Still feeling the Bern for 2020
Editor's note: what follows was originally posted on Reddit by srsly_its_so_ez in support of Bernie Sanders and inviting people to share the post to get the word out, so I am. I've believed Bernie Sanders is a mensch for a while, such as when, as the newly elected mayor of Burlington, Vermont, he sent this letter to UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, protesting the abuse of Republican political prisoners in Northern Ireland:
Jonestown: did Jim Jones have AIDS?
Reading the history and records of Jonestown, something stands out in those last few months is the failing health of Temple leader Jim Jones. His long list of physical and mental illnesses can be attributed to his heavy drug use. But there's a few issues noted that lead me to wonder. Even as early as 1978, is it possible that Jim Jones had developed AIDS?
No questions about LGTBQ rights at the Democratic debates
 |
| A candidate at the podium for every fuck given about queer rights |
We're erased from the Census and political consciousness.
Buzzfeed News
The quiet Australians - silent but deadly
Can someone please tell the ABC that they're supposed to be broadcasting wall to wall leftist propaganda? Because right now they seem to be taking the "there are fine people on both sides" approach. Case in point being this week when they ran an article on the "quiet Australians" Scott Morrison praised for his victory at the Federal Election earlier this year. These are the people, we are told, who are hard working, dedicated to their families, and just too damn busy getting on with their lives to get involved in the messy business of politics. And they love Scott Morrison cause he's just like them, a hard working family man who doesn't have time to worry about the state of the nation.
One in three Australians don't view child abuse as a big deal
Child abuse in Australia is at crisis levels, with the effects on the children and the adults they'll grow up to be horrific and lifelong. But 35% percent of Australians don't view child abuse as a big issue, with parents more likely to say it's not a big deal. Perhaps that's why police patrol public transport to catch fare evaders and strip search children - and meanwhile child protection services are underfunded, understaffed and overworked.
The New Daily
Childbirth practices must protect mothers as well as babies
Too often, maternity care in Australia seems to reflect a desire for a healthy baby at all costs, without taking into account the health and wellbeing of the mother.
Eureka Street
Inner city poverty smashes elitist myths
We're always hearing about the so called inner city elites but a lot of people in inner city Sydney are doing it tough:
Single parent families in Kensington, Auburn North, Pyrmont-Ultimo, Sydney-Haymarket, The Rocks and Waterloo had the highest rates of poverty in Sydney, likely due to the large amounts of public housing in some of those areas.
Let's get women into STEM - but it's not the only battle we need to fight for workplace equality
Much of the discussion in recent years around increasing women's workforce participation rates and closing the gender pay gap has focused on encouraging girls and young women to consider careers in STEM - science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Women and girls considering or in STEM fields should certainly be encouraged, institutionalised sexism and other barriers to their careers dismantled. But the focus on getting women into STEM as the solution to women's workforce participation sidesteps dealing with the full reality of the gendered nature of work - a reality we need to address to achieve anything like real gender equality.
Our punitive welfare system is destroying people's mental health
Posted on 09 November 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Centrelink Disability Mental Health Newstart Poverty
Centrelink Disability Mental Health Newstart Poverty
Mental health issues can sometimes occur for no apparent reason, when life seems to be going well. But there's a strong correlation between mental health issues and stress, poverty, unemployment and insecurity. The punitive Centrelink and jobactive sysyems are literally making people sick - and the mental health system can't help them. Excellent reporting from Rick Morton.
If Scott Morrison actually cared two tiny mouse droppings about reducing rates of suicide, he'd do something to fix this. He won't though.
The Saturday Paper
The welfare rights law where Australia lags the US by 50 years
Anyone who's had to deal with Centrelink knows their onerous requirements, including supplying details of your relationship status. This is especially true for people receiving the single parent's pension. Centrelink is determined that only the good kind of single parent receives the single parent's pension, and recipients can now be asked not just to prove that they are not in a relationship, but to supply sworn statements from third parties to verify their unattached status. Even given that, Centrelink still reserves for themselves the right to decide a sole parents pension recipient is in a relationship, and cut off their payments. It's a relic from the moral climate when sole mothers' benefits were introduced, and it was felt that whilst we had to keep those blameless mothers and children who'd been abandoned by their husbands from starvation, we certainly couldn't encourage feckless hussies to shack up and have illegitimate children with a succession of men, and so they would restrict the pension to the good kind of single mother, who devoted herself to a life of chaste motherhood in return for genteel poverty instead of outright destitution.
But of course, real life is far more complicated than that, and whilst Centrelink fraud inspectors are driving past the houses of single mothers to check there's no men's underwear brazenly hanging on the washing line, there's all sorts of other issues, not least of which is whether is someone assumed to be financially responsible for children that aren't theirs just because they're in a relationship with the children's mother?
Turns out the United States is ahead of this on this one. Over fifty years ahead, in fact. Before it was replaced in 1996 as part of Bill Clinton's "Welfare to Work" drive, the main payment supporting American single parents was Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC). AFDC was originally introduced in 1935, but came with what was known as the "man in the house" rule, that aid was conditional upon whether there was a man living in the home. This rule was used to police the sexual morality of women, particularly women of colour, by ensuring they weren't shacking up. The rule was struck down by the Supreme Court ruling of King v. Smith in 1968, which held that just because a man was having a sexual relationship with a woman in her home, he could counted as a substitute parent - and was under no legal obligation to support her children. From that point on, it wasn't enough for a woman just to be in a romantic relationship with a man; aid could only be restricted if a man was in a parental relationship with her children.
