Australian Elections and Food Prices

Good Morning and Welcome to this week’s Gospel and Culture update, by Alan Vink
Australian Elections and Food Prices
Monday 23rd May 2022

The Teal Torrent in Australia

Australia has essentially a two party electoral system – Labour and The Liberal/National Coalition. What is noteworthy is that nearly 30% of voting Australians did not vote for either of the two major parties on Saturday at The Federal Elections. It’s called the ‘Teal Torrent’. Independent candidates that are by and large standing on a Green Ticket and candidates standing for the Green Party. What might this mean for New Zealand’s election next year? Stuff Journalist Luke Malpass has a few thoughts here.

Food Prices In NZ

Grocery food prices were 6.4% higher in April this year than last, with increases across all the food categories measured. Fruit and vegetables were up 9.4% and meat, poultry and fish up 8.1%. Here is a Stuff Explainer titled, “Why do we pay so much for our groceries in NZ”.

“New Zealand produces enough food to feed a country eight times our size. That’s 40m people. And yet, families are going hungry, suppliers are struggling, and there are mountains of food waste. Meanwhile, supermarkets are making $1 million ‘excess’ profit a day. It’s not hard to see that our food system is broken. Will breaking the supermarket stranglehold be enough to fix it?” This is how an in-depth article begins in the Sunday Star Times yesterday.

POV. How has it got to this? How come we have the 5th most expensive food in the OECD? High prices mean more households have an immediate knock on effect on the quality of food people consume that in turn impacts on people’s health and well-being.

Imagine if every church had a large community garden on their property run by volunteers. Struggling families in your church and immediate neighbourhood could enjoy in-season veges all year round. How cool would that be?

Think on this

Christ transforms, not the Bible. Be wary of those who know one but not the other. — Jordan Harrell.

Alan Vink is currently the Executive Director for LeadershipWorx. Prior to this role he has been the Executive Director of Willow Creek Association NZ (WillowNZ), a Baptist pastor (23 years), Bible College teacher, and church consultant.