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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

Ongoing lockdowns have put many Australians under extreme financial pressure.

Without adequate government support the responsibility is falling on community organisations to help thousands of people receive the basics, like food.

Today chief executive of Addison Road Community Organisation, Rosanna Barbero, on the massive food relief operation underway right now in Sydney and how it exposes a broken system.

It’s Monday, September 6.

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RUBY:

Hello Rosanna.

ROSANNA:

Hi, how are you?

RUBY:

I'm good, how are you going?

ROSANNA:

Pretty good.

RUBY:

Um it looks like it's pretty jam packed where you are.

ROSANNA:

Yeah, I'm in the office at the moment so...

RUBY:

Well thank you for taking time out of your day to talk to me! Could you start by telling me about your workplace, the Addison Road Community Organisation?

ROSANNA:

So we're a not for profit charity organisation and we’re in Marrickville, which is six kilometres west of the CBD in Sydney we're a very multicultural and diverse community that has been hit by Covid. Lots of migrant refugee communities and also a lot of women headed household communities as well and elder migrant families. And we have a very high indigenous population as well.

And we run a multitude of community programmes. And one of those is our food justice programme, which comprises of our food pantries and our food emergency response programme as well.

RUBY:

Mm, and there’s been a lot of reporting about the increased demand lockdowns and the associated economic downturn have put on services like yours, but before we get to that can you tell me what a typical day at the food relief centre is like?

ROSANNA:

So before the lockdown, it's a place because we're on a nine acre site and in the middle of our site is a big car park and a big green space. So people would come quite early because it gave them an opportunity to be able to socially engage with one another.

Lots of people that come to the food pantry previously were people that are often quite lonely. As well as food insecure, as well as income poor or unemployed or underemployed. And so they would come here and they'd come quite early and they would gather and talk to each other and wait for the fruit and veg and the doors to open and the bread to come out and it would be a very sort of active kind of community.

There would be other organisations coming here providing information, legal services, support information about domestic violence, about rent or housing. So there was a flutter of activity.

So when Delta arrived, immediately, communities reached out to us and we started to get 200 and then 300 calls and now it's up to 400 calls a day. We had to hire extra people because people went into absolute panic because they expected to go into a lockdown.

RUBY:

Mm so how has the work you do changed since Sydney went into lockdown?

ROSANNA:

So as soon as Sydney went into lockdown the demand it was huge so basically the only functional programme was our food relief programme.

So we used what was a 1000 square metre just to give you an idea of the size of it. It's just bigger than a basketball court, which is our cultural and arts hall.

And we literally in an hour and a half with the help of our community and these are individual volunteers, came together and transformed this hub into a preparedness and response, emergency food aid hub. And we've been operating ever since.

Archival tape -- Volunteers:

“One thing of soap! One toothbrush!”

Archival tape -- Volunteer:

“Perfect.”

Archival tape - [Sounds of packing]

ROSANNA:

So we get up very early in the morning and we come down because we have this incredible production centre where lots of boxes get packed in the hall.

Archival tape - [Sounds of the boxes being stacked]

Archival tape - [Chatter]

ROSANNA:

So by the end of it, we've got this incredible, like multistorey buildings of hampers.

Archival tape -- Volunteer:

“Do you guys need help over here or are you ok?”

Archival tape -- Volunteer:

“We’re done.”

ROSANNA:

And so this happens right up until evening. And then we get to go home and rest and start all over again.

RUBY:

It sounds pretty hectic… what kind of demand has that put on the emergency food relief program?

ROSANNA:

Well, huge, it went up basically for food and increased by 50% and then 100%, and now we're seeing a steady growth every week, 20%. So for us, it's always about getting more stock and, you know, meeting the demand that's coming our way.

So it's gone up a lot because what Covid-19 has made very visible is the stark realities of inequality in our communities.

RUBY:

And do you think that that demand will continue to increase?

ROSANNA:

Unfortunately, yes, because we have a large part of Sydney, which is the the areas which I described where a lot of families live that are multicultural backgrounds or refugees or asylum seekers or people that are in economies and industries where have been very impacted by the virus. And they're still in very harsh lockdown.

