Another Year Of Inaction Highlights Tasmania’s Tardy Response To Eliminating Poverty

October 11-17, 2020 marks Anti-Poverty Week. It is not a celebration, but a reminder of Australia’s and Tasmania’s slow pace addressing a perennial issue. One in eight, or over 3,000,000 Australians live below the poverty line. In Tasmania, the figures are even more disturbing; 127,343, or 23.6% of Tasmania’s 539,590 (ABS, March 2020) people live in poverty.

St. Vincent de Paul Society’s CEO, Lara Alexander, said that it is frustrating that every year for one week the community focuses on poverty in Tasmania; then it reverts to, pretty much, business as usual.

“The solution to ending poverty is very logical. Break the ‘silos’ of thinking that underpin current government solutions. Health, education, and poverty form a triangle, with the first two forming the base. Poverty will still exist in one form or another if we do not address health and education in tandem. Affordable homes, the supply of vital services to assist those in poverty to re-engage in our society, and meaningful training and employment programs – all in the context of access to good healthcare – should be non-negotiable items if we are serious about addressing poverty. We have been talking about this issue year-on-year since 2002 when Anti-Poverty Week began. That’s 18 years, or a generation, of patchy failed actions,” Mrs Alexander said.

“We have to stop looking at the cost of fixing poverty in Tasmania as an impost on society. We spend millions of dollars supporting people in need, which is a band-aid solution. That is 18 years of applying band-aids here and there with very little cohesion. We are good at fixing immediate issues and extremely inefficient at attending to the root causes of poverty,” she added.

“Poverty needs to be viewed through the lens of what causes it, such as lack of employment opportunities, a decline in realistic welfare payments, domestic violence, mental illness, addiction, poor health, and a lack of affordable housing. Building homes is just step one in the fight to end poverty. Infrastructure investment is good, housing investment is better because it creates jobs, builds local economies, and helps to end poverty.

“We also need to calculate the cost of fixing poverty in Tasmania once and for all; and look at it as an investment in disadvantaged people, our communities, and our economy. Canada and New Zealand have managed to reduce poverty by as much as 20 percent, so there is no reason why Australia – as one of the wealthiest countries in the world – cannot reduce poverty significantly or eliminate it completely. We just need the will to do it.

“On a national level, the Australian Government needs to commit $10 billion to social and affordable housing. The treasury committed $7.5 billion for investment in transport infrastructure around the country as part of the Federal Government’s COVID-19 economic recovery plan. While this will create jobs, it still leaves vulnerable people homeless. People might have money in their pockets as a result of this investment in infrastructure, but what is the point when there is shortfall of over 400,000 dwellings nationally, rents are through the roof, and businesses such as Airbnb, exacerbate the issue by offering homes to travellers and holiday makers while 

people are literally living on the streets? Currently in Australia 190,000 families and individuals are on waiting lists for social housing. Here in Tasmania there are 3,373 applications on the Housing Register, meaning there are thousands of people in need of a permanent, safe place to call home.

“Now with the added challenges of COVID-19, governments, communities, and charities must start working together to urgently address the chronic housing shortage, rental stress, and homelessness; which all share strong roots in unemployment, poor health, and lack of education. Tragically, these have been on the rise for the past two decades. As Australia returns to a post COVID-19 normal, let’s put politics aside and use the opportunity to rebuild the country for everyone in an innovative and inclusive way,” Mrs Alexander said.