There is (rightly) going to be a lot of discussion about the Jobseeker payment in the next few weeks. Just a small reminder that it is not just about the dollar amount per day - and what people could buy with it. That is obviously important, but we are talking about people who are forced to make decisions about how many times a day they can afford to eat. People for whom looking for work costs money they don’t have - internet access, public transport to libraries for internet access or just temperature control, keeping clothes laundered or hair washed - all of these little things we can take for granted is something someone living under the poverty line has to think about. Add in the mutual obligations and you’re forcing people to constantly put their own needs to the side. And by their own needs, I mean medical treatment. Toothpaste. Being able to sleep in instead of waking up three hours earlier because the bus/train/walk commute is going mean a 30 minute car trip takes 2.5 hours. We put a lot of stock in image, people looking neat and tidy. That takes money. Same with people on time. Same with how we communicate, or stay on top of life admin. It all costs money. The same people who have finally admitted they couldn’t live on $40 a day, are saying $43.50 a day is fine. There is a whole stigma which comes with being unemployed in this country, and not a lot of thought about what it feels like to make the choice between eating and making to an interview for a job you know you won’t be getting. Tom McIlroy from the Fin reported this yesterday - it should be raised in question time today Facebook finds somewhere (else) to be This morning, before MPs headed off to their party rooms, a group of parliamentarians gathered in the Mural Hall for an event associated with one of the parliamentary friendship groups. This morning saw the launch of Parliamentary Friends of Making Social Media Safe. This group is headed by Anne Webster – the Nationals MP, who endured a terrible time on Facebook. Anne’s is quite an amazing story and she narrates it for me here. The co-chair is the Labor MP Sharon Claydon. Facebook was expected to be in attendance at the modest soiree, but senior executives suddenly found themselves with somewhere (anywhere) else to be, given the rolling dispute between the platform and the Morrison government over the digital media code may have increased the awkwardness quotient. The group was addressed by the British Tory MP Damien Collins – who has spearheaded committee work in the United Kingdom on the platforms and misinformation. Collins (appearing by videolink) was full of praise for Australia’s digital media code. “Australia is a great democracy ... and the world is watching, and I hope you will prevail in this struggle with Facebook,” the MP proclaimed. Collins also expressed the view that governments had a legitimate right to regulate the business models of the platforms. He said the “engagement” model led platforms to recommend content to their users that was causing harm. The questions the British MP got from the floor were interesting. The Nationals MPs David Gillespie wondered whether social platforms should demand proof of identity from users. The Liberal Julian Leeser drew Collins out about regulating the algorithm. Collins insisted this was the key to avoiding the “how dare you regulate free speech” trap – regulate the business model instead. Collins said legislators were not looking at a content problem, they were looking at a business model problem, where the whole system encouraged inflammatory material to be put before users. A very interesting session. Greg Hunt says the second Pfizer vaccine delivery has arrived in Australia. It’s the first of two over the course of the next week which between them should deliver 280,000 doses this week; 166,000 doses have arrived; next week it will be approximately 120,000 doses. We’ll average our provision across the two and that should be the equivalent of 140,000 doses arriving per week or thereabouts. What that means is we’ll make 80,000 doses available over the coming week – 50,000 to the states; 30,000 to aged care through the Commonwealth, and we’ll do the same in week three of the program. It’s important that we have consistency, we’re always provisioning for the second doses which is the recommendation of our medical advisors and making sure that we have contingency if, at any stage, there were an issue with the supply chain. But I have to say, the consistency of supply has been strong and heartening. AAP has taken a look at Australian consumer confidence in the wake of the vaccine roll out: Australians are hardly punching the air that the coronavirus vaccine has arrived to lead the country out of the dark days of 2020. New confidence figures suggest consumers have also ignored the latest upbeat jobs numbers and a string of results that point to a strengthening in the economic recovery from last year’s recession. The weekly ANZ-Roy Morgan consumer confidence index – a pointer to future household spending – fell 0.6 per cent, its third consecutive decline. The confidence gauge’s sub-indices proved a mixed bag, with perceptions among respondents views on their current and future financial conditions declining. The only bright spot was views on general economic conditions in the next five years, rising 1.6 per cent. ANZ head of Australian economics David Plank said the last fall in the index came despite the easing of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions in Victoria. He was also surprised that that the “time to buy a major household item” component dropped by 3.9 per cent – its largest drop since August last year – coming at a time when the housing market is strengthening. “We would expect the two to go hand-in-hand, so the relative softness of this aspect of sentiment may not endure,” Mr Plank said releasing the report on Tuesday. However, Wednesday’s release of key wage growth figures for the December quarter may give reason to be gloomy. Economists expect these will show wages grew at a meagre 0.3 per cent in the quarter to a limp annual rate of 1.1 per cent. The only upside to these Scrooge-like conditions is that annual inflation is crawling along at 0.9 per cent. The United States has recorded half a million covid deaths. Those are the official numbers. They don’t take into consideration people who have died at home, without a diagnosis. Dawn services and marches can occur as usual in Queensland this Anzac Day, Annastacia Palaszczuk has announced. We are still waiting to find out what the new mutual obligations for that will be as well. Jobseeker increase confirmed as $50 a fortnight Luke Henriques-Gomes’ story this morning on the permanent increase to the jobseeker payment being just $50 a fortnight is now confirmed. That’s only an extra $3.50 a day. It’s barely a bus-fare (one zone). Andrew Leigh was on Sydney radio 2SM this morning, pointing out one of the reasons to increase jobseeker to a liveable wage is because it is good for the economy as a whole. I do think it’s important that we recognise that this is money which supports some of the most vulnerable in the community and therefore flows right back into retail sales. People at the top of the distribution save about a quarter of their income, those at the bottom of the distribution spend it all. So if you want to ensure that the economy is humming, then putting money into the pockets of the lowest income earners is an important way of doing that. That was exactly the rationale the government used when it doubled the payment during the height of the pandemic. When you have no money, you tend to spend what you have – because you are so far behind already, you don’t have the luxury of savings. The government used that to keep the economy going during the Covid emergency. It’s only people who have enough to live on who can afford to put money aside. Daniel Andrews, (who is also answering questions on the Victorian royal commission into Crown casino) says he won’t be getting the vaccine just yet, as he wants more frontline health workers to go first.