And so, you know, it's obvious that class and social privilege and race, ethnicity, gender, occupation and age determine who are the most vulnerable to this virus. And never have we seen this as clear as we can see it today.

RUBY:

We’ll be back after this.

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RUBY:

Rosanna, the communities that you're serving, people in Sydney's western suburbs, they're shouldering a lot of the blame for the Delta outbreak. And these residents are often migrants and from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. So what are you seeing on the ground working with these communities?

ROSANNA:

Well, there's certainly a lot of anger, but can I say that people really want to do the right thing!

We're talking with families and seeing families that there might be six people in the household and one person is working and they live in a two bedroom apartment. Now, that person that's working must go to work because the choice is to put food on the table or to pay for an electricity bill or to pay for internet connection for the rest of the family, particularly the kids at school, to do online studying or not to go to work and not risk infection. And so that puts that person in a very difficult situation.

Because you can't impose these harsh lockdowns and then not take into consideration that there are many families and many households where people can't isolate.

That they can't protect their families, yet they're told, don't you love your families? Why don't you want to protect them? You've got to do the right thing. Of course they love their families! These are people from communities that have risked everything. They've left their homelands. They've often travelled in precarious situations to leave conflict zones and come to Australia because they want to give their children a better future, because they want to be safe. The virus affects everybody, but it certainly impacts people very differently.

RUBY:

And Rosanna, the work that you, and all the staff and volunteers are doing at the food hub, it's obviously very important, but it does feel like it shouldn't entirely be your responsibility. It feels like this is an area in which the government should be providing help. So can you talk to me about that? Do you think the government policy is not really addressing the needs of people in lockdown?

ROSANNA:

Look, you're absolutely correct. We are now seeing what it means to have a system of decades where our systems of welfare have been eroded, and so now these systems are overwhelmed, trying to deal with a very powerful virus.

And so, what I found very interesting is that when the virus hit and everybody shut down, it wasn't the private sector we all ran to to get support. We ran to our government because that's the role of our government. They are responsible for society and for looking after its citizens. And that's what they had to do or that's what they're supposed to do.

But we have seen how weak these structures are as well, because they've suffered so much cuts over the years that now that we need them to work well, they're not working for us. They're quite overwhelmed trying to deal with the demand.

RUBY:

And Rosanna, if numbers in Sydney continue to increase, how sustainable will the Addison Road Food Relief Hub be, because really it sounds like you've been operating above capacity at a kind of crisis point for a long time now. So is that something that's possible to continue into the future indefinitely?

ROSANNA:

I always say we try to plan three weeks ahead, so we try and get all the supplies that we can and the content, we're doing Asian hampers, Middle Eastern hampers. We're also now looking at hygiene products and baby products because we're basically responding to the communities. We get about 300 calls a day.

So we're quite tuned in to what people need and what people are going through. So we're taking our cue from there. We're reaching out constantly to the public to help us with donations. We've not received state government funding or federal government funding. So all I can say at this stage is that we're three weeks ahead and we hope with our army of volunteers that between all of us putting out on social media the need and calling out constantly for support, that that continues that people don't become fatigued and we will keep going until we can no longer keep going.

And then I think the government will have a huge problem on their hands because we're keeping people afloat.

We have to start thinking about another Australia. We can't go back to an Australia that creates inequality, that dismantles and carves up our social welfare system, our precious health systems. I mean, how did this happen? How can we go back to that?

Inequality is not a virus. It doesn't come from a human and animal interaction. Inequality is a deliberate policy choice. It is a deliberate system. So let's deliberately choose a system that doesn't create inequality but creates equality.

RUBY:

Rosanna, thank you so much for your time and for your work as well.

ROSANNA:

Thank you so much. It was such a pleasure.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today,

The New South Wales Premier Gladys Berejiklian has announced that 40% of the state’s eligible residents are now fully vaccinated. More than 70% of people in the state have received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine.

The state recorded 1,485 new cases of Covid-19 on Sunday, as Berejiklian reiterated her position that in the future case numbers were less important than hospitalisation figures and deaths.

Meanwhile Victoria recorded 183 new cases, with 90% of those under 50 - a figure that the Premier Dan Andrews said shows “that this is a pandemic of the unvaccinated”.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See you tomorrow.

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