The end of the year is an especially tricky time for a lot of people: casual workers find a lot if work dries up, a lot of companies wind down their employment until the new year, and saving get drained by seasonal travel costs and Christmas expenses.
For those living on the borderline during the year, the holiday season can tip them over the edge.
So, if you were a federal government led by an outspoken Christian desperate to rehabilitate their reputation as a hardline Immigration Minister and/or a penny-pinching treasurer, especially one currently facing a wipe out at the next election with the latest poll showing a solid ten percent deficit, would right now be a great time to slash funding to a food charity?
You’re not helping, clown.
If you’re the current federal government under PM Scott Morrison, the answer is “sure, let’s drop the funding from $750,000 to $427,000. Three years ago the funding was $1.5 million, to be clear.
Just for context, remember that the planned monument for Captain Cook is costed at half a billion dollars, and the government were able to scrape up $122 million for the unfunded same sex marriage postal vote, so this is more a matter of priorities than money. For the government $1.5 million for Foodbank would be chicken feed, with an emphasis on the “feed” bit.
According to SBS’s report, “In February Foodbank asked the government for $10.5 million over three years, which it said would return $316 million to the Australian economy.” So this… well, it’s not exactly what they asked for.
That funding is specifically for what’s called their “key staples” program, which gets things like bread, rice, pasta, vegetables and bread to hungry Australians.
It comes as demand for Foodbank and similar charities is at record levels. For context, Foodbank provides 67 million meals a year to charities across the country, by negotiating with manfucatuyres, producers and retailers, and goes out to more than 1750 schools around Australia.
Social Services minister Paul Fletcher has been spinning it as a funding bonanza, with Foodbank, SecondBite and OzHarvest sharing in “more than $4.5 million.” Except, and here’s the trick, it’s to cover four and a half years. Just keep that weird funding window in mind in case anyone mentions “a record funding pool” or suchlike.
Labor have already leapt on the cut, with Bill Shorten demanding the cut be reversed and declaring “I am genuinely surprised by this mean and foolish decision.” You and us both, Bill.
For his part, Morrison’s arguing that the funding is now undergoing a competitive tender process between three charities and that this will… um, make it more competitive? But also, if it doesn’t work, it wasn’t his idea.
“I’ll have a chat to the Social Services Minister and, if there’s any need to review that decision, then – it was a decision obviously made by the department – and we’ll take a look at that,” he told Studio 10 on Monday.
Incidentally, Foodwise calculate that the average Australian wastes about 20 percent of the food they buy – which comes to over $1k a year. Maybe keep that in mind next shopping day.