As we mark October 17, the UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty and Australian Anti-Poverty Week, we must acknowledge that close to one million children in Australia are living in poverty and that ending this is achievable.
Research undertaken by Professor Sharon Bessell, Director of ANU’s Children’s Policy Centre, supports children to share their views and experiences in ways that are respectful and genuinely value their contribution.
One twelve-year old boy described supporting his mum as she went from charity to charity to ask for food and other essentials; another said, ‘I have such happy memories of when I had a home.’ A 10-year-old girl explained that when her older sister left school and began working, her family had a little more money and were able to stay warm in winter.
As Professor Bessell says, “these heartbreaking stories of individual children go on and on – but the common theme is the ways in which systems are failing children and their families.”
Those systems include our failure to act to end child poverty in Australia, when all the evidence tells us it can be done and that the solutions to achieve this are known and within our grasp.
Even if we are not prepared to act when we know that the cost of child poverty in NSW alone is $60 Billion per year, we should act because it is the right thing to do, for our children and their futures. Committing to end child poverty is also the right thing to do for Australia, to realise one of our deeply held values of a ‘fair go’ for all.
The children Professor Bessell spoke to also shared how they lacked hope for their future.
When asked what her message to adult decision-makers would be, an 11-year-old girl wrote ‘”please give children with no opportunity some hope”. A 10-year-old boy described his fears for the future of not having a job, not being able to earn enough money, being sacked, and losing his livelihood. These fears arose from his parents’ experiences of precarious work and low pay, and his family’s experiences of homelessness.
In 2023-24, children under 18 years made up more than one in four of those needing homelessness services. Shockingly, nearly six in 10 of these were children aged under 10 years.
To give all our children a childhood where they can be healthy and thrive and have hope for their future, our parliamentarians and the Australian community need to act to child poverty. The End Child Poverty campaign is calling on all members of our 48th Parliament to enact legislation to end child poverty by 2030. Legislation should include a child-centred definition of poverty with measurable targets and actions for Government and the community to together achieve this goal.
In late July, all Federal parliamentarians received an important delivery from the End Child Poverty campaign – key information on child poverty in Australia and an End Child Poverty teddy bear. We selected a teddy to represent some of what children lose when they are forced to leave their homes due to violence, poverty, unaffordable housing, and homelessness. This was prompted by the words of a seven year old girl whose family was assisted by one of our 180 partners. She said, “When I moved, I didn’t even get to bring my baby teddy bear, this made me sad and nervous.”
On 30 October, we will bring five teenagers to meet with parliamentarians to offer their own experiences of poverty and discuss actions they believe are achievable.
Ending child poverty should be at the heart of our national conversation, particularly in the current prominent discussion on intergenerational equity – a topic that everyone at the Economic Roundtable agreed on. That discussion has to date focused on enabling our younger generation to buy a home, a worthy aspiration. Children growing up in poverty, even for a short time, face more than three times the likelihood of living in poverty as an adult. Home ownership for them will likely remain an unrealised dream unless they are included in this conversation and action is taken now.
Let’s not let another UN Day for the Eradication of Poverty go by without taking action to end child poverty in Australia, one of the wealthiest countries in the world.