The question of a parental relationship is one that is completely pushed aside in Centrelink's rules on the single parent relationship. Of course there are many step parents who have loving parent-child relationships with children who aren't biologically theirs; but Centrelink assumes that the moment a person moves in with a parent, they automatically assume all financial responsibility for their children, regardless of whether that person likes or supports or loves the kids at all.
That, or Centrelink just enjoys its right to slut shame single mothers too much to give up now.
This is an issue that needs more public discussion. Heck it could be an issue that could even unite feminists and men's rights advocates. Feminists want an end to policies that shame and impoverish women; men's rights advocates rail against men being made to financially support kids that aren't theirs. Either way, it's a crappy situation and for once, it's an area of welfare reform where Australia really needs to catch up to the US.
Why the lockout laws are a feminist issue
We care about violence when it happens to men in public, but give women "safety tips" when they are the victims.
Independent Australia
Ways to mark Melbourne Cup day (without hurting horses)
As someone who has been left at the office more than once to take calls while coworkers went to celebrate the Melbourne Cup after I refused to do the same - let alone the time the celebration was in the office and I was told watching the race was not optional - I'm very glad to hear of companies, pubs and other organisations getting behind a horse (and gambling and public drunkenness) free Melbourne Cup day.
How companies with purpose can use Melbourne Cup day to promote their values
5 ways to celebrate on Cup Day without hurting horses
Listing of "nup to the cup" events
NDIS rollout fails to reduce the number of young people in nursing homes
Gaps in support approved, difficulty finding supports with the funding provided, a lack of suitable housing for people with disability all contribute to the shameful fact of 6,000 younger Australians living in aged care facilities - a number that has barely budged in the past decade despite the nationwide rollout of the NDIS.
Nursing homes, geared towards people at the end stage of life, are no place to provide the support, lifestyle and hope of younger people with functional impairments.
The Conversation
NDIS system wearing people with disabilities and their families down
The NDIS is ideologically grounded in the idea of "choice". Rather than funding being allocated to service providers who decide what services people receive, in theory funding is given directly to people to choose what support they want for themselves.
What actually happens is that, left without guidance or even consistently applied legislation, NDIS participants are left to negotiate an arcane system of rules, providers, delays, decisions, reviews and regulations for themselves.
The ABC
What actually happens is that, left without guidance or even consistently applied legislation, NDIS participants are left to negotiate an arcane system of rules, providers, delays, decisions, reviews and regulations for themselves.
The ABC
Everything you know about Jonestown is wrong
I recently saw a tweet referring to Jim Jones' followers - the members of Peoples Temple who died at Jonestown in 1978 - as brainwashed zombies. Every time I hear this, I feel saddened but not surprised. Whilst the people who died at Jonestown have been maligned for 40 years, the media narrative which started in the days after the massacre and has continued ever since of zealots mindlessly slaughtering their children before taking their own lives is very far from the truth. Like everything in life the real story is far more complicated.
So here it is: why everything you know about Jonestown is wrong (and why you should never joke about "drinking the kool aid"). Strap in, it's going to be a long one.
Shattering myths on out of home care
Kirsten Gray, a Muruwari/Yuwalaraay child protection solicitor, Indigenous policy officer and former "care kid" on how the system meant to protect Aboriginal children instead perpetuates the pain and trauma.
Use of isolation in juvenile detention must stop
Posted on 23 September 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Children and young people imprisonment Indigenous Australians
Children and young people imprisonment Indigenous Australians
The use of isolation as punishment in juvenile detention falls under the wider ideology of punishment and control which we know to be harmful, but the widespread use of which continues.
Eureka Street
Robodebt whistleblowers reveal true horror of system
Opponents of the government's horrific Robodebt scheme have long been saying that it is arbitrary, cruel and driven by a reverse Robin Hood ideology - rob the poor to feed the rich.
Now claims by whistleblowers who have worked in the administration of Robodebts prove it.
Staff contracted from private agencies by Centrelink have spoken of an obsessive target driven structure where employees were pressured to conjure up debts at all costs - ignoring flaws in data, neglecting to ever inform debt recipients of the financial nightmare about to fall on them.
In the words of those tasked with dishing out the debts:
"It was very inhumane. It was all about the money, and we have to get those finalisations."
"It was all about the numbers. They would constantly say we are trying to adhere to the estimates that were provided to the Senate estimates hearing in relation to how many finalisations would be completed within a given period for the sake of trying to recoup revenue. That's what determined how many finalisations each division needed to achieve. That's all that mattered, meeting those benchmarks. It was toxic."
"I know a lot of compliance officers would just let the phone ring one or two times and hang up. Some even would say they made (the phone calls) but they don't. You don't want anyone to answer because then you are not going to get your finalisations for the day."
"I had people on the phone to me in tears. Because they were saying to me, 'I have done the right thing, I have always reported my income, why are you doing this to me now?'"
