“Just as there are still many climate-change deniers and anti-vaccination adherents, so there are many who deny the prevalence of poverty in Australia, or who shrug off responsibility by blanket blame of all but themselves,” writes columnist HUGH SELBY.

Who said: “By 1990 no Australian child will be living in poverty”? I wonder what they meant by “poverty”? 

Let’s think of it as being a lack of the basics. What, then, are the basics?

Would we agree that a child should have the chance to thrive by being fed enough nutritious food and drink, housed in a safe place that is liveable for all seasons, with sufficient clothes for all weathers?

If we agree that’s enough then let’s have our governments build large places, or renovate failing shopping centres, as “warehouses for children who don’t matter”.

Governments can hire people who would otherwise be underpaid in childcare, retirement homes, failing cafes or cleaning jobs and let them look after these children as a commodity, much like battery hens or pigs in pens.

That would leave the parents of those children doing less, or doing more – the choice depending upon opportunity and their capacities. Remove the children, and the government benefits to their parents are less.

Are these parents adequately housed, clothed and fed? Do they have sufficient money to travel to see their warehoused offspring? If not, should they?

For anyone who was lucky enough to grow up with a parent or two who not only loved them but had the capacity to share that love the answer is, “of course”.

Which takes the concept of poverty beyond ready access to items and adds a dimension to poverty that is a lack of care and affection. 

There are myriad reasons that lead to people being incapable of caring for themselves, let alone others.

Among those reasons are a focus – healthy or unhealthy – upon one’s own life, being unable to solve today’s problems whether these are viewed realistically or through a filter of “woe is me”, physical and cognitive limitations, and a community belief that tends toward rewarding the narcissistic, rather than an interest in the common good.

As a reward for staying with this narrative, here’s a titbit from the latest Saturday Harvey Norman Herald. There’s a wide array of expensive ovens and cookers now on sale that come with gift cards valued at 10 per cent of the happy indulgence of acquiring a cooking device that has it all and more.

The closest the impoverished among us will get to those items is when they wrap the rubbish in the newspaper.

But forget about them for a moment. In tiny print at the foot of the first and last pages of the newspaper this sentence appears: “In the case of a refund of the purchased item and the gift card is unable to be returned, the value of the gift card must be deducted from the refunded amount”.

I don’t know what that sentence means.

Fortunately, we can wait for the ACAT president to tell us its true meaning when a dissatisfied member of the “haves” of our society takes the matter there following a difference of opinion at either the Belconnen or Fyshwick stores.

Let’s all aim a little higher

Park that thought until we get closer to Christmas and you are itching to go into more debt (albeit with an itch and a capacity much less than that of Chief Minister Andrew and his team). Meantime, we must go back to poverty and the concept of the “poverty line”.

That line, developed in 1973, was then based on a standard for two adults and two children – what a quaint ideal. It is updated to reflect cost of living and average incomes. To see how many in our community are living on less than that figure go here. As at 2022, the poverty line was $1027 for a couple with two children.

On that level of income your children do not attend the school excursions, unless you go on a forced diet, no help from Ozempic.

Given that the various payments by the federal government are less than the poverty line, quite a bit less, it is no surprise that agencies such as Vinnies, the Salvos, the Red Cross, and community pantries have no shortage of requests for aid.

For the stark reality of by how much each week we are content to let the “have nots” be just that forever more, see the tables in this 2024 report. Just as there are still many climate-change deniers and anti-vaccination adherents, so there are many who deny the prevalence of poverty in Australia, or who shrug off responsibility by blanket blame of all but themselves.

Fortunately, there is useful research, such as that commissioned by Vinnies. Go here to download the report about a fairer tax and welfare system.

They propose and discuss four models. The aims are to have fewer people living below the poverty line, to do so without challenging other budget expenditure, and putting the affordable, reasonable costs (less than the price of a Harvey Norman oven or cooktop) on to those easily able to give a little more and still buy high end.

I am attracted by the Guaranteed Minimum Income model which, if adopted, would move more than one million of us above the poverty line. This tops up the present government payments.

It was in 1987 that then PM Bob Hawke made the pledge, actionable within three years. Thirty-eight years later too many children are in poverty. We doom them to fail by our failing to act.

Former barrister Hugh Selby is a CityNews columnist, principally focused on legal affairs.