Kim mentioned (good) Peter Saunders’ report Left out and missing out: Voices from the margins [link to pdf] prepared as part of an ARC research project in partnership with Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Lawrence and Anglicare. I think issues of poverty and social exclusion should be highlighted during this campaign, and I’ve tried to do just that in a post on this topic over at New Matilda’s election blog PollieGraph.
47 Responses to “The poor will always be with us?”
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Here’s to Peter (SantaGrinch) Costello…friend of the poor…(:…:
Santa Grinch Is Coming To Town
You better watch out
You better be Rich
Better not get sick
I’m telling you why
Santa Grinch is coming to town
He’s making a budget
And announcing it twice
Gonna find out Who’s barefoot and pregnant.
Santa Grinch is coming to town
He taxes you when you’re sleeping
He GSTs you when you’re awake
He knows if you’ve been Right or Left
So be working non-stop for goodness sake!
O! You better pay your taxes!
And work from cradle to the grave
Better not pout, or expect to pay off your house
I’m telling you why.
Santa Grinch is coming to town.
Santa Grinch Costello…is coming to town.
N’
(based on the lyrics of Santa Claus is Coming to Town by J. Fred Coots, Henry Gillespie (c) 1934)
As a long term survivor of the essential changing nature and its definition of poverty,way back to when Doctor Peter Hollingsworth was at the Brotherhood,I can tell you it is really offensive being an Australian right now.I dont give too hoots about what Swann had to say in a book. Voting for the ALP is rape in some way,and the sooner everyone recognises it the better. They didnt lose at the last election for nothing there are limits to everyone s patience,that is why so many people wanted to believe the Liberals under Howard could and would control interest rates,and now look at them. Labor believes in some pecking order of industries people economic modelling and at times inflation appearing as wealth in the community,essentially the spoils of office for them is to bullshit anew about how wonderful as humans they are at both State and Federal Level,encourage the same in others like,academia, media,industry so all the wonderful people have all the power prestige status money influence and all that provides the dung heap of jealousy. There but for the process of some type of empowerment goes I is their unstated larrikinism to those not up to being the phonies they are. The Australian version of Geo.W.Bush as conservative humanist. Swann going on about when he left school you could become a baker is the most singular joke I have ever heard an ALP person say for years,the lack of careful understandings in their own personal insights of angst ,must surely reflect a lack of rigor in everything else they approach. They are the prostitutes of the caring words. I have seen so many Labor people up close, that not to improve their looks by an artful punch to the mouth, is really me not improving myself. The addiction to Labor is the worst aspect of matters living in the country today,where the bountiful words of meaningless care are as abundant as the snitching reality of seeing contradictions of attitude and health, in welfare recipients, the counterpointers from the cliche and lazy possessed of housing jobs etc. and the greatest swindle of all time.. the attitude of I am doing this for you. These cliche possessed can be heard regularly on the ABC in large numbers at all hours of the day. What they are doing for me when I know already most of the subjects is shit dressed up as care.To reject Labor and tell it what to do, is part of growing up in Australia to tire of doing so, must mean they have created some distraction.The Liberals are the employers of the counterpointers who will make people feel completely guilty about themselves, if they find normalcy in whatever form simply not having any meaning,and insist on respect for old soldiers working in advertising as a way of overcoming their lack of civic manners.The only acceptable people with any views similar to mine are those who have sold their views in the marketplace to those as yet not crowded out in the neural fibres of matters that remain distressing.There have been a few fresh faces and minds at the Brotherhood that have kept it going,its real estate must be now being eyed off,as highly worthy,as it was when I was there,may they find some good reasons too to find more generosity in themselves than the phoney Ceasars, who get that way by the default matters of election.So what fundamentally is the difference today in Australia of holding your election speeches in front of media cameras, of whatever type and CCTV types!? The difference is the serial possession of a number of dissonant beliefs about others,and ,then putting them through the loops and hoops,by political and other means.Obviously in this form it is hard to believe, I come from a very poor working class country background.