And, if you have a strong stomach, from Department of Human Services Manager Hank Jongen:
"Staff working on income reviews are not required to finalise a prescribed number each week. Like any service delivery organisation, we review performance to meet government priorities, but always put people at the centre of our work."
I'm sure he does prioritise people - the people who donate to the Liberal party. The people on $200K+ who think they should pay less tax. The people who think scraping back barely more money than the scheme costs to administer is well worth the point of punishing those who had the gall to be poor in the first place. This revolting scheme should end. But it won't.
9 News
Newstart participants explain what a $75 a week increase would mean to them
ACOSS have surveyed Newstart recipients asking what a $75 a week increase in payment would mean to them. The answers are a heartbreaking indictment of a wealthy country that allows vulnerable people to go hungry and scared whilst increasing the coffers of the wealthy.
“I would have enough to rent privately and get out of this abusive situation of where I live.”
“I could get more food for my kids.”
“I would be able to replace clothing which has worn through use.”
“I would be able to keep my car, which would increase my chances of getting work!”
“I’d be less afraid of the postman (and the bills he brings)!”
“I could feel like a human again.”
More support needed for child carers
One in ten Australian children care for a relative with a substance use issue or disability - and they need more support to stop them from falling behind in school.
Five lessons Australia could learn from Wales on ending homelessness
- Make the right to housing law;
- Change the culture on housing;
- Tackle the issue before it reaches crisis point;
- Taylor solutions to Australia;
- Rally the community sector.
Aboriginal kids aren't removed because their parents don't love them
Aboriginal children are fifteen times more likely than non-Indigenous children to be removed from their parents by child protection services.
Are Aboriginal parents fifteen times more likely to abuse their kids? Do they love them fifteen times less?
Once you remove that absurd notion, the real agenda behind child removals emerges.
The Guardian
Neoliberalism has been a political success but an economic failure
More essential reading... excellent long read by Robert Kuttner of American Prospect.
"Neoliberalism’s premise is that free markets can regulate themselves; that government is inherently incompetent, captive to special interests, and an intrusion on the efficiency of the market; that in distributive terms, market outcomes are basically deserved; and that redistribution creates perverse incentives by punishing the economy’s winners and rewarding its losers. So government should get out of the market’s way.
Now, after nearly half a century, the verdict is in. Virtually every one of these policies has failed, even on their own terms. Enterprise has been richly rewarded, taxes have been cut, and regulation reduced or privatized. The economy is vastly more unequal, yet economic growth is slower and more chaotic than during the era of managed capitalism. Deregulation has produced not salutary competition, but market concentration. Economic power has resulted in feedback loops of political power, in which elites make rules that bolster further concentration.
The culprit isn’t just “markets”—some impersonal force that somehow got loose again. This is a story of power using theory. The mixed economy was undone by economic elites, who revised rules for their own benefit. They invested heavily in friendly theorists to bless this shift as sound and necessary economics, and friendly politicians to put those theories into practice."
AlterNet
Surprise! Half baked scheme to have the unemployed toiling in the fields fails
A "poorly targeted and infeasible" scheme to recruit Newstart recipients to fruit picking jobs has been scrapped after finding positions for just 6% of intended recipients.
Government accused of criminalising homelessness
We've seen it with spikes on the ground, benches you can't lie down on and sprinklers in parks. Now governments are using technology to criminalise the homeless, with a new app in the NT encouraging people to dob in rough sleepers.
The Daily Mail
Parents Next providers exploiting the system
Job Network providers have been exploring the system for years, so it's little surprise the punitive, discriminatory Parents Next program would be plagued by similar issues. Providers exploiting single parents of young children, including homeless people, with the threat of losing payments if they don't comply.
And the government just doesn't care.
Another person with mental illness shot dead by NSW police
Taree man Todd McKenzie, who had a history of schizophrenia, was shot dead by police after they forced their way into his house after a 9 hour stand off.
Ironically, police were initially called to his home for a welfare check.
Seems nothing has been learned since the tragic death of Courtney Topic.
Wagging the dog on welfare demonisation
The government is being hammered on Robodebts and calls to raise the pitiful rate of Newstart... then RWNJs favourite breakfast TV show, Sunrise, runs a feature story this morning about "dole bludger" and "welfare fraud".
It's so utterly predictable. Deflect and denigrate.
Protests in New Zealand over appalling rate of Māori child removal
As the Ihumātao protests in New Zealand continue over high rates of Māori child removal and building on sacred land, PM Jacinta Arden has been accused of ignoring the issues in favour of building her profile on the world stage.
More than 50% of children in NZ state care are Māori.
We need evidence based action on homelessness
From 2011 to 2016, the homelessness rate in Australia increased 14%. In 2017-18 financial year, 288,000 clients sought assistance from specialist homelessness services. Every day in Australia, 236 requests for homelessness assistance go unfulfilled. There's no room for a positive spin - we need to focus on housing as a human right.
