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Senate report finds Australia's number of poor is growing

A man yesterday sits begging for money in the central business district of Sydney. PHOTO: AFP

A Senate report warned yesterday that the gap between Australia's rich and poor was growing dramatically, but the government has branded the study an opposition-led attempt to embarrass it in the run-up to national elections.

The bi-partisan Senate committee said that nearly 20 percent of Australians were living in poverty and too many of the country's 20 million citizens were missing out on benefits being delivered by one of the world's most buoyant economies.

It recommended sweeping changes to the government's strategy for tackling the problem, including redefining what constitutes poverty and establishing a federal agency which would report directly to Prime Minister John Howard.

The committee also said the minimum wage should be raised and schools should be given more money to provide breakfast to disadvantaged children who arrive at school hungry.

The report, titled "A Hand Up Not a Hand Out," was the result of a 12-month survey of departments and agencies nationwide that found 700,000 Australian children living in homes where they had never experienced anyone working.

The committee concluded that poverty was on the rise, increasing from 11.3 percent of the population in 1990 to 13 percent in 2000 and estimates of up to 4.1 million Australians now living below the poverty line.

It said 3.6 million people lived in households with incomes of less than US$300 a week, and 100,000 people were homeless, many of them children.

Committee chairman Steve Hutchins of the opposition Labor Party challenged the conservative Howard government to do "the right thing" and act on the recommendations.

"The report is on the table; it is not pie in the sky but a serious document which is based upon the input of real people," Hutchins said.

"I ask the government -- I challenge them -- to make Australia what it should be: the land of the `fair go' (equal opportunity)."

But the government's own members of the committee distanced themselves from what they said was a politically motivated report designed to throw a negative light on Howard's government ahead of an election expected around November.

"It's more about politics than addressing poverty," said Community Services Minister Kay Patterson.

Government committee member Sue Knowles said the report didn't take the poverty issue forward while Howard said the poor were better off thanks to his policies.

He immediately ruled out setting up a national body to tackle the problem.

"I don't think the answer to these issues is to have more bureaucracy," Howard said.

"I think the answer to these issues is to continually improve benefits, to provide safety nets for low income people.

"It is fair to say the rich have got richer but the poor have not got poorer. The low levels of unemployment that Australia is now enjoying means that more people have work."

The New South Wales Council of Social Service said the report was the first in 30 years to comprehensively assess the level and nature of poverty in Australia.
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