Lisa Chesters (Bendigo, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In Bendigo a conversation has begun—a conversation that aims to highlight the hidden poverty that exists within our community. Local media and community organisations and leaders, in the lead-up to Anti-Poverty Week, chose to highlight some of the concerns that they have about the increasing levels of hidden poverty. We are talking about people who quite often do not get recognised as living below the poverty line—people who are surviving on very small incomes, predominantly older people, single people, struggling to pay the bills. They may have their own home but are being crippled by increasing cost-of-living pressures such as rate increases, electricity prices and of course, now, the cost of petrol, going up and up as we speak.

During Anti-Poverty Week this conversation about hidden poverty brought together 30 seniors from the community of Eaglehawk at the Eaglehawk Community House. Residents were forthcoming in sharing their concerns and their experiences. One woman said it was especially difficult for single mature people who had retired to pay their rent and to compete in the private rental market. She said at least 50 per cent of her income goes on rent every single week. Another resident raised concerns about the cost of transport. He had travelled from Tunagulla, which is about 40 kilometres outside of Bendigo. He said that, because of a lack of a transport, a car was the only option, and the concern about the impact of the cost of petrol on his household budget was continuing to be a factor.

These are some of the pressures that local people face every day. They are the hidden pressures, the poverty pressures, that do not often get highlighted when people think of poverty. One resident, who is surviving on the pension—and she said that: 'I'm just surviving on the pension'—challenged the Prime Minister, and all of us, to pay rent and to catch public transport whilst living on the age pension, and to see how long the Prime Minister survived on such a low income.

For many years now the debate around the economy has only focused on numbers—on budgets. It is time that the debate started to focus on the social impact of our decisions. We need to stop looking just at the budgetary impacts, the economic impacts, and start looking at the community and social impacts. It is important to ensure that social impacts on the community are also taken into account.