ALA

THE HON JULIA GILLARD MP

DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER

Minister for Education

Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations

Minister for Social Inclusion

SPEECH

Launch of Anti-Poverty Week

Sunday, 12 October 2008

MELBOURNE

Thank you very much for that welcome.

I would sincerely like to thank the organisers for inviting me to launch Anti-Poverty Week in 2008 and the Social Inclusion at School booklet.

I want to congratulate everybody who has been involved in both and in putting together the theme of Anti-Poverty Week and making it education, given its importance of the education debate to this nation today.

Anti-Poverty Week is important because it reminds us of two very vital things.  First, reducing poverty is as much of a challenge today in this country as it ever was.

According to the latest OECD child poverty estimates, quoted in the paper by the Australian Institute of Family Studies that we are releasing tomorrow, over the last two decades Australia has maintained a child poverty rate slightly below the OECD average. We came in 11th out of the 27 OECD countries for which data were published.

This means that while the child poverty rate in Australia fell from around 15 per cent in the 1980s to around 11 per cent in the 1990s, in the 2000s it has edged back up to around 11.6 per cent.

Now, a modern, successful nation should not be satisfied with this and we certainly should not be satisfied with a result that is edging up rather than going down. Our aim should be to reduce this child poverty rate as something that is absolutely core to this nation.

We must focus on the way that poverty can interact with other forms of disadvantage to produce deep and persistent social exclusion.

We know that if income poverty is concentrated in specific local areas, and I am sure everyone in this room can think of such an area, it can become bound up with a host of other problems that impact negatively and particularly impact negatively on children’s wellbeing and children’s life chances. 

If income poverty coincides as it so often does, with poor health, chaotic and inconsistent parenting, lack of access to good universal services or the disruption caused by mental health problems or substance abuse, then the negative impact on children is likely to be far greater than the negative impact from the income poverty itself. We know that without the right combination of support and opportunity, people caught in these circumstances, both children and adults, will find it much harder to climb out of that disadvantage.

Broad poverty rates may cover much more specific and concentrated challenges, like those faced by many Indigenous Australians in accessing services, opportunities and social support. These challenges are being addressed by the Australian Government through our commitment to Closing the Gap. The collaboration between our Government, State and Territory Governments and working with Indigenous communities is probably best show by the recent COAG announcements about new investments in Indigenous early childhood services. They were agreed to in Perth at the last meeting. 

This is one part of building, over time, a more comprehensive approach to achieving social inclusion.

As you would know my colleague, Tanya Plibersek, is leading the development of a strategy to reduce homelessness and the consultation on that Green Paper has shown how important it is to link up the different services and sources of support to prevent homelessness, such as family and financial counselling.

It is just as important to provide pathways out of homelessness which actually bring together the different practical supports that people need to meet the full range of challenges they confront. High on that list, for example, is helping homeless families with children to keep meeting their children’s educational needs as they find and settle into new accommodation or deal with disrupted family relationships and routines.

There are many ways in which the Government is acting to make a difference on this agenda, on the agenda of poverty and support.

We have reformed our model of Employment Services to invest more resources in disadvantaged jobseekers and encourage flexibility and collaboration between service providers.

Jenny Macklin is leading national reform of our child protection systems; the first time the national government has said this is national business.

We are investing in new early years facilities, delivering high quality pre-school for every child by 2013, extending support for young mothers and babies and implementing the Australia Early Development Index nationally to focus attention and effort on the developmental needs of young children.

And through COAG, I have been working with State and Territory Governments to develop a new National Partnership for disadvantaged school communities. This partnership is not finalised, it will be finalised by the end of this year.

But like all new reform proposals, the fact that it is being developed means that there is a dialogue at the highest of levels, of what is required to make a difference to educational disadvantage; what is required to improve outcomes in those schools where both children and families are struggling to overcome multiple forms of disadvantage.

What is clear is that great schooling is a necessity for children who might be growing up in poverty. But, of course, getting access to great schooling is even harder for these families than for other families. 

Our new National Partnership will be about finding new ways to support those children who most need that support the most. That means enhancing teaching and learning in schools, but it also means working together more widely with families, communities and voluntary organisations.  For example, it could mean extending learning activities beyond school hours, offering counselling and family support, linking young people to mentors and giving them positive experiences in the community and the workplace.

There are many different ways to make a difference. We are determined as a government to maintain our focus on reducing disadvantage and improving the life chances of the children and families who are currently struggling.

But of course to do this we need your help. We need your help with the policy ideas and suggestions. We need your help in maintaining the community focus on combating poverty and disadvantage. We need your help in building those new collaborative models of service delivery. I know as we move through Anti-Poverty Week, those kinds of discussions are going to be happening nationally, locally; in communities around the nation.

So whilst I won’t be volunteering for the parachuting or possibly the three days in the fire truck, the fact these activities are happening around the nation means people of goodwill are coming together to see what we can do better to find a solution to poverty.

With those words can I formally launch Anti-Poverty Week and of course the social inclusion booklet for schools, the new resource for schools to help people work through issues to support disadvantaged families in school communities.

Thank you very much.