wrong

A christmas hamper from a foodbank
2023’s Foodbank Christmas Hamper

TFIF, am I right? And that the pollies have headed home for the summer break after a chaotic final week, and maybe we’ll get some respite from their pontificating until that election is called/ Rumours around say it’ll be in March, others say it’ll drag on til the usual May.

To follow up on my last post “Just because it’s better than nothing, doesn’t make it “good”, we head back to the food banks as the summer heat and humidity really kick in, and summer shutdowns approach. The charities themselves are also in rush mode, soliciting donations how they can while getting out the Xmas hampers to those needing the support.

But let’s break down that process a little.

Foodbank™ charges the local charities and food pantries for the hampers and food items they get from them. It’s usually $25 for a prepacked hamper, whether Xmas or through the year, and (often extremely short dated) groceries are sold and the locals then generally on sell them a little above their cost, but sometimes for more. This can be to the point where it’s cheaper to buy items from regular supermarkets, at least on special.

St Vincent de Paul Inc This CHRISTMAS HELP PEOPLE LIKE TANIA GET BACK ON THEIR FEET

They rely on the labour of volunteers – at the warehouses it’s often corporate volunteers, there paid by their regular employer, often a big (?tax avoiding) business. As do the local charities, but they’re well meaning locals, church members or someone who used the service and isn’t doing as bad as others at the moment. This labour is “free” to the charities, and most people want to be there (though we do hear of work for the dole at foodbanks) but it’s still labour.

Survivor's R Us Incorporated · 💙 SRU HAMPERS OF HOPE 💙 Many people ask how they can help us help others... here is one very important way you can help! By donating $25, you will allow us to purchase an essentials food hamper from Foodbank for someone in need. The hampers feature over $70 worth of groceries that will help the recipient create several meals and snacks - breakfast cereal, soup, pasta, noodles, tinned goods, milk, coffee, tea bags, biscuits, etc. Contributing this way will help us help people in need EVERY DAY, in fact, several times each day. You can donate via the link to our website - with paypal, direct deposit into our account, or donate while you're here shopping with us: https://www.survivorsrusincorporated.com/donations Every little bit helps! We thank you in advance.
“The hampers feature over $70 worth of groceries that will help the recipient create several meals and snacks – breakfast cereal, soup, pasta, noodles, tinned goods, milk, coffee, tea bags, biscuits, etc.”

Emergency hampers are funded by what ever the local charities can get together. SRU asks directly for $25 from supporters to buy a hamper from Foodbank. Vinnies asks for $72 so they can purchase their own for their clients. Foodbank also asks for $35 donations for hampers, again is this on top of the $25 they charge the local charities, any donations made by corporations, through telethons and ones at the checkout. They and other food relief charities like Ozharvest regularly are mentioned by politicians as receiving a block of funding to rent a new warehouse, while not mentioning WHY people can’t afford to just purchase their own food.

Vinnies NSW · Follow rpesSotndo3c c1h5 n e 0520h96ut9gt0ifu0 J i u 8fm04f2 8 31magi3h655h6 · Did you know? A $72 donation helps provide urgent, immediate assistance to a vulnerable person in our community. A $72 donation is enough to cover the cost of a hamper filled with essential food for someone who is experiencing or is at risk of homelessness this winter. More donations are needed so more hampers can be provided to people who need them. Will you donate today? Click here to learn more https://donate.vinnies.org.au/appeals-nsw/winter-appeal-nsw

The food is standard fare – pasta and vegemite, weetbix and UHT milk and the like. The Christmas ones are similar but with tinned ham and pudding and custard. Not exactly allergy friendly for my many gluten or dairy intolerant folks. All these items are purchased outright it seems for the hampers, they’re well in date and consistent in brands, though it’s possible some of the companies make specific bulk donations. Unlike the stuff that comes from the Supermarkets – the close to date foods or experimental foods that haven’t sold and Colesworth can write them off as donations rather than copping the loss because they purchased incorrectly. Don’t worry, it’s not coming out of their profits.

Then we get to the fresh produce. I picked up some bread from my local food pantry Wednesday, and threw it out Thursday because it was moldy. This heat and humidity is terrible, but the bread was best before the 24th, so for it to turn by the 28th is not all surprising. It’s a pain, and fortunately I could afford replace it with a fresh loaf when I was out last night, but for others that means no bread til Monday or Wednesday when the foodbank is open again. Freezing it as soon as I got it home Wednesday would just have meant I’d be having bread that was not yet showing mold. Yum Yum.

And this is why I scream just give people enough money to feed themselves the food they want when they want it. Raise welfare above the poverty line so people can afford fresh bread that lasts more than a day before turning. So they can buy allergy-friendly foods. So they can choose the fruit and veges and snacks they are their kids actually like to eat. Channel all that extra government funding for warehouses and transporting old food around the country into welfare payments and programs that actually support people. Give them free childcare rather than free weetbix. Tax the supermarkets and the resources companies more so they can directly fund these thigns rather than them pretending to be the good guys by writing off excess food and donating cash and staff labour and getting to put their little logos on things.