The problem is there’s probably not enough poensioners, disabled people, single parents, poor uni students, unemployed, Abirigines, carers, etc., in any one seat to swing the vote one way or the other. Add to this the neo-con philosophy on welfare, probably believed by both major parties, and you can see why the general attitude to the poor is – Get stuffed!
Better angels and all that. And there is a good case to be made that everyone suffers from extremes of inequality.
People’s lack of concern about poverty is one of the saddest things I think. There is a burgeoning homeless population, and all people can say at election time is DO I GET MY TAX CUTS AND BABY BONUSES?!?! The way the government gets stingier and stingier to those who really need support at the same time as its spending balloons on the middle class – the members of which proceed to bag out welfare recipients. Remarkable. Tragic.
The Carer’s Alliance is running senate candidates in QLD, NSW & WA. Their website mentions the report of the HOR standing committee into Aging & the Law which recommended that the gov investigate legislation to compel family members to take caring and financial responsibility for aged relatives.
My sister worked in the public service for a while; she said that the prevailing attitude to issues of social inequity caused by disability or caring responsibilities was that there was “unused capacity” in the community. In other words it is up to charities and volunteer organisations to address these issues because our government couldn’t give a rat’s.
Su,
yeah. Running in the Senate might help with Carers’ Alliance. At least the number of votes cast for them might send a message.
You’re so very right when you say Government doesn’t give a rats. Carers Alliance will be high up on my preference list.
Mine too. Hopefully the issue will gain more prominence through their campaigning because I don[‘t think there is any hope that they will get a senate seat. I should say that my sister was speaking in the context of a case where a 12 year old girl had sole responsibility for her disabled parent and was unable to attend school. I wonder how many people realize that the Dickensian world alluded to in the title of Mark’s post still exists.
Sorry to double up but ACOSS has released their election statement and it has a useful summary of how community services are failing to meet demand with their current levels of funding:
1 in 4 people are turned away from housing and disability accommodation/respite services. Across all community service sectors 1 in 16 are turned away.
400,000 elderly people living at home have unmet needs and one quarter of HACC providers received a ‘basic’ or ‘poor’ rating on their latest assessment.
Unpaid family and informal care accounts for 74% of care provided to the elderly and the disabled. (The gov obviously sees this as too little and must be aiming for 100% since they are considering legislation to compel people into the caring role).
Around 60% of disadvantaged Australians on welfare payments have a Year 10 education or less and few can afford to improve their chances of employment through further education and training.
Many recipients have disabilities, health problems, or have been affected by domestic violence. (A point that I doubt ACA ever considers when welfare bashing)
On current estimates, the poverty line in Australia lies above the amount provided to those who rely on social security benefits as their sole source of income. Not only do govt benefits lie below the “Henderson� poverty line, they do not meet European and other countries’ threshold based on 50-60% of average or median weekly earnings. Clearly, there are an awful lot of people in Australia living in poverty -2-3 million, at the very least?
There is an interesting June 2007 report “No Vagrancy: An examination of the impact of the criminal justice system on people living in poverty in Queensland� by Tamara Walsh.
http://www.law.uq.edu.au/staff/tempprofiles/publications/Walsh_T_No-Vagrancy-CombinedIncCover-LoRes.pdf
One of its findings was that many of the participants in this research refused to identify as poor. For some the suggestion was offensive because they felt that it was not an accurate or respectful reflection of their experience. This attitude was shared even by some homeless people and was linked in the report to another finding: “the extraordinary degree of resilence� demonstrated by participants and the emphasis they put on their inherent human dignity; that they saw themselves as “strugglers� rather than “victims�.
Jaw hits floor. The really do want a slave force.
I’ll quote the recommendation in question. From the HOR standing committee Inquiry into Older People and the Law Report;
su, thanks for the heads up to the ACOSS statement. I’m off to Adelaide for a few days tomorrow but if I have a chance I’ll write something about it for PollieGraph.
Does anyone have a link to the campaign the disability group is running in marginal seats? It’d also be interesting to follow what issues they are pushing.
I think that is the Australian Federation of Disability Organisations, Mark. Have a good trip.
Thanks, su!
