A Dead Rent Writer Rant: Petrol = Poverty
Prices go up as we go under.
Words by Evangelia Karageorgos
Before I even turn the key in my car in the morning, my brain starts calculating if I can afford to go to work that day.Petrol and Diesel prices in Australia have blown up. When you add this to low-wage increases, high rents and overpriced groceries and electricity, it's not just expensive, it is a chokehold.
This is the rent we pay to participate in society, socially and economically.No train line in your area? Pay Up.Shift starts before sunrise? Pay Up.Have two jobs across town from each other, because you can't afford the rent and food? Pay Up. I live south, where there is no train line; there are some bus services, however, if I need to get back towards the city, I am looking at hours of travel. Unfortunately, this is not even an option for me. As a person with a disability, the access to this is hit and miss and the extra travel, transfers and stress takes its toll on me. As such, my only option remains my car.
The media and the Politicians like to refer to this as ‘cost of living pressures’ casually. Like discussing the weather, it just happens.But this isn't like rain; this comes from Policy.
Every time the price at the service station jumps, it hits the lower and working classes the most. The students, the carers, the pensioners, and the lower- to middle-ground-paid workers. Those of us who are already pinching pennies to afford food.
Out here in the everyday world, where the average Australian lives, missing a work shift because you cannot afford petrol means risking your job. If you are late to your shift due to public transport delays or low fuel, your pay is cut, or you lose a shift with a warning.Being poor, lower class, of the working poor is a punishable offence.
Let me be clear. Australia is not a poor country; it is one of the biggest Gad exporters.Australia is swimming in resources.
Yet we are told there is nothing that can be done. That high fuel prices are inevitable.Nothing Can Be Done!
Except…. Tax the companies making billions off us.
The oil and gas companies are making profits from Australian land and resources and paying next to nothing in Tax. Billions are leaving our country while we count dollars at the pump as if it is a luxury to exist.
They give us a temporary fuel excise cut because things have got politically spiky. It's a band-aid, a headline. But we will soon go back to the bleeding…
The system isn't broken; it is working exactly how it was designed to.
Everyday life expenses are just tough enough that you are exhausted, and travel and transport costs are just high enough that you stay stuck. Making survival so much effort that you have no energy to fight back.
Petrol and diesel are not just fuel; they're a form of control.
We fight for it, every commute, every missed opportunity, every dollar siphoned for fuel from our food budget, just to keep moving and getting to our low-paid jobs, just to have more than half go on rent.
“Live within your means” has always been something we were told. Build to your goals, start small and with what you can afford.This has now become an insult. My means are no longer renting a physical house; they are owning and living in a tent.You think I am being dramatic… The harsh reality is that for many of us, our rent is already over 50% of our income. My rent is 75% of my income and is about to go up.Move you say… to where? Rents are no cheaper anywhere, and thanks to high rent, high electricity and cost of living, I have no savings to afford the move.
I will never be able to buy a house; I will be lucky if I can continue to afford to rent one, let alone a room in one. The reality is that, for many of us, the only hope we have of owning a home is inheriting one if we are lucky enough to have parents who own one.
Here is the question they don't want you to ask:Why are we, as a resource-rich country, struggling to afford the basics?While big companies walk away with the lot….Tax them properly. We know this works. Build public housing, government-funded, not private investor-funded. We have done it before with great success.
Let's stop pretending this isn't needed or that it won't help.
Because this is not a crisis; it is a choice, a choice to keep us struggling, keep us suffering.
This article was first published in Issue 3 of Empire Times.