Major reform is needed, but you can start by giving people enough money to live.

Middle fingers up til the reaper shows up

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Added later cos OMG:

Just because it’s better than nothing, doesn’t make it “good”

Oh hai there, just screaming into the void that the messaging coming out from yet another report detailing the material deprivation faced by people on all welfare payments.

ACOSS has just dropped their latest Poverty and Inequality report Material deprivation in Australia: the essentials of life. It doesn’t just report on how much money people have, but also what people are not getting because they can’t afford it – covered by the surveys I discussed in this post when I was doing the Poverty course through ACOSS and UNSW – the same people conducting this study and writing this report.

2. At least 10% of people do not have one or more of five out of 23 essential items. While some of the 23 essential items are almost universally owned (only 0.2% of people did not have warm clothes and bedding if it’s cold), a much higher proportion of people did not have the following five items: • home contents insurance (22% lacked this), getting together with friends or relatives at least once a month for a drink or meal (22%), a yearly dental checkup for each child (13%), new school clothes for school-age children every year (33%), or a hobby or a regular leisure activity for children (14%). The most common items people said they lacked because they couldn’t afford them are: home contents insurance (8%), at least $500 in savings for an emergency (7%), comprehensive motor vehicle insurance (5%) and dental treatment when needed (4%).

“The most common items people said they lacked because they couldn’t
afford them are: home contents insurance (8%), at least $500 in savings for
an emergency (7%), comprehensive motor vehicle insurance (5%) and dental treatment when needed (4%).”

Yeah, I have none of those things. If I needed dental treatment I’d try the NSW health clinic as that’s an option, or I’d ask family for money to help pay, or put it on ZipPay or get a Centrelink advance, but I don’t have the funds for such things as routine. I said to others doing that course that as much as they’d hope the person crashing into them in their shitbox at least had third party property insurance to cover their car’s damage, the reality is we often don’t, Greenslips for injury are compulsory but you’re making a huge assumption that we’ll be able to pay for your damage.

4. People on working-age income support payments face a much higher risk of multiple deprivation: • The rates of deprivation are close to or exceed 10% for 30% (seven items) of the 23 essential items for people on a JobSeeker Payment and for around 26% (six items) for people receiving a Parenting Payment or a Disability Support Pension. • People receiving JobSeeker Payment are five times more likely than all people (the population average rate) to lack two or more essential items (45% compared to 9% for the population). One in two are deprived of at least two items and one in three of at least three items. • People receiving Parenting Payment are four times more likely than all people to lack two or more essential items (38% compared to 9% for the population). Approximately one in four are deprived of three or more items. • People receiving Disability Support Pension or Youth Allowance are two to three times more likely than all people to lack two or more essential items (29% and 23% respectively). One in four people on these payments are deprived of at least two items. • People on a Carer Payment are two times more likely to lack two or more essentials items (17%) or three or more items (10%).But it’s the messaging around this report and others that always gets me. The report straight up says that DSP and Carer’s payments leave people struggling, and yet ACOSS et al come out asking for payments to be raise to that level – the $82/day for a single aged or disabled pensioner leaves them below the poverty line and skipping meals, health care and cheaping out on cooling in this heatwave while trying to stay in a likely substandard rental.

graph of bedroom temperate overnight
Reactivated my bedroom thermometer last night – you can pinpoint when my partner put the air con on in the living room and it trickled down the hall to our room

So aim higher. Ask for an amount that will make a difference. The Henderson Poverty Line is around $87 a day (it fluctuates, but if you need to put a number on it). This doesn’t take into account the extra costs of being disabled or chronically ill, but again it’s a start for adults to have enough money to meet their basic needs.

We have an election to be called any time now (it’ll be by May and that’ll be here before we know it) so get your ducks in a row and ask for good things, not incremental “improvements” that leave people in poverty. They haven’t given you your meagre asks anyway. Maybe Labor will be desperate enough to actually promise something progress, Miles style?

 

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Odds are, Bill, the sun WILL come out tomorrow, but the vulnerable will be worse off, and I don’t see Labor changing that any time soon

So Bill thinks we’re all getting a little hysterical when we say that people will die because of the NDIS legislation they’ve pushed through with Pauline’s help. He tells us not to be anxious and that the sun’ll come out tomorrow. I know it will Bill, it’ll be above average temperatures all week on the East Coast and all. But people will be worse off, and have their care needs neglected because of your legislation. They will also be more vulnerable to taking their own lives because of losing supports that keep them safe and healthy, and because of punitive Robo whatever actions you’re overseeing with the lovely staff leftover from Robodebt that have found new lives in the NDIA compliance teams.

I’m not going to put in links to reference this post, I’m sick, and have a GP appointment at 12.15. One that I get to pay $80 upfront for because your government has not helped Medicare bulk billing, and nowhere around here routinely bulk bills concession card holders anymore.

