Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As one of the sponsors of this motion, I obviously support it. This week is Anti-Poverty Week and today is International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, and I join the Australian Labor Party and the Democrats in calling for the need for urgent attention to address the plight facing the hundreds of thousands of Australians still living in poverty.

ACOSS estimates that there are about two million people living poverty today—that is one in 10 Australians. There are 100,000 homeless people, and nearly half of all Aboriginal children live in poverty. Perhaps what we should be doing as a nation is looking at how best we invest our good fortune in helping those most disadvantaged in our society. I believe we would be better off investing the tax cuts that were given out so widely during the last budget in addressing special issues and addressing the major issues that affect those most disadvantaged in our community—for example, providing the billions of dollars that are needed to address Aboriginal housing and providing the hundreds of millions of dollars that are needed to address Aboriginal health.

This week is also National Carers Week, so I would first like to look at how carers are managing in our affluent society—affluent for some. If you look at NATSEM’s report on the cost of caring in Australia from 2002 to 2005, titled Who cares?, it says:

One-third of people providing primary care for elderly or disabled people live in households whose income places them in the poorest fifth of households in Australia.

It estimates:

… that if a single person on average weekly earnings in December 2005 of $1,030 per week—

before tax—

were to leave his or her employment to care and receive only the carers’ income support payment, their weekly income would drop to $294.

In a further blow to carers, those on low incomes or government pensions are likely to be receiving little or no superannuation—which could present significant problems when it comes to funding their own retirement or future care needs.

The situation becomes even worse for Australian women who provide the majority of care to the young, old and people living with a disability in Australia. The report says:

… women already, on average, have lower net worth and less superannuation than men—

when it comes to retiring. Therefore, they are in an even worse situation. This is an example of how poverty is impacting on our community. These are real figures published just a couple of months ago.

The Carers Australia submission to the recent Senate inquiry into the Commonwealth State Territory Disability Agreement said:

… carers are over-represented in the lower household income quintiles and under-represented in the top income quintiles …

It also pointed out:

… the mean gross income per week of a primary carer was $237.00.

That is from 2005 ABS data. You can see that carers are suffering at the lower end of the income scale. They also have other issues they need to deal with on top of that, which are a result of their caring. They end up with poorer health. They sometimes end up being injured while doing their caring. Two-thirds of carers feel that their mental and emotional health has also been affected by providing care.

This picture is no better for single parents. The National Council for Single Mothers and their Children have highlighted some of the significant issues facing single mothers, and ABS data continues to show that single parents with primary care of dependent children are at the highest risk of poverty of all family types. Income and housing research has identified that 46 per cent of all sole parents with dependent children live on very low incomes. According to the ABS 2001 census data, an estimated 28 per cent live in public rental, 34 per cent in private rental and 32 per cent are homeowners or purchasers. This is compared to 67 per cent of the general population who are homeowners or purchasers. With the changes that have been made in child support combined with Welfare to Work, which has been debated at length in this place, where many single parents end up having their income further reduced, we are potentially making this situation worse.

As has been highlighted during this debate, there is, of course, the poverty that faces many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in our community. I articulated just last week in this place the poor health outcomes for Aboriginal Australians that are, I believe, directly associated with poverty. The UN Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing spoke just a couple of months ago of the hidden national crisis that faces Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders, highlighting the terrible conditions he had seen in Indigenous communities and describing this as ‘a humanitarian tragedy’. Poor housing and a lack of basic services combine with poverty and the high cost of food in remote communities to produce, as many people have described, Third World health outcomes. This is shameful in a so-called affluent community.

ACOSS has called for fairness impact statements to look at the impact on fairness and social inclusion of government decision making and policy initiatives—to ask the question: what impact does or would this policy have on fairness in our community and the right to a fair go for all? Poverty impact statements are a way to highlight some of the social impacts that policies can have on life expectancy, health conditions, child care and access to education. All should be looked at in terms of what impacts policy decisions have there.

I was very disappointed that the Anti-Poverty Week motion that I put to the Senate was not supported by all parties, because I thought it was very sensible. It highlighted the poverty issues that face our community and made some sensible approaches. It did not call for increases in welfare; it called for poverty impact statements so that we can highlight impacts of government decision making and ensure the reporting on these. It also asked for Australia’s strong economy to be used to improve the living standards and life chances of all Australians. I would have thought that would have been something that every senator in this place could have supported. I urge that we consider what poverty means in our community in the year 2006. We are supposed to be living in the strongest economy ever, yet we are not taking all Australians with us.