Photographer : bondidwhat @ Flickr
Unemployment rate: 4.3%
Annual gross domestic product: $675 billion
Australians living in poverty: 2 million
Poverty at our doorsteps
We’re supposed to live in the ‘lucky country’, but one in ten of us aren’t so fortunate. A new report shows that two million Australians live below the poverty line.
I hope that shocks you, because it stunned me.
I keep getting told the economy is rocking along. Prime Minister John Howard sent me a letter yesterday telling me that 'Australian families have never been better off'. So you’ll understand why I find the figures above a little jarring.
The investigation begins
I had to find out more, so I got my hot little hands on a copy of the report. Titled
Australia Fair: A Fair go for all Australians, it’s published by the Australian Council for Social Services (ACOSS) and examines fairness in relation to health, housing, community services, education and income.
In the report, the poverty line is set at half of the median income for a single adult, which is $249 a week. This is a widely used measure for developed countries, but what does it mean for those living on or below the poverty line?
Anglicare’s Director of Community Care in Sydney, Ian Jackson, says poverty is about more than the money in your wallet. ‘It’s about how your health is affected, how your surroundings impact you and whether your children are able to learn on the same footing as their classmates’. He gave me some stats about the many thousands of people who come to Anglicare for help:
42% have no one to look after them when they are sick
34% don’t have decent or secure housing
31% can’t afford to buy prescribed medicines
48% don’t have streets that are safe to walk in at night
55% of people with children can’t afford the kids’ annual dental check up
36% can’t afford to buy up- to-date schoolbooks or new school clothes
A voice for the voiceless
ACOSS says that poverty in Australia is not caused by one individual factor, but by major inequalities built into Australian society..
A report by The University of NSW called
Experiencing Poverty: The Voices of Low-Income Australians contains staggering insights from young disadvantaged Australians. Chief Investigator at the university, Professor Peter Saunders says, ‘[the] study provides a bleak assessment of the circumstances of people whom economic prosperity seems to have passed by.’
One young person said that living in a disadvantaged area had a severe effect on the experiences of high-school. ‘The school you go to and the area it’s in has a huge impact because it depends on the other children that go there… I used to go to a local high school and it really has got some terrible kids that go there and they made my life hell, like it was really awful.’
Living on or below the poverty line also means that it’s likely that you will miss out on tertiary education because you can’t afford to pay for courses, transportation, books or the internet. Some participants said that they couldn’t afford the time off work to study, especially if they had dependants.
And in regards to the workforce, some young people reported being excluded because public transportation couldn’t take them to night shifts or they couldn’t afford to take a training course.
Health problems related to low incomes were also reported as prevalent, despite the introduction of the government’s Medicare safety net. Respondents said they had missed out on medical treatment because of long waiting times, unreliable public transportation and a lack of bulk billing doctors.
Participants also said that they suffer because of a strict and inflexible welfare system. If an unexpected cost comes up, like a broken refrigerator, respondents said that they and their family might have to skip meals.
Who’s helping?
Among the respondents, which included staff from welfare organisations, there was agreement that government agencies are failing lower-income Australians.
Teenagers who participated in the study agreed, ‘It’s one thing to go “yeah we’re doing this for the youth” but it’s another thing to actually sit down and go “what do you want? how can we help you?” and then following that up.’
In a developed and wealthy nation such as Australia the conditions that our most vulnerable citizens are living in are unacceptable. Proper healthcare, education and a decent roof over your head are fundamental human rights which we are more than capable of providing. I thought that Australians looked out for each other, but instead, we’re failing each other.
Act Now!
I asked Ian Jackson from Anglicare what we could do to act now to make a difference. His suggestions were:
- Support a welfare organisation, such as Anglicare, The Brotherhood of Saint Lawrence or The Smith Family.
- Speak up in favour of a national anti-poverty or social inclusion strategy when talking to local members of parliament.
- Get involved in your community and make sure people aren’t being left out. Bring neglected areas to the attention of your council; make sure kids don’t miss out on school activities because they can’t afford them; join local support networks as a volunteer.
Poverty is a major issue in Australia, and it should be a major election issue as well. With millions of Aussies directly affected, we should be asking the pollies what they’ll do to make us the ‘lucky country’ once again.
How do I know this?
Australian Council of Social Services 2007,
Australia Fair: A Fair go for all Australians,
http://www.sprc.unsw.edu.au/reports/FinalReportMarch06.pdf
A big thankyou to Leonie Savage and Ian Jackson