The anti-elite backlash and the rise of stupidity as policy
As Isaac Asimov once sagely stated
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
That was in 1980 and I think we can all agree it has gotten much worse. We see it in anti vaxxers, climate change deniers, the belief that Muslims are overtaking the West, even a million Facebook nostalgia pages reflecting how life was better when the Boomers were young, forgetting that sexism, racism, poverty and disease were even more a part of life then than now. Anyone is allowed to have an opinion on anything. Anyone can decide they have the right to have their opinion taken seriously. Andrew Bolt is an authority on climate change. Pauline Hanson gets media time for her opinions on Uluru. Soon I expect to see this:
This article from Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, looks at the phenomenon in more depth. I don't agree with his conclusion it's partially due to the entitlement of millennials - when everything really started to go downhill was when Baby Boomers discovered the comment section. But it's an interesting look at how we got here, and how we might get away.
The Federalist
"The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.”
That was in 1980 and I think we can all agree it has gotten much worse. We see it in anti vaxxers, climate change deniers, the belief that Muslims are overtaking the West, even a million Facebook nostalgia pages reflecting how life was better when the Boomers were young, forgetting that sexism, racism, poverty and disease were even more a part of life then than now. Anyone is allowed to have an opinion on anything. Anyone can decide they have the right to have their opinion taken seriously. Andrew Bolt is an authority on climate change. Pauline Hanson gets media time for her opinions on Uluru. Soon I expect to see this:
Physicists controlling the quantum movements of beryllium atoms in electromagnetic fields. Pauline Hanson appearing on Sunrise tomorrow to discuss the developments, since she knows as much about quantum mechanics as she knows about anything else. https://t.co/Pd2ckMgJtJ— Sikamikanico 👩🏻💻 (@Sikamikanico) July 23, 2019
This article from Tom Nichols, professor of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, looks at the phenomenon in more depth. I don't agree with his conclusion it's partially due to the entitlement of millennials - when everything really started to go downhill was when Baby Boomers discovered the comment section. But it's an interesting look at how we got here, and how we might get away.
The Federalist
The truth about welfare fraud
The actual rate of welfare fraud? 0.04% of welfare participants. That's 4 in 1000.
How female prisoners are failed by the system
Female prisoners - who are overwhelmingly victims of domestic violence - are being failed by the parole system, forced to stay in prison past their sentences as they don't have a place to stay. More failures of our housing and justice systems.
Independent Australia
Disability commissioners must go due to conflict of interest
Two of the disability commissioners are facing calls to stand down due to conflict of interest.
Barbara Bennett is the previous deputy secretary of the families and communities branch of the Department of Social Services, whilst John Ryan in his role at Family and Community Services was tasked with closing down large residential institutions for people with disability such as the Westmead and Rydalmere Centres in Sydney, the Riverside Centre in Orange and the Stockton Centre in Newcastle - not to mention he's a former Liberal party politician.
It's a basic principle of integrity that the people investigating policies shouldn't be the ones who made those policies.
They need to go.
Pro Bono News
Barbara Bennett is the previous deputy secretary of the families and communities branch of the Department of Social Services, whilst John Ryan in his role at Family and Community Services was tasked with closing down large residential institutions for people with disability such as the Westmead and Rydalmere Centres in Sydney, the Riverside Centre in Orange and the Stockton Centre in Newcastle - not to mention he's a former Liberal party politician.
It's a basic principle of integrity that the people investigating policies shouldn't be the ones who made those policies.
They need to go.
Pro Bono News
Robodebt Robbery
Posted on 27 July 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Australian Greens Centrelink Federal Politics Ideology Robodebt
Australian Greens Centrelink Federal Politics Ideology Robodebt
If you're not familiar, Robodebt is the government's practice of using data matching software to find discrepancies between information clients have provided to Centrelink to claim payments, and data from other government agencies such as the tax office and child support agencies. I hate to break your faith in the information technology capabilities of the government that can't even get the Census right, but Robodebt has come up with lots and lots of errors. Robodebt has the delightful habit of seeing a Newstart recipient has picked up a few weeks of work, deciding they must have earned that much every week all year, and slapping them with a debt for the government payments that Robodebt decided the person wasn't entitled to because the computer has decided they were working when they weren't.
Look, it's kind of fair that the government wants to get money people claimed when they weren't entitled to it back. The problem is Robodebt shoots first and asks questions later. Debts are automatically issued with no warning, no explanation, and little chance to challenge or appeal. And if Robodebt decided there's a debt, they can just help themselves to your money and good luck getting it back.
In my case, I've been issued a debt no one can explain or justify, and only found out about when Centrelink helped themselves to my $2,500 tax return.
Back in January, I got a letter telling me I had a $7,800 debt for overpayment of Family Tax benefit dating back to 2015. Wait, what? This was when I was freshly separated from my husband. I'd lost just about everything I owned, was at uni, not working, and had 25% care of my son. I was scraping by on Austudy and a partial family tax benefit and after paying rent, often had to choose between the train to uni and food. But I was scrupulously honest and accurate in what I told Centrelink. Now the government decided I had too much money back then? I called them. No one could tell me why there was a debt but they promised it would be appealed and someone could get back to me.
So I left it there. I've had a lot of stuff going on this year, and it did kind of slip my mind. I'm working full time, not on Centrelink payments at all, and don't log into My Gov much cause I've no need to. Apparently Robodebts can be enforced to stop you leaving the country but I had no issues doing so in May. I got another letter at some stage saying I had a $300 debt, and figured my initial debt had been reviewed and reduced to that amount. Fine, I didn't know what the debt was but by now would probably have paid it to save myself dealing with them.