Be careful with nonsense statements like the one quoted below – it does the cause of the welfare lobby more harm than good. Most people read claims like this, roll their eyes and mutter something derogatory about the loopy left –
“On current estimates, the poverty line in Australia lies above the amount provided to those who rely on social security benefits as their sole source of income. Not only do govt benefits lie below the “Hendersonâ€? poverty line, they do not meet European and other countries’ threshold based on 50-60% of average or median weekly earnings. Clearly, there are an awful lot of people in Australia living in poverty -2-3 million, at the very least?”
2-3 million living in poverty in Australia? rubbish. Ask the average person on the street what they would define as living in poverty and they’d probably give you an answer to do with housing/food/health and perhaps education. The list of symptoms of poverty certainly wouldn’t include not being able to afford a colour TV or other consumer items. If you want to use some sort of relative poverty measure like Henderson – then make it a global comparative – not some local subset of the population like, say, Australia. Why not Victoria? Melbourne? Toorak? Hey – lots of poor people in Toorak earning considerably less than the Toorak average – they must be living in Poverty hey?
Now if you want to raise concern for the thousands (not millions) of Australians who are genuinely living in poverty go ahead.
The point of the research I’ve linked to is to overcome the definitional problems involved in measuring poverty by a monetary standard (which are big!) and to establish what basic community expectations are and then benchmark groups against them. I’d suggest people have a read of the link if they haven’t done so.
Yes Mark – I read the link – and I agree wholeheartedly with the approach taken. An absolute measure of poverty if far superior than some relative measure which has the problems I highlighted above. I also particularly like the way they’ve surveyed non-financial items – e.g. social contact. Life isn’t all about money – you can be rich and live a very poor life, or poor and live a life fulfilled.
A couple of problems with the report –
1) It get’s a bit wooly when trying to define some of the essential items. e.g. ‘A decent and secure home’ – how do you define that? It probably means different things to different people in different areas – the relative problem again.
2) The metrics in the survey seem to inflate the poverty problem because it’s surveying people who poor. Some of the metrics It’s a fair bet that if you survey homeless people and ask if they’ve got a ‘decent and secure home’ then they’ll say no. So 33.5% of respondents say they don’t have access to a ‘decent and secure home’ – what does that tell you other than the fact that we’ve got a housing problem for the poor? It doesn’t help us define the scale of the issue to be able to get away from the silly statements made above that 2-3million Australians are living in Poverty.
Andrew, these are commonly agreed figures of organisations such as ACOSS, The Smith Family, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Uniting Church, Jesuits, Catholics and others. Most university-based academics and NGO policy workers across the political spectrum agree on these figures. On what do you base your opinions? Gut feeling?
Sorry for double post but let me correct some grammar –
A couple of problems with the report –
1) It gets a bit woolly when trying to define some of the essential items. e.g. ‘A decent and secure home’ – how do you define that? It probably means different things to different people in different areas – the relative problem again.
2) The metrics in the survey seem to inflate the poverty problem because it’s surveying people who poor. It’s a fair bet that if you survey homeless people and ask if they’ve got a ‘decent and secure home’ then they’ll say no. So 33.5% of respondents say they don’t have access to a ‘decent and secure home’ – what does that tell you other than the fact that we’ve got a housing problem for the poor? It doesn’t help us define the scale of the issue to be able to get away from the silly statements made above that 2-3million Australians are living in Poverty.
A quote from the ACOSS report “A fair go for all Australians: International Comparisons, 2007 10 Essentials ”
I think you would agree that $249 pw is much more dire than simply being unable to afford colour television.
Jinmaro,
Gut feeling?….. largely yes! Commonsense goes a long way.
I’m reasonably well travelled and I’ve been to a lot of places that just make you weep with the poverty you see…. try walking the streets of Mumbai and not be moved by the sight of people literally living in rubbish dumps right next door to swanky apartment buildings. And yes – we probably have pockets of poverty in Australia that rival it…. I lived in Mount Isa for a year and saw the way the Aboriginals lived in their shanty town under the bridge.
But for the vast bulk of Australians – my gut feel says that they are doing ok. They have a house, warm clothes, food, access to health and education. They are not living in squalor or starving.
