Poverty doesn't get a mention
Don't mention the 'p' word
Ross Gittins
November 29, 2006
In the bad old days before the Fitzgerald commission, Queensland police used to claim there was no prostitution in Brisbane. The Howard Government hasn't gone quite that far on the question of whether there's poverty in Australia. It doesn't stand up and deny there is any.
It just refuses to discuss the subject. The word "poverty" is never allowed to cross its lips. It was happy to tut tut about the high incidence of poverty when it was in opposition, of course, but not now it's in government.
Why not? It ain't hard to guess. When governments admit that a lot of people are in poverty, they tend to be asked what they're doing about it. The Howard Government, in particular, would be asked how come so many people are missing out on all the economic prosperity it keeps boasting about.
And then someone might ask, aren't all these poor people getting social security benefits? Well, yes, most if not all of them would be. Well, how come you're paying benefits so low they still leave a lot of people below the poverty line?
The Government's coffers have been overflowing. So much so that it's now given tax cuts in four budgets in a row. The ones in this year's budget were particularly generous to battlers struggling to make ends meet on more than $125,000 a year. No wonder we don't want to talk about poverty and the adequacy of welfare benefits.
But how does the Government get away with it? Well, partly because you and I have been preoccupied with more pressing matters - our own pocketbooks, not other people's.
But also because, in recent years, one of the right-wing think tanks has put a lot of effort into challenging the credibility of the commonly used measures of poverty. Stand up and say that 11 or 12 per cent of households are below the poverty line and you buy an argument about definitions and measurement.
And it's true that a measure widely used here and in other countries - you're poor if your income is less than half the median income - is quite arbitrary. Why draw the line at 50 per cent? Why not 60 per cent - or 40?
All this is the background to an interesting exercise being conducted by Professor Peter Saunders and colleagues from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW, with assistance from those well-known malcontents and troublemakers Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Anglicare, Sydney.
They're responding to the perception that poverty lines are produced by researchers in an ivory tower, unrelated to what's happening in The Real World, by taking a new approach to identifying who is poor.
Rather than drawing some monetary line in the sand, they're making a list of items regarded the "essentials of life" and then looking at who's missing out on them because they can't afford them.
But get this: it's not the researchers who decide what's essential and what's not, it's the public. This makes it harder to claim the measure is not in the real world or is arbitrary. Public opinion is the arbiter.
Saunders and his team studied similar exercises overseas and consulted the welfare agencies and their clients before putting together a list of 61 possible essential items. They then posted a survey to a random sample of 6000 people on the electoral roll, getting 2700 replies.
The replies showed that a majority of people accepted 48 of the 61 items as essential, with 30 of the items receiving more than 90 per cent support for being essential.
Top of the list - getting almost universal support - are access to medical treatment, warm clothes and bedding, a substantial meal at least once a day, ability to buy prescribed medicines, access to a local doctor or hospital, access to disability support services when needed and access to dental treatment.
Lower on the list are heating in at least one room of the house (89 per cent support), a public telephone (88 per cent), child care for working parents (86 per cent), a separate bed for each child (85 per cent), a home telephone (83 per cent), up to $500 in savings for an emergency (82 per cent), a washing machine (82 per cent) and computer skills (69 per cent).
Just scraping into the list of essentials are a TV set (55 per cent support) and a car (50 per cent).
Next, Saunders and his team tested the list with almost 700 clients of the welfare agencies. These included young people, older people, refugees and the long-term unemployed. They were receiving emergency relief, homeless support or child and family support.
These welfare clients' response to the list was remarkably similar to the public's. A majority of them endorsed 50 out of 57 items as essential, while 32 items received more than 90 per cent support. They picked the same items as the public and in pretty much the same order.
So the public and what we could call the potential poor are in strong agreement over what are and what aren't the essentials of life.
Something for the politicians to note is the strong support - among the public, not just welfare clients - for access to public services. You see that very clearly in the health area (access to hospitals, bulk-billing doctors, prescribed medicines and - a particular sore point - dental treatment).
You see also that access to a public telephone ranks above either owning a home phone or a mobile, and that access to good public transport ranks above owning a car.
But here's the sting. When the researchers asked the welfare clients which of the items identified by the public as essentials they were missing out on, the results were disturbing.
About half this group couldn't afford dental treatment if needed, nor home contents insurance. Almost 60 per cent didn't have $500 in savings for an emergency, while significant numbers couldn't afford the most basic items: a substantial meal once a day (12 per cent), heating in at least one room (13 per cent) and prescribed medicines (25 per cent).
But if you see John Howard, don't mention poverty.