Fast forward to July. I completed my tax return, looked forward to a decent refund of $2,500, which was needed for...stuff. I don't earn a tonne of money, live pretty frugally (my American trip this year was done on the cheap...two star hotels, all public transport and walking, eating one meal a day plus apples and chips) and really needed my tax back, not to mention my beloved 16 year old cat needs thyroid treatment. I spent most of my monthly pay from work paying off some outstanding debts cause hey, tax refund coming soon right?
On the 17 July I got a My Gov letter telling me the original debt stood, now bumped up to $8000 with interest.
On the 18 July, the ATO processed my tax refund and transferred it all to Centrelink to pay off my debt.
So I've been calling. On 19 July the Centrelink debt team told me apparently, maybe, the debt was for overpayment of rent assistance. Wait, what? Where are you saying I falsely claimed rent assistance? I asked what addresses they had on file for me, and the guy on the phone read out my addresses and the dates I lived there - which was the completely accurate info I gave them at the time, along with my leases. Apparently though, they'd look into it, and if I gave them all my rental information again maybe the debt would be waived. Also just maybe I could get some of my tax refund back whilst it was being appealed. So I tracked down and uploaded all my rental info again, along with bills to support why I needed the money back.
I also emailed several politicians, including my local member Tanya Plibersek. The only one I heard back from was Senator Rachel Siewert, the Greens Senator from WA, who has been doing great work campaigning against the shitty Robodebt system. Her office has been absolutely lovely, and will raise my case with a review officer.
And I started getting angry. How very dare they just announce a debt and take my money. Right at tax time - suspicious much? How can a stupid computer algorithm raise a debt and take my money with no chance for me to appeal first?
This Thursday 25 July I rang Centrelink again. The debt recovery team told me I'd have to speak to the families line. The families line weren't entirely sure why the debt had been raised, but they seemed to think it might be related to my child care percentage from 2015-2017. So now if I want to challenge the debt, I have to try and prove how often my son was in my care years ago, in the period immediately after the end of my marriage, when I was forced against my will to leave my son with his father. As the 2.5 hour call came to an end, they also told me my case wasn't being appealed from the call six days prior, but they'd raised an appeal now, and oh yeah, you can't get any money back in the meantime.
And that was where I lost it.
I have to go back to the most painful time in my life - separated from my child, one of the worst things that can happen, a horror so raw I mostly block it from my mind - and try to prove the pitiful amount of time I got to spend with him, when I wish it had been all the time.
I felt the life I had built for myself, working, budding as a stand up comedian, a lovely home, hope when I haven't had hope for so long - crumbling away. I had worked so hard for nothing. I was rewarded for having a go by the government making my money go away.
I am broke until I get paid in two weeks - I'm not asking for anything and I'm not crowdfunding. I want my money back. The trouble is I can't even precisely challenge the debt because no one can tell me the data mismatch that triggered it. No one can tell me exactly what the debt is for. The government won't divulge the discrepancies in data matching they look for, for fear people will exploit it.
They're free to exploit us though. All of us. Robodebt is extortion. No other organisation can decide you have a debt, refuse to fully explain it, and steal your money leaving you scrambling to work out why let alone get it back.
Right now I'm waiting. Waiting for the appeal, waiting for my complaint to be responded to*, waiting in hope Senator Siewert's office can get somewhere I haven't been able to. And I'm at an advantage here. I have a degree in social policy and a decent knowledge of the political system. What of the people who don't have that particular bureaucratic literacy? Robodebt targets the vulnerable, and worse; it targets those who have been on government payments and gone on to working, stealing what they earned away.
They're free to exploit us though. All of us. Robodebt is extortion. No other organisation can decide you have a debt, refuse to fully explain it, and steal your money leaving you scrambling to work out why let alone get it back.
Right now I'm waiting. Waiting for the appeal, waiting for my complaint to be responded to*, waiting in hope Senator Siewert's office can get somewhere I haven't been able to. And I'm at an advantage here. I have a degree in social policy and a decent knowledge of the political system. What of the people who don't have that particular bureaucratic literacy? Robodebt targets the vulnerable, and worse; it targets those who have been on government payments and gone on to working, stealing what they earned away.
Sometimes I feel like I'll end up like this guy. I don't want to. I don't want any of this. I just want my money back. People have mentioned legal action, class actions; I'm not thinking that far ahead. I'm so heartsick sometimes I'm battling one hour at a time, and even if I get my money back it's been so utterly shitty.
* If you have received a Robodebt, do make a formal complaint. The government has used the low rate of complaints to prove "the system is working". Thousands of complaints might get their thumb off the scale a bit.
* If you have received a Robodebt, do make a formal complaint. The government has used the low rate of complaints to prove "the system is working". Thousands of complaints might get their thumb off the scale a bit.
Government funding counselling that puts women at risk
The government is funding $10 million towards Specialist Family Violence Services, including couples counselling. It's an absolutely terrible idea. As Hayley Foster, CEO of Women's Safety NSW, wrote to the minister of families and human services: “Couples counselling in the context of domestic and family violence is contraindicated for victim safety and is not recommended by any representative specialist domestic and family violence service peak body, practitioner group, or research organisation nationally"
But they're going ahead anyway.
