Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Next week is Anti-Poverty Week, a week in which all Australians come together and are encouraged to organise or take part in activities to highlight and overcome poverty in Australia and overseas. By international standards, Australia is certainly one of the best nations in the world in which to live and, in terms of quality of life, last year the United Nations ranked Australia second only to Norway.

However, Australia is becoming more unequal and poverty is, unfortunately, on the increase. This is not a phenomenon that is unique to Australia. Despite the fact that progress has been made throughout the world, the number of people living in extreme poverty globally remains unacceptably high. According to the most recent estimates of 2013, 767 million people live on less than $1.90 per day. To do our bit, when Labor was in government Australia's overseas foreign aid budget increased from 28c in every hundred dollars in 2007-08 to 37c in 2013-14. Had Labor been returned at that election, aid was budgeted to rise to 50c in every hundred dollars in 2017-18.

We all know what occurred after the 2013 election—Australia's foreign aid budget was cut dramatically, to record low levels. It was cut in anti-poverty programs and programs aimed at drawing people in developing countries out of poverty. Today, thanks to this coalition government's irresponsible approach, Australia spends just 23c per hundred dollars on overseas aid. There is little doubt that this 'madness of endless aid cuts' as described by the World Vision CEO, Tim Costello, has damaged our reputation as a responsible global citizen and put Australians at risk by cutting public health, education, infrastructure and biodiversity projects.

Domestically, Australia unfortunately is moving backwards when it comes to poverty and inequality. After 20 years of economic growth, our nation is going backwards in the number of people falling into poverty. A report released by ACOSS in 2014 showed that poverty was growing in Australia, with an estimated 2½ million people, or 13.9 per cent of all people, living below the poverty line that is accepted internationally. This included 603,000 children.

Australia is becoming more unequal, as well. The distribution of wealth and income is becoming less, even in Australia, and the World Wealth and Income Database demonstrates that the share of income going to the top one per cent of Australians has nearly doubled since the 1980s to 8.3 per cent. In terms of wealth, the top 10 per cent of wealthy Australians own 50 per cent of the nation's wealth and, of course, inequality is a key determinant of poverty in Australia. This is reflected in the data in the ACOSS report.

The policies of this government have not made the situation much better at all. In fact, they have made it worse. Cutting pensions and cutting family payments does not help people who are struggling to make ends meet. Watering down Medicare and the universality of our healthcare system is not going to be good for cutting poverty in Australia. Attacking penalty rates—the payments that people use to ensure that they have a good quality of life and a liveable wage—is not going to see poverty reduced in Australia. The groups that tend to be at greatest risk of poverty in Australia include women, sole parents, people with a disability and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people—the key groups that have been attacked by this government's budgetary policies over recent years. Our First Australians continue to be massively disadvantaged, with a life expectancy 10 years less than the rest of Australia and an unemployment rate of 48 per cent. We are in danger of losing our claim of being the nation of the fair go.

I would like to thank and acknowledge the organisers and sponsors of Anti-Poverty Week: the Australian Red Cross, the Brotherhood of St Laurence, St Vincent de Paul and the University of New South Wales in the constituency I am fortunate to represent. I urge everyone to get online at antipovertyweek.org.au and take part in organised activities that help highlight and bring together the understanding of this urgent cause. (Time expired)

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