I don’t really care what numbers ACOSS, The Smith Family, Brotherhood of St Laurence, Uniting Church, Jesuits, and Catholics use. But if they are coming up with a figure showing Australia has 2-3million people who are in poverty then their measure of poverty is screwed up. It’s the relative problem again. My Toorak analogy. Would ACOSS agree that 1/4 of Toorak is in poverty because 1/4 or them earn less than 50% of the Toorak median?
No Vagrancy report
More recently, the 2004 Federal Senate Committee report on Poverty and Financial Hardship said that as many as 4.1 million Australians — 22.6 percent of the population —were living in poverty. This was the first large-scale official investigation into poverty in Australia since 1975 and it detailed an unprecedented increase in social inequality during the past three decades, resulting in the pauperisation of wide layers of Australian society.
These is simply irrefutable Andrew, despite your trips to India and elsewhere.
Social inequality and poverty are two very different things. If every Australian was suddenly gifted $1m tomorrow…. the reports you’re quoting would still show the ‘poverty’ levels as being unchanged. Oh to be living in poverty with $1m in the bank.
check out the concepts of relative poverty and absolute poverty and the relationship of social inequality to poverty will become clearer Andrew.
Given the choice of being relatively or absolutely poor I know what I’d go for!
And perhaps you haven’t read Amartya Sen, the Indian philosopher, economist and current Harvard Professor who points out in his book “Freedom as Development” (Oxford UP) that some minority sections of the poor in the US, e.g., have shorter life spans than people in Kerala, India. The same point could be made about some sections of the population in Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amartya_Sen
Jinmaro, the only real problem I have with referring to relative poverty simply as “poverty” is that it can disguise the fact that many in Australia or the US are actually suffering dreadful and absolute poverty. When you hear that there are “2 million people living in poverty in Australia” it becomes easy to dismiss (for those who like to dismiss such things).
I think both are important (or I wouldn’t count myself a lefty) but they should be discussed separately with distinct terminology – not least because they require very different remedial measures. Also because absolute poverty is to be treated IMHO with zero tolerance, whereas relative poverty will always exist to some extent and thus needs a more nuanced moral/ethical stance.
philiptravers on 16 October 2007 at 7:45 pm
“… when Doctor Peter Hollingsworth was at the Brotherhood”
I really looked up to the man in those days. He was also a leading figure, at the time, in the Anglo-Catholic Renewal movement in Australia. Just don’t know what happened to him.
Not sure what a “more nuanced moral/ethical stance” would look like in party clothes, FDB, but would agree with your general point about absolute poverty.
And from that point, I would say ethically that the priority concern for Australians should be aiding, in whatever way possible, the (?) millions of people, many on our doorstep, living in absolute poverty. We are a rich country. We don’t need to live the way so many of us do. In fact, it is unconscionable to continue to do so in the face of the absolute poverty that exists internationally that we as a very resource rich nation are doing almost nothing to alleviate.
Agreed.
Not to mention absolute poverty in remote Australia, our current approach to which appears to be removing what very little property and prospects do exist and replacing every carrot with a stick.
Yes, “more nuanced moral/ethical stanceâ€? was an ugly and largely meaningless phrase, wasn’t it? Basically I just meant that while there’s no question about combatting absolute poverty everywhere (and for whatever reason) it exists, in the case of the relative kind we need to accept that some will always be there, and concern ourselves more with trying to make our society produce less of it than throwing money wherever we see it.
FDB,
Yes my point exactly – I think making statements like “2-3m Australians are living in poverty” is very counter-productive. It just makes the average joe’s eye glass over.
I agree – absolute poverty nees a zero-tolerance approach. Social Inequality is a very different beast. There will always be social inequality – in fact, I would probably argue that it’s a good thing in moderation (but that’s a debate for another time).
Women, half the human race, don’t even figure in your strange moral universe, Andrew?
I don’t necessarily agree with you, even about the minority of which you speak. And to the extent this is true, your figure of speech is very apt. Glassy, when said of the eye means dull; wanting life or fire; lacklustre. Perhaps very like the “average joe”, but not in quite the way you meant, eh Andrew?