Women's Agenda
Please, an end to simplistic conversations about mental health
People with mental illness are told to "just talk! Get help!"
It doesn't work like that. Enough awareness has been raised - we need action.
The Guardian
NT to deliver Aboriginal justice agreement
We are finally starting to see that after years and billions of dollars spent on expensive, pointless fixes to Aboriginal health, welfare and equality divides, governments might actually be...asking Aboriginal people themselves about the policies that affect their communities.
The Northern Territory is now working with the Aboriginal Justice Unit to establish an Aboriginal Justice Agreement to tackle the Territory's Indigenous incarceration rates and racial divides in policing.
ABC News
As a non Indigenous person, it's generally my belief and practice not to opinionate on Indigenous issues other than to amplify Aboriginal voices. My answer to What Should Be Done is, don't ask white commentators. Ask Aboriginal people.
The Northern Territory is now working with the Aboriginal Justice Unit to establish an Aboriginal Justice Agreement to tackle the Territory's Indigenous incarceration rates and racial divides in policing.
ABC News
As a non Indigenous person, it's generally my belief and practice not to opinionate on Indigenous issues other than to amplify Aboriginal voices. My answer to What Should Be Done is, don't ask white commentators. Ask Aboriginal people.
Less spent feeding the elderly than prisoners
The for profit nursing home industry continues to surprise and delight. Turns out, the average daily food spend for residents in aged care homes is $6.08 - less than that spent on prisoners. That's $6.08 per day for all meals, beverages and snacks. And this is the average. That would mean many homes are spending less - leading to horrific situations like the reports of maggots and rodents in food preparation areas at nursing homes. Even when things are clean, six bucks a day isn't enough to feed a person - so it's no wonder 50% of nursing home residents are malnourished.
It's time to nationalise the residential aged care industry.
The Mandarin
The lie of Newstart as a stop gap payment
"Newstart is only meant as a short term payment in between jobs" - that not true, or much comfort, for people on Newstart, especially for the growing numbers of older people on Newstart for extended periods due to diminishing employment prospects.
The Guardian
The Guardian
Arguing for an Australian Green New Deal
Posted on 24 July 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Australian Greens Australian Labor Party Green new deal Ideology
Australian Greens Australian Labor Party Green new deal Ideology
Excellent article arguing that Australia needs a Green New Deal of its own to counteract the problems of inequality, unstable employment and environmental recklessness plaguing this country. It is long past time for centrism. We need to state what we need and fight for it
Australian unemployment payments amongst the lowest in the OECD
Sorry to have to shock you like this, but Scott Morrison was lying when he described Australia's welfare safety net as one of the best in the world. In fact, our unemployment support payments are among the lowest.
The Guardian
The Guardian
Media focusing on defects in new apartments; ignoring many more forced to live in substandard housing
Australia has an excess of housing, but many are forced to live in crowded, unhealthy and dangerous rental property due to high rents and unstable employment.
The Conversation
ASIC to investigate predatory pay day loan industry
If you think your credit card is bad, imagine paying 400% monthly interest along with a 'same day deposit fee', a 'financial supply fee', a 'lender fee', a 'dishonour fee', a 'dishonour letter fee', and three separate iterations of the 'account keeping fee'.
Payday lenders prey on the most financially disadvantaged and vulnerable by offering very small, low doc loans to those who can't get finance anywhere else at very, very high (and often undisclosed) interest rates. Hopefully investigation by ASIC will curtail or shut the practice altogether.
ABC News
The media needs to stop presenting stories of hardship as perserverance porn
After involuntarily* watching Little Miss Sunshine, I thought the problem with "uplifting" movies is they give a false impression of how easily disadvantaged people can band together and overcome their troubles.
But the media are suckers for this stuff. Lovely stories of how the poor, sick and disabled can just get up the gumption and solve the problems created by massive societal barriers and inequality to lighten anyone's heart and remind those still suffering that it's all their own fault.
Can we - and I can't overstate this - fucking not?
Fair.org
* I was in a psych ward, they'd taken my phone, and it was that or read a Jodi Picoult book. If I wasn't already depressed, I was when I saw the media selection.
The black and white witness to race in Australia
An excellent essay from Amy Quire on Australia's exhausting practice of letting white people decide what's racist:
Policy expert explains why it's so hard to get on DSP
We mostly have those fine upstanding stalwarts of neoliberalism, Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd, to blame.
The Guardian
The Guardian
Single father takes his own life with £4.61 in bank waiting for Universal Credit
Single father Phillip Herron posted a tearful selfie moments before taking his own life after being left heavily in debt with pay day loans and threatened with
eviction whilst waiting for Universal Credit - the UK benefit payment which, like with Australia's fine Centrelink, causes recipients great suffering whilst waiting for payment, with the added cruelty of being paid on a monthly basis only.
A month is forever when you're down to your last few bucks.
A spokesman for the Department of Work and Pensions stated "Suicide is a very complex issue, so it would be wrong to link it solely to someone’s benefit claim."
What a cop out.
Universal credit was introduced in 2010 as part of British austerity measures.
The UK spent £67 on the Royal Family last year.
