And so this is Christmas...

The Age has published two contrasting pictures of Xmas time in Australia over the last two days.

On one hand you have consumer confidence figures showing that the economy is going gangbusters:

Christmas spending looks set to break a 10-year record, with frantic Australian shoppers splashing out $800 million today.

Retail spending is expected to top $36.5 billion Australia-wide in the six weeks to Christmas, with $8.8 billion spent in Victoria, the Australian Retail Association said.

"It's the biggest year we've had, in terms of increase over the previous year, for a decade. We're virtually at the top of the cycle," association director Michael Lonie said.

"It reflects a number of things - consumer confidence, tax cuts that have taken place, and the fact that employment is still reasonably strong."

These figures include the six-week spend to Christmas eve but don't include post-Christmas sales...

... Myer spokesman Mitch Catlin said the city store was throbbing with people who had left present shopping until the last minute.

"(Sales of) technology has gone crazy - iPods, laptops and plasmas (TVs)," he said.

It seems consumers are going on a spending spree, the economy is booming and everyone can afford new laptops and plasma TV's and everything is just peachy. Hooray for boom times, you might say!

Then the article goes on:

Mr Lonie said this year consumers had placed a heavy emphasis on fresh food and seafood.

"Butchers are reporting that people were knocking their doors down first thing this morning," he said.

"In years gone by people would buy a frozen turkey whereas this year they want fresh."

Again, it paints a wonderful picture. People buying fresh Turkey instead of frozen?! How delightfully epicurean! By all accounts, the good times sure do seem to be rolling for the Have's in Australia today.

But I wonder what of the Have-Not's? How are they spending their xmas this year?

It seems the Uniting Church are painting a significantly different xmas picture than that presented by the Australian Retail Association:

As millions toss up whether to celebrate with a turkey and ham feast, a seafood smorgasbord or an Aussie barbecue with all the trimmings, some families will be wondering how best to make a tin of tomatoes seem festive.

With one in 10 Victorian families having found themselves without enough money for food at some time in the past year, charities expect more families than ever will be forced to ask for help this Christmas — many for the first time.

"There is something wrong with our policies that allows those on the lowest rung to fall off the bottom of the ladder," says the Uniting Church's Alison Prenter.

Something very wrong indeed...

But it gets worse, VicHealth report that:

(...) despite the charities' great generosity, this year's Christmas hampers will be fairly modest fare. The Salvation Army's Michael Johnson, who works with families in Albury-Wodonga, says the cost to charities of providing a basic food hamper has risen 25% since last Christmas.

"We are doing Christmas hampers, but they are pretty basic grocery items: pasta, rice, peas, custard, instant gravy, long-life milk, tuna, cream cheese, jelly crystals, cereals, tinned fruit and ham," he says.

"And 60 to 70% of those hampers are going to first-time recipients. They can be families that number up to 12 people or single individuals and their ages range from 16 to 94."

There has been a tenfold increase in demand for food parcels from charities in the Wodonga area this year.

So while one segment of Australia is falling over itself to get their hands of the latest electronic consumer gadgets, the other is struggling to make a can of tomato's last until the end of the fortnight.

It's little wonder then that working families in the electorate didn't take too well to Li'll Johnny telling them that they'd never had it better, nor, for that matter, that Kevin's message about grocery/petrol prices resonated so strongly.

Ever since the President of the Victorian Liberal Party, Mr. Brian Loughnane, announced to the National Press Club that a key part of the Liberal re-election strategy would be to target the tenuous pledge to monitor consumer prices made by the ALP (in much the same way that the ALP targeted Howard's tenuous pledge to keep interest rates low, so it seems) the right-wing commentariat have been falling over themselves to make this an issue.

In one sense (and almost in despite of themselves), they make a very good point when they say that if Rudd doesn't address these key concerns that affect the lives of everday Australian's then he will be punished by the electorate.

However, it is highly unlikely that the free-market ideologues in the right-wing media will ever take seriously any real commitment to tackle such a vital issue as food security. This is one of those issues where they only pretend to side with the electorate, when in fact all they want is for Rudd to fail. It is the classic straw-man trap.

The sad thing is that I very much doubt that Rudd (or any Australian politician for that matter) would ever have the testicular fortitude to challenge the duopoly of Coles/Woolworths that maintains a stranglehold over every Australian consumer. Until somebody does then, drought or no drought, Australian's will spend more of their income on basics items such as fresh food.

Oh well, at least cheap consumable imports from overseas have become even cheaper. And to heck with the trade deficit!