Matters of Interest

Anti-Poverty Week

The Hon. J.E. HANSON (15:21): This week is Anti-Poverty Week and today is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, so I think it is a great opportunity to briefly shine a light on the inequality and poverty that exists in our state. Access to high-quality food should not be a problem in a state with a proud agricultural heritage such as ours. But in South Australia there are over 117,000 people surviving on food handouts, a figure which has more than doubled in the last four years. Strangely, it is in regional South Australia, where the food is grown, that we find the problems are even worse. Foodbank SA chief, Greg Pattinson, recently stated that:

…people living in regional and remote areas are 33 per cent more likely to experience food insecurity than those living in cities.

The fact is that 7 per cent of South Australians, or one in every 15, are going hungry. The need for services like Foodbank is rising fast and it is becoming impossible for our capacity to continue to provide. Foodbank was forced to turn away over 6,000 Australians in the past 12 months alone and, as amazing as the work of Foodbank South Australia is, it is truly sad to see that more and more people are coming to rely upon their work. We have to do more than apply a bandaid; we have to look at what is causing the bleeding.

I want to draw attention to the fact that recent figures reveal that every night in South Australia around 6,000 people are homeless or sleep rough. Earlier this year, I visited the Hutt St Centre to speak to Ian Cox about two of the facilities provided there, which are helping people experiencing homelessness, addressing issues which they face and achieving enduring solutions. Each year, the Hutt St Centre serves around 50,000 meals and offers social work and support services to nearly 2,000 people. I have spoken to those who work there, those who run their programs and those who use some of their services. The centre deserves all the commendation and help we can provide but, sadly, it is simply not enough to just provide crisis care.

While it is truly great that there are centres like the Hutt St Centre providing care for people who are homeless, the statistics of homelessness in South Australia are simply not improving. It is well past time that we start looking to the causes and not just the effects. We have to do more than just apply bandages; we have to start looking for long-term solutions.

I want to draw attention to the fact that the recent research from SACOSS reveals that almost 132,000 people, including over 22,000 children, live below the poverty line in South Australia. Once again, we see regional South Australia being worse off, with those who live there being statistically twice as likely to be in poverty as those in metropolitan Adelaide.

What causes this? That is an excellent question. It seems in our state that a lot of this has to do with problems surrounding housing: 45 per cent of households in poverty are renters. In the 10 years after 2006, more than one new family was homeless every single week. Between 2003 and 2015, the lowest 20 per cent of income earners saw their income actually drop by 9 per cent. Further than just housing, I actually see it as a problem for our economy—not a success—that nationally the highest 1 per cent of the population in Australia earns as much in a fortnight as the lowest 5 per cent receives in a year. It is clearly a problem of wages or a lack of them.

The statistics say that working Australians are more productive now than we have ever been. Australian working families are delivering wealth on an unprecedented level and, at the same time, the workplace, and indeed the world, has never changed faster and been more influenced by things beyond their control.

So it should not be controversial at all to say that those who work hard deserve better pay and fairer conditions, be it because they work hard, want to work hard or because they have worked hard all their working lives, and for those same reasons it should not be controversial to say that we should raise unemployment benefits, just like Newstart. We all need a greater focus on poverty: those who are in it and those who are at risk of being so, a focus on what they earn and where they live, and their costs of living. We need to be proactive and consultative about possible solutions with those who experience poverty so that there are fewer of them.