Description

We respond to some listener feedback, discuss the LNP's miserly raise to the Jobseeker Rate, and the media's response to some basic new rights for Victorian renters.

 

Cap watch

• One “cap” of cocaine, please young sir.

Listener feedback

• Listener Tara Nipe’s blog post on the practicalities of a fly-in-fly-out COVID quarantine.
• Victoria have instituted dedicated agency, the COVID-19 Quarantine Victoria (CQV), to manage the hotel quarantine program.

Raise the rate

• The Coronavirus supplemental payment helped people escape from a cycle of poverty.
• After an extended campaign by advocates, the Government has raised the rate by… $3.57 a day.
• The Government has announced a “dob in a dole-bludger hotline”.
• We almost had some good news, with Greens Senator Rachel Siewert putting forward a motion to recognise that the Jobseeker rate should be be raised to above the poverty line, like Phoebe teaching Joey.
• Labor then agreed to back the Government’s misery bill.
• Anthony Albonese on Insiders, refuses to name a number.

Media watch

• The media love to use the words “dole bludgers”.
• Victoria is introducing new rental reforms, to give renters basic rights.
• The media have freaked out about the reforms.
• Contact the Renters and Housing Union if you need help understanding how these laws effect you.

Slave labour watch

• All of Victoria’s number plates are made using prison labour, earning (up to) $2 and hour.
• Victoria also proposes to use prison labour to pick fruit.

Shoutouts

• Play some Australia videogames! Untitled Goose Game, Hollow Knight or Armello are fantastic.
• Listen to two great podcast episodes on the Facebook news debacle: Banning Australia from this Machine Kills, and Lizzie O’Shea on Tech Won’t Save Us
• Listen the Pop Test ABC podcast.
• Read the Chaser and Matthew Davis’s rundown of LNP bullshit.