Why It’s Time To Cut Through Budget Week Bullshit
The AUWU is organising their own reply to the budget, for those living in and resisting the poverty machine.
Here we go again, the budget circus is in town.
Anticipation is palpable among members of the political and media class. “Leaks” abound that are usually just recycled stories about old announcements. Professional commentators gear up for their ritual of classifying us into “winners” and “losers”. All of this pageantry, so little consideration of the fact that we’re, you know, actually human beings. No consideration of whether the people hurt by bad social policy have actual thoughts, let alone something valuable to say about it all.
Numbers, charts, spreadsheets; billions, deficits, GDP. It’s BORING. And it says nothing about what the government’s decisions will actually mean in our lives. Especially for the poorest among us.
Inequality is growing, more people are trapped in poverty than ever before and policies to support us are going in the wrong direction. Yet commentary about poverty, unemployment and social services sucks because the “experts” who talk about it have no idea what our lives are like. The real experts are us, because we live it every single day.
We don’t need to wait for the whole dirty spectacle to unfold to know the politicians aren’t going to be kind to vulnerable people in #TheirBudget on Tuesday night. Every year we’re sacrificed at the alter of their economic gods in pursuit of a pointless budget surplus — a surplus of cash that is, not a surplus of care.
We’re going to need to take care of each other ourselves.
The Budget Will Continue To Punish The Poor
Over the past 6 months the hits haven’t stopped coming. The Coalition has forced tens of thousands of folks to stay on the racist Cashless Debit Card, made millions of us poorer by slashing unemployment payments, threatened hundreds of thousands of disabled people with NDIS cuts, and promised to put back just a quarter of the money they’ve ripped out of aged care. That’s on top of a $40 million cut to homelessness services they snuck into the last budget in October and their attempts to force unemployed people to go and pick fruit.
They haven’t hidden their agenda so why would they change tack now? It’s in their blood to kick the poor. At best the PM might put a little marketing spin on holes in our “safety” net and sling a few extra bucks to self-serving non-profits. Poverty profiteers are satisfied to beg for crusts and be grateful for crumbs. They will glory in lobbying success, but more money in their pockets isn’t a victory. Charity is no answer to the poverty crisis our governments have created.
Two nights after the Treasurer tells us just how cruel he plans to be, Labor will deliver their budget reply. The opposition leader is already praising the virtues of austerity. The whole dirty spectacle promises to be as stale and bland as a communion wafer.
We’d love to be surprised, but we know better than to hope for compassion from the Morrison government or for Anthony Albanese to grow a backbone. The people who built the poverty machine will not be the ones to break it.
Things are grim. But at the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union we refuse to be hopeless or defeated. Instead, we are angry, ready to stand up for ourselves and here to support each other. We’ve decided it’s time someone cut through the budget week bullshit. Poverty is a choice and we refuse to let politicians get away with pretending it’s inevitable. We refuse to be invisible.
Replying To The Budget
This week every person in the Canberra bubble will furiously grasp for a “fresh” angle in the battle for precious airtime. And every one of them will say slight variations of the same thing. As they prepare to act surprised at whatever is said on Tuesday, we’re readying for what comes next: our struggle to survive in spite of this country’s social policies, not because of them.
With the help of our comrades the AUWU is planning something new. In contrast to those obsessing over who gets the biggest tax breaks, we want to bring the community together. On Thursday night, as politicians breathe the rarified air in Parliament House, we’ll be at the bottom of the hill delivering the only budget reply that matters: one from those of us living in and resisting the poverty machine.
Unemployed workers’ will break down the budget — not its numbers, but its implications. More money for relocation assistance? More people bullied into farm labour. More money for training? More time-wasting courses. Hiring subsidies? Fantasy jobs. No charts, no tables full of figures, we promise.
We won’t just expose the meaning behind the details — what’s important is how it makes us all feel, how our lives will change or stay the same, and what we can do to defend our rights. We’ll share the mic with other vulnerable members of the community: Bla(c)k folks, disabled people, unemployed workers, public housing tenants, refugees, students and pensioners will give their spicy takes. We’re going to ask everyone to help us imagine the ways we can provide material and emotional aid to each other, then do the work of planning to make it real.
In Canberra we’re inviting folks from all walks of life to join us at the Polish Club from 6:15pm on Thursday. We want to create something that everyone can experience as equals, so food and drinks are on us – don’t let a lack of money keep you away. If you have access to the internet and want to get involved, the event will be streamed on social media, or you can join in on Zoom. Choose whatever makes you comfortable!
The government isn’t about to do its job and start caring for us. The only useful response to the federal budget is to rally the community and protect each other until we’ve won the structural change that’s needed.
Kristin O’Connell is an activist and unwaged worker at the Australian Unemployed Workers’ Union and The Antipoverty Centre, living and working on stolen Gadigal land. Follow her work via @kristin8x. You can RSVP to ‘#TheirBudget, Our Lives: A reply from those resisting poverty’ here: https://theirbudget.eventbrite.com.au