Jimmy’s also promised that he won’t do anything on the welfare end either in the lead up to the election. So, we don’t have to worry about being hopeful or disappointed and we can move straight into getting the Greens and Independents to promise real action on welfare. We have all the evidence that lifting welfare to the poverty line won’t affect Jim’s Inflation, but Labor won’t help us, so it’s time to go around them. Jimmy said this morning there’ll be a March budget ahead of the May election. So that’s his last chance to disappoint us and tell us he thinks we deserve poverty to make his bottom line look nicer.

Are you a unionist? How are you feeling about the Labor- Union relationship with the CFMEU? You don’t have to think that the CFMEU are good or bad to agree that it seems a bit of overreach and a real threat to the union movement to have worked with the LNP to impose 3 years administration….

So, I want a magic answer from the GP, I need to this cough gone. It’s getting in the way of me actually getting out and doing the things I’m otherwise ready to do mentally. I need to be able to talk. And yell. And scream. And rage against this fucking machine.

Middle fingers up til the reaper shows up.

You can do it Jim, you can lift millions out of poverty this budget. I believe in you?

Ahh, Jimmy Jim Jim Jim Jim Jim, Muppet Treasure Island is such a amazing adaptation on the classic novel – pirates, romance, travel and song. Jim here is the kid, wishing for a better live beyond poverty and servitude, taking a risky opportunity to escape that and sail the seven seas.

Pirating is different these days in Australia, as a country we became quite adept at it before streaming services, and with their fragmentation and price rises it’s on the rise once more. I wonder if the average Jim would prefer to know of welfare recipients pirating their favourite shows or spending that $10 on Amazon Prime? Or, as is often the case, they’d rather neither and tell us to sell our PCs, cancel our internet, give up any entertainment and spend that time writing our resumes on the computer at the local library and applying for jobs that don’t want us.

It was quite a week for you numbers guys, Jim. You got your inflation figures in, and they weren’t great and weren’t bad. What stuck out for me is rent was still going up much more than other essentials, and essentials were still going up more than the less essential things in life.

The inflation figures and ensuing panic on HECS debts (though not as bad as last year!) got you to say you might do something about HECS indexation, oh and also about paying final year uni students for their labor on placements so they don’t have to waste the first three years of a degree because they can’t afford to live for those final subjects.

2024: Rental Affordability Snapshot Australians are facing a rental market that has never been less affordable. The 2024 Rental Affordability Snapshot surveyed rental listings across Australia and found that affordability has crashed to record lows. Out of 45,115 rental listings, we found that: 289 rentals (0.6%) were affordable for a person earning a full-time minimum wage 89 rentals (0.2%) were affordable for a person on the Age Pension 31 rentals (0.1%) were affordable for a person on the Disability Support Pension 3 rentals, (0%) all sharehouses, were affordable for a person on JobSeeker 0 rentals (0%) were affordable for a person on Youth Allowance. In response to the findings, Anglicare Australia is calling on the Government to return to directly funding and providing housing itself, instead of leaving housing to the private sector. Anglicare Australia is also calling on the Government to wind back landlord tax concessions.

Much needed, but of course they don’t solve the problem of all the people who can’t afford to live and rent while they study because Youth Allowance and Austudy are so low and there’s no affordable rentals for people trying to better their chances of employment as you keep asking us to do, through study.

Then there’s the “Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee” that you put together last year, asked them for their recommendation, a key one was raising JobSeeker and other related payments to 90% of the aged pension, which you said was too much so threw $20/week at those people, and they’ve come back with the same figure this year, to which you’ve replied that ppl should be happy about last year’s response and that you can’t find everything hey?

Of course you “can’t fund every good idea” but there’s a difference between saying you can’t fund a good idea and saying you don’t want to fund an increase to welfare payments above the poverty line that would see benefits for all in the community – from ensuring people can afford to feed themselves, to decreases in crime that was seen during the Covid supplements, and might help that “social cohesion” you keep banging on about.

It does sting when you boast about a surplus, or even if you don’t boast about it but just say that people’s health and welfare now is not as important as your other choices – to keep a surplus to later, or any time you announce money for submarines, or  we remember that the stage three tax cuts, while you modified them, still favour those on higher incomes to the tune of a quarter of a JobSeeker’s annual payment. An amount that they would have been better off by last year if you’d implemented your committee’s recommendations.

So Jim, you still have two weeks to play around with your numbers, and my people still have two weeks to try to get in your ears about welfare recipients lives and our ability to participate in society being worth funding. Maybe the image of the older lady being arrested over Canesten and frozen pizza is one that might make you think people being able to afford their groceries is a good thing?

Or Mel being reminded that your other lil numbers guy, Andrew Leigh of the gold plated cheese platter, used her story about not being able to afford to eat and getting scurvy while in opposition to call for a raise on Jobseeker, but then won’t do anything to help her now and instead posts cute cartoons about evidence based policy and scurvy on Twitter, while we try to remind him that there was a great experiment on a no-strings livable basic income here in Australia with the Covid supplement and the removal of obligations in 2020. A period that saw improvements in property crime rates, because people could afford to live.

So, you can do it, Jim. You can raise JobSeeker and other welfare payments. You can raise them above the poverty line, anything less is just a reminder that some people are worth leaving behind, and you don’t want to leave anyone behind do you Jim?