How Centrelink's couples rule increases risks of domestic violence
Centrelink's "couples rule" ties women financially to their abusers. It's a holdover from the early days of the single mother's benefit, when only the "good" single mothers who remained chaste and pure were deemed worthy of payment. The bad mothers with boyfriends got squat. Single parents can still lose their benefits if a nosy neighbour decides to dob you in for having a partner stay over. At least they've one move in a progressive direction - the rule now applies to same sex partners too. Yay, I guess.
The reality of life on Newstart long term
Whenever the necessity to raise the rate of Newstart is discussed, a line frequently heard is "Newstart is only intended to be a temporary payment while you're in between jobs. It's not meant to fund a long term lifestyle".
Leaving aside that people in between jobs don't get temporary reduced rates of rent, transport, bills or food, this line ignores the realities of Newstart recipients today. Through no fault of their own many people remain stuck on Newstart for years, due to the extreme difficulty of applying for the disability support pension or simply the bleak prospects for older job seekers.
This article is from The Sydney Morning Herald, 21 July 2019.
No lights, no linen: How Alex survived for six years on Newstart
I have known Alex Phillips for 18 months. Most Tuesdays I’ve met up with him at the Olive Way drop-in centre in Sydney Road, Brunswick. A small engraved name badge tells people I’m a volunteer. This discreet delineation answers the question in people's eyes – the 'what are you doing here?' question. People who live the life of hard knocks can easily tell I’m not one of them, but they talk to me anyway.
Alex stands out and always will because one of his legs is so wrangled out of shape. His right knee is permanently bent and his leg elbows out to one side from his hip. Once I went with him to an orthopaedic surgeon to get a letter of support because he’d been refused a Disability Support Pension. The verdict that his leg was "irreversibly and permanently deformed" did not dismay Alex; he had known this for a long time already.
I was curious about Alex – he was direct in eye contact and forthright in conversation. By arrangement and with gravitas he told me the story of his childhood, full of warmth for his foster mother. He brought in a collection of small black and white and faded colour photos which he held between finger and thumb with the care of a curator.
Minnie Florence Phillips was the woman who put her hand up to care for Alex. You can see this care in him now – the polite inquiring after others, the attention to possible and intended meanings, the earnest explanations. When I write up his story for the Olive Way newsletter, he corrects me: “I wouldn’t say it was hard. I was very lucky, I had a good mum.”
Later he reiterates: “I had a very good upbringing."
When I first met Alex, he was living independently in a one-bedroom flat he’d been in for eight years. Alex has worked for most of his life with a bung leg. Early on he did outdoor work, later he was a patrolman driving between locations checking on building security. After 13 years at a mattress factory, at age 44 he was made redundant. In 2012 he went on Newstart.
Newstart for single unemployed adults is $555.70 each fortnight, or just under $40 a day. Both Labor’s Jenny Macklin and then-Liberal Julia Banks once declared they could manage on the Newstart allowance. Neither of them were put to the test and Macklin later apologised. In May 2018 John Howard went on the record saying he believes the freeze on Newstart has gone on too long. Scott Morrison has no plans to increase it.
Alex’s experience may be instructive.
This is how Alex managed on Newstart for six years. In order to maintain the $288 per week rent on his one-bedroom flat, and pay for utilities and food, he turned off his fridge and heating. He lived on two-minute noodles, 65-cent cans of baked beans, packet soups and bread. He couldn’t afford margarine. He came to Olive Way for lunch three days a week. He showered at the Salvos to save on water and heating and rather than use his washing machine for bed linen, he slept on his couch in an overcoat.
His bad leg was playing up as he grew older but the only time he went to the pharmacy was when he had the flu. He’s had the flu three times in three years. A Myki travel card and mobile phone were necessities to keep up with Newstart job-hunting requirements. Even with the addition of rental assistance which brought his fortnightly payment to $695, rent took more than 90 per cent of his income. He did not turn on the lights in his flat but used the torch in his mobile phone.
To reach the tram stop, Alex held on to the fence posts down the street. Sometimes he’d keep his balance by walking with one foot in the gutter to even up the height of his legs and keep him more stable against the camber of the footpath. He caught the tram every day and got to know the drivers. As well as the Salvos and Olive Way, he went to numerous appointments necessitated by Newstart job-hunting and skills-learning requirements.
When he had to move out of his flat, a tram driver who’d become a friend offered to mind his washing machine and fridge until he found another place to rent. This man and his wife also invited Alex to share Christmas with them.
Patronising remarks by the staff at the disability employment support centre sparked a steely kind of outrage in him. But when they told him they’d easily found work for a double amputee, he became anxious and angry. He was so used to accommodating Newstart requirements that he began worrying that amputation was being proposed. When the demerit point system was invoked, the threat of having Newstart cut back put a darkness across Alex’s face I had not seen before.
By the time Alex’s Disability Support Pension (DSP) assessment review came up, he was homeless. His landlord wanted to renovate and Alex had to move out. He was fearful about what sleeping rough might mean for the arthritis in his damaged leg. Initially he set up in a neighbour’s garage with no bathroom facilities. Then, in a rare stroke of good fortune, he got a room in a housing facility for homeless men. He could shower, eat, sleep and stay warm. His face was shining.
