Hashtag campaign no solution to poverty

The latest Children’s Commissioner’s report on child poverty should be an urgent call for government action.

Instead it introduces a hashtag campaign #itsnotchoice.

It doesn’t matter how many people take selfies of themselves with a cool slogan. Nothing will change until those in power take poverty seriously.

Exactly three years ago in December 2012 Commissioner Dr Russell Wills was instrumental in the production of an expert advisory report Solutions to Child Poverty.

That document contained many recommendations in welfare, employment and housing but was almost completely ignored in the intervening period, apart from the meagre $25pw rise which starts for some beneficiaries from next year.

While the latest Child Poverty Monitor released today is a useful indicator of the deepening poverty crisis, it lacks any recommendations or solutions, apart from the hashtag campaign.

Dr Wills says “We all have a choice in what we do to reduce the numbers of children living in poverty…”

In fact we don’t, except perhaps at the ballot box once every three years.

The National government and its supporters have a great deal of choice. They could immediately do things like:
• Reform the welfare system so that beneficiaries and their children are provided with enough income to cover adequate food, clothing and shelter.
• Accelerate the building and acquisition of state and community sector housing immediately.
• Commit to education, training and decent job creation for the unemployed who want and need jobs now, rather than using worktesting as a disentitlement tool with sole parents, the sick and the disabled.
• Ensure that all those who are without adequate or any housing have somewhere decent to live.

Those choices do not lie in the hands of ordinary people struggling to survive.

Nor do they lie with frontline groups like ours which work every day to help individuals and families in their constant battle for the bare minimum of what they’re entitled to from Work & Income.

The Children’s Commissioner should be a watchdog and advocate for children in need. The vision he had three years ago seems to have slipped into his rear view mirror.

Yes, it’s a disaster that nearly a third of our country’s children are living in poverty. We do need to know the statistics.

But until those with their hands on the levers of power are made accountable nothing will change.

Social media campaigns without a clear focus on solutions are no substitute for action.

ENDS

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