Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Anti-Poverty Week is a good time to reflect on how this country and this government is tackling the growing number of people living in poverty and the increasing inequality in Australia. The Australian Council of Social Services states that around three million Australians are living in poverty, including about three-quarters of a million children. Australia is fast losing its egalitarian roots, which made this country the home of the fair go. We are for the first time seeing a generation who will be worse off than their parents. We're seeing one-third of Australian pensioners living in abject poverty. We are seeing consistently high unemployment and underemployment rates, increasing casualisation and decreasing job security. We're seeing increases in the cost of living, including skyrocketing power bills. We are seeing Australians have increasing difficulty in accessing the health care they need. And we're seeing this government make it consistently harder for the most disadvantaged in our society to get ahead—to get one step ahead.

The reason I decided to enter politics was that, after working as a paediatrician in my electorate of Macarthur for 35 years, I was increasingly confronted with issues now more commonly described as the social determinants of health. As the world has changed over that time there have been many people left behind, and increasingly governments have had to adopt policies to prevent societal polarisation. In order to deal with this division into haves and have-nots, politicians must understand the issue, and it's clear to me that the Turnbull-Joyce-Abbott government has little understanding of the difficulties housing, health, education and employment cause for people of limited means. It almost seems to me that this government would be happy to have a class based society with a hereditary peerage, perhaps bringing in Prince Philip as Governor-General.

In health I'm often asked to organise specialist appointments for my constituents, as they cannot afford the increasing gap payments or large up-front fees to see specialists. Many people avoid appointments with specialists because of cost. It's estimated that in my electorate around a third of referrals to specialists are not taken up, because of cost.

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