Last week, Melbourne Lord Mayor Sally Capp was interviewed on ABC radio after the new Federal Assistant Housing Minister, Luke Howarth, had publicly downplayed the problem of affordable housing for people on low incomes. He was "putting a positive spin" on it. Capp said that her office received more letters about people sleeping rough in the CBD than anything else. These letters weren’t asking for law and order, she said. They were asking: “How can we help?”
There are programs that offer unfiltered on-the-ground information for politicians and senior decision makers in industry. For those who are open to acknowledging their lack of experience with the day-to-day realities of poverty, Financial Counselling Australia offer A Day in the Life. With permission from callers, these visitors get to listen in to the details and stories of financial stress. It is sobering information, and it is often clear that the circumstances have not arisen due to carelessness or poor choices.
When the internal Centrelink review dismissed his DSP application a second time, Alex was ready. He went to see his local MP, Adam Bandt, who was moved to speak in Parliament about Alex’s situation. It is possible that without Bandt’s intervention, Alex would still be waiting to have his appeal heard.
His case came up at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT) early this year. He had prepared himself with advice from Social Security Rights Victoria and evidence the GP and physiotherapist at his local community health centre had helped him collect.
Alex carried a carefully tended plastic shopping bag of documentation. When he met refusal and bureaucratic blocks, he had a way of reporting his situation that reminded me of TV courtroom dramas. Often, he would say that he was going to “get to the bottom of the truth”.
The AAT ruled that Alex met the criteria for a DSP. He is no longer living on Newstart. The pension is set at $1063 per fortnight and he is free from the requirement to attend pointless job interviews where employers would lose interest as soon as they saw his disability.
Alex still comes to Olive Way most weeks - he likes the company and the atmosphere, he offers a welcome to people. On my first day there he asked me what I’d be doing in the afternoon. I said that after I finished work, I’d be preparing a big cook-up for a family dinner.
During the slight pause that followed, I realised this was not something that would be happening at his place. Alex said: “Well, if you’re close to your family, you’ve gotta respect that.”
His wish for me had all the overtones of polite generosity that I imagine Minnie Phillips had taught him.
Labor must abandon its hatred of the Greens and support raising Newstart
Posted on 21 July 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Australian Greens Australian Labor Party Centrelink Federal Politics Newstart
Australian Greens Australian Labor Party Centrelink Federal Politics Newstart
Even as Labor continues its bizarre lurch to the right under Anthony Albanese, it's time for them to stop playing politics with the lives of the most vulnerable Australians and support an increase to Newstart.
The Guardian
The alarming disparity in suicide rate among public housing residents
Australian investment in public housing is woefully inadequate. Yet amongst the residents of Australia's 400,000 public housing residents is a rate of suicide far higher than the general population.
The Stringer
The Stringer
A call for a return to love in progressive politics
I don't agree with all of this - where was Obama's love when he was ordering drone strikes at civilian targets - but interesting points to consider. I'm definitely an advocate of people on opposite sides of the political spectrum actually meeting as people.
The horrific and misunderstood extent of family violence
When frontline workers insist domestic abuse is a national emergency, this is what they are talking about.
We call it a national emergency, but we don’t treat it like one.
The horrid experience of music festival strip searches
Humiliating, degrading, an unnecessary use of police resources in pursuit of the failed and deadly war on drugs.
Disgusting! Why is this racist judge allowed to sit on the bench?!
Posted on 18 July 2019
by Nico Bell
• 0 Comments
Indigenous Australians Legal Northern Territory Racism
Indigenous Australians Legal Northern Territory Racism
Meet NT Judge Greg Borchers.
He's already been sanctioned for comments including telling the traumatised 13 year old son of a murdered woman that he was taking advantage of his mother's death to play truant and commit petty crime, and that "the community can't afford you".
But it seems to have only riled him up.
Today this fine specimen of the legal fraternity has been reported as comparing an Indigenous offender to a "primitive person", telling an Indigenous mother she probably got drunk on pension day and “abandoned your kids in that great Indigenous fashion”, and pondering that “One day we might read some literature, some important anthropological literature, we might learn something about what’s called Indigenous laissez-faire parenting and I invite you to do so, not that it will help your practice in any way, but it might get you to understand why it is that people abandon their children on such a regular basis.”
Even in the NT and even with the racism that goes on in this country, this guy is something else. And what he should be made very soon is something else without a job.
Time for fairness: Make George Calombaris repay his debt
As Homer Simpson famously stated, the machinery of capitalism is oiled with the blood of the workers. Well it seems the food of celebrity chef George Calombaris is flavoured with the blood, sweat and tears of the 500 workers he underpaid a total of $7.8 million in his restaurants.
Of course, Mr Calombaris is so very, very sorry about all this, and has promised to repay...$200,000. I'm sure that is great comfort to the hospitality workers dudded out of their pay and superannuation whilst Calombaris continues to enjoy the privileges of his celebrity lifestyle including a luxury estate in Toorak. What are the chances he'll lose any of this to repay his debt?
But he should. Let's make Calombaris repay every cent he owes. There shouldn't be one rule for the wealthy and another for the rest of us. If it's good enough for people on Robodebt it's good enough for him. Have the tax office audit his income and assets. Force him to prove what he earns and how he's going to repay what he owes. Have debt collectors call him. And if he wants to speak to someone about this, make him wait on hold for 2.5 hours to speak to an operator.
It's only fair.
ABC News