Don’t want to spoil the ending jinmaro. But in the final act, Average Joe turns out to be … Andrew.
I totally agree here. The problem I have with people using relative poverty measures and coming up with statements that over 20% of the population is in poverty is that it greatly trivialises what people believe living in poverty means. It also results in absolute poverty numbers there are in australia being reported there are in australia because people like sensationally large numbers.
And besides, if you’re using relative poverty measures you could quite validly claim that poverty is very very low in australia when taken into context average worldwide income (or even just the asia-pacific region).
Greensblog points out that it is Anti-Poverty Week and includes a table of the distribution of low income households in the marginals for the information of any campaigners/groups:
http://greensblog.org/2007/10/17/low-income-families-in-marginal-electorates/
FDB makes an extremely good point about ethics:
“in the case of the relative kind (of poverty) we need to accept that some will always be there, and concern ourselves more with trying to make our society produce less of it than throwing money wherever we see it.”
Perhaps a more important question regarding so-called “relative poverty” is: will politicians ever stop treating tax cuts and middle-class welfare as priorities one and two?
Call it “relative poverty” if you must, but just because it compares with “absolute poverty” in no way way makes it less of a problem. If you can appreciate the basic concept that wealth created can become wealth compounded, then you can surely appreciate that being in a position of relative poverty can eventually compound into much deeper, absolute poverty.
Of course most people in relative poverty will still never experience absolute poverty, just like most people who enjoy rising levels of income will still never achieve the earning heights of a select few. So I’d simply suggest that while it is reasonable to be critical of claims that “nationwide deprivation and misery”exists, people need to be equally critical of the new “collective ideology” of “we’re all aspirationals now”, also known in one context (namely, federalism) as John Howard’s new concept of “aspirational nationalism”.
There does seem to be “a nonsense concept” in politics today that you can homogenise all classes of people as “aspirational” if they are not living in absolute poverty. I have joked before that Newstart Allowance may eventually be rebranded as Aspirational Allowance, making a need seem like a desire, just as a desire for a tax cut or a desire for middle-class welfare can be argued as a need.
As I’m slowly building an argument based on the concept of “personal development”, I think a more reasonable identifier of people living in relative poverty would be to call them “the developing classes” to challenge the general status of Australia as being “a developed nation”.
…From Justin
That begs the question of whether the pollies are interested in “developing”…
Quite, Kim (and thanks Justin).
It’s hard to avoid the feeling that some major parties I could name consign true visionary nation-building to the too hard basket, perhaps seeing it as handing a free ride to whichever government succeeds them. But then maybe they’re not even that long-sighted.
This is a very interesting discussion, and while I agree that there are problems with relative measures of poverty, there is also an extent to which those in some positions of ‘relative poverty’ are at risk of – with, say, a few weeks of bad luck or one terrible event – getting into a position of absolute poverty. The distinction between social inequality and poverty is important to maintain but the two are interrelated. Both demand medium to long term responses, but absolute poverty seems to demand an immediate response.
Of course, jinmaro’s ethical imperative to think outside of the national context is well put and deserves our attention as well. Arguably, the same goes for industrial relations (off topic, but there is a parallel).
Most MPs in Australia come from a minority of cultural and occupational backgrounds and are completely unrepresentative of the multicultural and socio-economic diversity of Australian society.
And despite the rhetoric about democracy, the parliamentary system is rarely the two-way relationship it is supposed to be. The electorate has no direct input into the political parties’ electoral platforms.
Like necrophiles in the mortuary, politicians are aroused by the once in a while effort to try to prise open the electorate’s legs. As with the abused corpses in the mortuary, after the vote, the public is returned to the refrigerated drawer. The body politic ceases to be necessary to the political system until 3-4 years later, when it is once again pulled out to be ‘fucked over’ for its vote.
jinmaro, I like your style. What an apt description.
The MSM are the morticians in the above scenario I would imagine, aiding and abetting the necrophiliacs.
Ew.
Thanks adrian. It’s the Irish-Catholic in me.