A trip to the supermarket costs more, jobs are disappearing, home loans are slicing ever-deeper into household budgets.
But we Aussies are tough. Resourceful too. We visit different stores for the best deal. We hunt out specials. We avoid unnecessary car trips using costly fuel.
Still, we do sometimes wake up early wondering how we would go if we lost our job — like the bloke down the road — and whether AI will steal our kids’ jobs.
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But then we remind ourselves that the Labor Party, the party of the workers, pledged to look after battlers and strugglers, is on the case.
The Nightly revealed on Thursday that $728,000 in taxpayer funds were splashed by members of the Albanese Government in the first 91 days of the new financial year on trips around the globe.
See? They are really working hard for us.
And just this week Anthony Albanese and his sidekick Chris Bowen, Minister for Climate Change, had gone all the way to Turkey to look after our interests at the COP31 climate talks.
Mr Bowen has made sure he is across it all. He even had himself installed as president of negotiations. That’s a feather in all our caps! Go Australia!
And the pair have made sure they have plenty of support. They have a 192-strong official delegation to back them up. Which is good. Some of those climate warriors can get pretty fired up.
No expense has been spared in that exercise.
We see reports of $2.26 million to support the delegation including more than $1m for the Australian pavilion, $873,000 for hotels, and $32,000 for a coffee contract to supply free pick-me-ups to those getting down to the business at hand.
The costs are reportedly mostly from the $147.8m over three years set aside from the 2025-26 Federal Budget to pay for Australia’s role in COP31 and the Pacific pre-COP — where they talked about the talks ahead.
Like we said. No expense spared.
And let’s not overlook the impact of the documentary the Government commissioned, Pacific Rising, which cost nearly $3m. A bargain.
The Australian pavilion is surely one of the must-go places of the COP.
Its schedule listed an absolutely banging panel topic on Tuesday evening — Implementing the Belem Gender Action Plan: Accelerating Progress in the Age of Climate Crisis.
According to its promotional blurb, “the future of climate action must be gender-responsive”.
“One year after the landmark adoption of the Belém Gender Action Plan, this high-level dialogue will explore practical ways to accelerate implementation and progress on gender-responsive climate action.”
Right on! Let’s hope it went ahead as advertised!
We don’t buy into that talk that the Albanese Government’s spending priorities are an obscene waste of the hard-earned money we have coughed up in taxes.
Or Opposition Leader Angus Taylor’s accusation that the Prime Minister and Climate Change Minister are more interested in overseas appearances than tackling Australia’s economic problems.
No, really. It’s true! Climate action and all that makes us feel good.
So let’s not worry about the cost. It’s all about the feels, right?
