A tragic birth, and death, in a tent – and still our poorest must pay

An Indigenous woman gave birth to twins in a tent last week. She and her partner had been living in a makeshift tent on the banks of the Murrumbidgee River for about five months – the majority of her high-risk pregnancy.

She went into labour while at the camp. Her partner and another camp resident did what they could, but by the time emergency services arrived, one of her babies had died.

The woman and her surviving child were taken to hospital in a critical condition. They have since been released.

Again. An Indigenous woman, living in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, gave birth to twins in a tent. One of those babies died. In a tent. Where their parents were living, because the waiting list for social housing in their area is up to seven years.

The Sydney Morning Herald’s Amber Schultz has reported nearly 700 people are on the social housing waitlist in Wagga Wagga, a city with fewer than 70,000 residents.

The most recent Australia Institute of Health and Welfare social housing data shows that as of June 2024, the number of households on a social housing waitlist had increased from 155,000 in 2014 to 169,000. Of those households, 71,700 were classified as being urgent, or having the greatest needs.

And last week, someone waiting for a house gave birth in a tent.

There will be a crowd of people rushing to blame an individual for what happened to them, rather than the system that is supposed to support them. There will be comments based on information cobbled together from social media that people will use to justify why this tragedy happened.

But let’s be clear. This happened because we stopped caring about people having basic needs. Housing is no longer considered shelter, it is considered an asset. And it’s not supposed to bother people that our system means some people can own 24 houses while other people have none.

The same people who decry “cash handouts” for those on welfare “not being free” are also the ones who take money from the taxpayer in the form of tax subsidies designed to not only protect their wealth, but grow it.

In a recent ABC podcast with Alan Kohler, the chief executive of AustralianSuper, which manages more than $410 billion in assets, Paul Schroder, said the “entire construct of the Australian economy” was in housing.

“You know how they say in casinos, ‘the house always wins’? I would say that in the financial sector, in the Australian economy, the ‘house’ always wins. And the reason why the ‘house’ always wins is that housing prices, and housing valuations, underpin the entire banking system.”

In the United States, Schroder said, the nominal value of gross domestic produce was $31.4 trillion, while the value of its housing stock was less than double that at $55 trillion. In Australia, our GDP is $2.7 trillion. The value of our housing stock is worth more than 4½ times that, at $12.3 trillion. And last week, a newborn baby died in a tent.

But in the system that both major parties defend, having a home as shelter is still not enough to protect you. Those with a mortgage and those who rent are relied on to counter-balance those with money, and the profits of business – which are to continue, unabated.

In raising the official interest rate on Tuesday, RBA governor Michele Bullock admitted that the increase would do nothing to address inflation concerns, which have roared back to life in most oil-dependent economies, thanks to the US and Israel’s decision to bomb Iran.

Our region is particularly vulnerable, Penny Wong is fond of saying, given that 80 per cent of our oil comes through the Strait of Hormuz. Petrol prices in Australia jumped the moment the bombs started falling, despite the fuel sitting in those tanks, at that time, having already been paid for, and not at all impacted by the war.

Australians are alert to fuel price increases – it is one of the numbers we take note of every day, and we have been conditioned to see sudden jumps in fuel as an indicator that inflation is on the rise. And as fuel prices jumped, so did everything else because of the reliance on oil at different steps of the supply chain.

So Bullock is right – raising the interest rate will do nothing to stop inflation caused by a supply side economic shock, which has led to fuel prices increasing by about 30 per cent.

Bullock and the majority of the RBA board (there was one dissenter, most likely but not confirmed to be Treasury head Jenny Wilkinson) are worried about the spending that comes after the war ends. So they are taking money from the people who can least afford it now, to stop potential spending, by those who can afford it, in the future. It’s like chopping off your leg to protect someone else from potentially spraining their ankle in the future.

And in raising interest rates, a decision that impacts newer mortgage-holders and, ultimately, renters the most (we can’t expect an investor who is being subsidised by the government against their loss to absorb all of the loss now can we? So rents will increase), Bullock also said that we should all expect businesses to raise their prices – because that’s what is best for business.

“These interest rate rises are not going to do anything for inflation in the next six months, that’s done and dusted,” she said.

“We know that those prices are coming through … it’s not unreasonable for firms if they are seeing their cost bases rise because of what’s going on, whether it be fertilisers for farmers or fuel diesel for transport costs, it’s not unreasonable for them to want to recover their costs, because the alternative is, if they can’t, they might end up going bust, and that’s not good either. So there’s nothing unreasonable about that.”

Just in case it wasn’t clear, she said it twice:

“I think you’d be wrong, as I said earlier, to expect that businesses would not look to pass on some of the costs of doing business,” she said on Tuesday. “Otherwise, if they can’t, then what’s going to happen to the businesses? Then you will end up in a recession.”

But for the workers who will be laid off as a result of the interest rate increase (which is the system working as designed), for the workers who lose more spending power, who see their living standards drop, it apparently doesn’t matter. Just stop spending so much money on those essentials like fuel, energy and groceries OK?

It is in this context we are being warned to lower our expectations about what is in the budget in terms of addressing the unfairness of our housing system, while business, senior political journalists and economists mostly inoculated from the impacts of any of this, warn against any sort of help for those who need it in the budget.

It doesn’t matter that we are a nation where unhoused women give birth in tents. Our settings are designed to protect those for who that will never be a reality.

But that system also means that for those of us living day to day, we’re just one handful of bad luck away from “no fixed address”. That’s the truth of the “aspiration” Anthony Albanese and his government are set on protecting.

Amy Remeikis is a contributing editor for The New Daily and chief political analyst for The Australia Institute

This article was first published on The New Daily.