To read the original article in the Syndey Morning Herald, click on:
SMH
Ross Gittins
November 29, 2006
In the bad old days before the Fitzgerald commission, Queensland police used to claim there was no prostitution in Brisbane. The Howard Government hasn't gone quite that far on the question of whether there's poverty in Australia. It doesn't stand up and deny there is any.
It just refuses to discuss the subject. The word "poverty" is never allowed to cross its lips. It was happy to tut tut about the high incidence of poverty when it was in opposition, of course, but not now it's in government.
Why not? It ain't hard to guess. When governments admit that a lot of people are in poverty, they tend to be asked what they're doing about it. The Howard Government, in particular, would be asked how come so many people are missing out on all the economic prosperity it keeps boasting about.
And then someone might ask, aren't all these poor people getting social security benefits? Well, yes, most if not all of them would be. Well, how come you're paying benefits so low they still leave a lot of people below the poverty line?
The Government's coffers have been overflowing. So much so that it's now given tax cuts in four budgets in a row. The ones in this year's budget were particularly generous to battlers struggling to make ends meet on more than $125,000 a year. No wonder we don't want to talk about poverty and the adequacy of welfare benefits.
But how does the Government get away with it? Well, partly because you and I have been preoccupied with more pressing matters - our own pocketbooks, not other people's.
But also because, in recent years, one of the right-wing think tanks has put a lot of effort into challenging the credibility of the commonly used measures of poverty. Stand up and say that 11 or 12 per cent of households are below the poverty line and you buy an argument about definitions and measurement.
And it's true that a measure widely used here and in other countries - you're poor if your income is less than half the median income - is quite arbitrary. Why draw the line at 50 per cent? Why not 60 per cent - or 40?
All this is the background to an interesting exercise being conducted by Professor Peter Saunders and colleagues from the Social Policy Research Centre at the University of NSW, with assistance from those well-known malcontents and troublemakers Mission Australia, the Brotherhood of St Laurence and Anglicare, Sydney.
They're responding to the perception that poverty lines are produced by researchers in an ivory tower, unrelated to what's happening in The Real World, by taking a new approach to identifying who is poor.
Rather than drawing some monetary line in the sand, they're making a list of items regarded the "essentials of life" and then looking at who's missing out on them because they can't afford them.
But get this: it's not the researchers who decide what's essential and what's not, it's the public. This makes it harder to claim the measure is not in the real world or is arbitrary. Public opinion is the arbiter.
Saunders and his team studied similar exercises overseas and consulted the welfare agencies and their clients before putting together a list of 61 possible essential items. They then posted a survey to a random sample of 6000 people on the electoral roll, getting 2700 replies.
The replies showed that a majority of people accepted 48 of the 61 items as essential, with 30 of the items receiving more than 90 per cent support for being essential.
Top of the list - getting almost universal support - are access to medical treatment, warm clothes and bedding, a substantial meal at least once a day, ability to buy prescribed medicines, access to a local doctor or hospital, access to disability support services when needed and access to dental treatment.
Lower on the list are heating in at least one room of the house (89 per cent support), a public telephone (88 per cent), child care for working parents (86 per cent), a separate bed for each child (85 per cent), a home telephone (83 per cent), up to $500 in savings for an emergency (82 per cent), a washing machine (82 per cent) and computer skills (69 per cent).
Just scraping into the list of essentials are a TV set (55 per cent support) and a car (50 per cent).
Next, Saunders and his team tested the list with almost 700 clients of the welfare agencies. These included young people, older people, refugees and the long-term unemployed. They were receiving emergency relief, homeless support or child and family support.
These welfare clients' response to the list was remarkably similar to the public's. A majority of them endorsed 50 out of 57 items as essential, while 32 items received more than 90 per cent support. They picked the same items as the public and in pretty much the same order.
So the public and what we could call the potential poor are in strong agreement over what are and what aren't the essentials of life.
Something for the politicians to note is the strong support - among the public, not just welfare clients - for access to public services. You see that very clearly in the health area (access to hospitals, bulk-billing doctors, prescribed medicines and - a particular sore point - dental treatment).
You see also that access to a public telephone ranks above either owning a home phone or a mobile, and that access to good public transport ranks above owning a car.
But here's the sting. When the researchers asked the welfare clients which of the items identified by the public as essentials they were missing out on, the results were disturbing.
About half this group couldn't afford dental treatment if needed, nor home contents insurance. Almost 60 per cent didn't have $500 in savings for an emergency, while significant numbers couldn't afford the most basic items: a substantial meal once a day (12 per cent), heating in at least one room (13 per cent) and prescribed medicines (25 per cent).
But if you see John Howard, don't mention poverty.
To read the original article in the Syndey Morning Herald, click on:
SMH
posted by Pax Christi @ Saturday, December 02, 2006
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