Right at the top of the apex of rogues that create poverty in the first instance, is Globalism.
Globalism does not raise up the poor from the bottom, but it reduces the ranks of the wealthy, by bringing them down to the level of the poor! The purpose of that strategy, is to increase profits for Capitalist enterprises, at any expense!
That's the first reality.
The second, and most painful reality, is the scramble for existence that Globalism creates. It is that scramble the article addresses.

Exacerbating the malaise of plundering for profit, is multiculturalism. Multiculturalism is also a tool of the Capitalist. Public housing has been usurped for this purpose.
This fact points to lack of affordable housing as the culprit of most poverty in Australia.
Attempting to solve this problem by Government policy, manipulating the mortgage market, was the root cause of the downfall of the world economy in 2009 GFC.
http://www.businessinsider.com.au/how-the-government-caused-the-mortgage-crisis-2009-10?r=US&IR=T

At this point , the answer to poverty in Australia lays. Government should cease and desist from creating real estate bubbles, (as they do), by encouraging the sale on the world stage, of Australian real estate to foreigners.

Yes, yes and ho hum. And as usual D.D is right on the money?

Simply put, the only answer to the worst aspects of globalisation lies in cooperative capitalism! And given it is applied by a government welded to bipartisan pragmatism, allows money generated inside communities to stay far longer, thereby allowing flow on economic factors to more thoroughly exhaust and as they do lift the economic well being of most of the community!

With one circulating dollar being allowed to do the work of seven as it changes multiple hands!

The most important cooperatives being community owned and operated credit unions, where folks can and do get housing loans at more favorable rates and conditions! And venture capital for new cooperative enterprises! And safer bets given the community involvement and commitment!

Apart from that, the most essential key is low cost energy! We need and use energy for absolutely everything in a western style economy! But not the energy of yesteryear that saw transmission towers march across the landscape and power that changed lives.

And by the addition of something as simple as a washing machine to every household that reduced the load on the shoulders of our mums, and accelerated productivity in almost unimagined ways! Nobody believed back then that we were harming the environment with Co2, methane or hydrocarbon fluorides.

Even so, the promoted rollout of SAFE CLEAN CHEAP thorium power could repeat the energy based revolution of yesteryear, in myriad ways not yet contemplated, like a miniaturized laser actuated thorium reactor, that may cost in real terms some $500.00 dollars to fuel and then be able to power your B double, for a century without refueling!

Or electricity able to be supplied from a similar source for just a dollar a year real cost, per household for 100 years! Enabling long overdue and quite massive decentralisation, accompanying myriad energy dependant, high tech industrialization and with it significantly more affordable housing!

That's how you do JOBS AND GROWTH! And as simple in most cases, in getting eternal/time wasting/time consuming, naysay government roadblocks removed!
Alan B.

Catchy name coincidence?

I understand Kasey Chambers is an excellent country singer-songwriter to boot.

I don't have any suggestions for the wider issues of employment and housing but there are things that people can do on a personal level to reduce their poverty.
Firstly, and perhaps most important, people shouldn't have children they can't afford to raise!
I'm not talking about those who lose their job or become chronically unwell unexpectedly. I'm referring to single people and long term unemployed. Everyone has the right to have children, but no one has the right to expect others to support those children. We have so many children living in poverty because people who don't have secure incomes keep giving birth to them. Somehow we have to change this mindset.
On the issue of housing, where is it written that every one has the right to their own single accommodation? Or even a bedroom to themselves? All over the world people share. They live with entire families in one room. Or a single person has a share room in a house with others. Backpackers understand the realities of life, especially Asian ones. They happily share bedrooms with other travellers.
Why can't unemployed people share accommodation? Why can't pensioners who own their own homes rent out a bedroom or two to other pensioners who don't own their own home? Or even to uni students needing cheap rental? To me, that's a win win situation. The pensioner gets some added income and company, the renter gets cheap housing.
As an aged pensioner, I share my home with grandchildren. Some young adults on low income, the others children. Between us, we manage to live reasonably comfortably, pay the bills and know we have secure, comfortable housing.
It's not that hard.

This author addresses many of the thoughts and ideas I've considered in coming up with my own solutions which I've just discussed on the 'Rest in Peace TINA thread'.

I'm assuming Anglicare Australia is looking to contribute to the Try, Test and Learn Fund.
http://www.dss.gov.au/review-of-australias-welfare-system/australian-priority-investment-approach-to-welfare/try-test-and-learn-fund

Hey Diver Dan,

The first line of John Carney's article reads,"It wasn't greed (that caused the GFC)..." and then goes on to blame 'government policies'.
This seems to go back to Clinton and beyond, but in Clinton's case the aim was to increase home ownership from 64% to 70%. So -- as the story goes -- the financial institutions 'lowered their credit standards'.

Of course you could argue that whilst financial institutions were given the green light (or the greed light) to lower their credit standards, their get-out-of-jail card was always that real estate prices were on the rise, and since they had the mortgagee's down payment and subsequent payments, when it came repossession time they profited.

But when real estate prices plummeted there was no profit -- just a toxic piece of paper that was worth less that the original loan that got mindlessly shuffled about amongst various financial institutions.
Then we all learned the phrases 'toxic loans', 'sub-prime mortgages' etc.

I don't know of any Australian mandated policies analogous to the US policies, but the practice of lowering credit standards for the same means was rife here. I'm happy to be enlightened on this.

And speaking of ol' Bill Clinton: both Bill and Hillary were involved in the Whitewater real estate scandal, which dated back to the '70s and 80s. But it was the same old scam: sell 'em a property where they can't afford the payments -- and repossess at a profit.

Big Nana, as worthwhile as some of your suggestions seem to be, they aren't aimed at reducing poverty per se! Just entrenching it!

And as that happens, you do, as discovered in the Great Depression, create flow on factors in the wider economy, that incorporate inherent shrinkage! With larger slices carved off for the privileged, leaving just the crumbs that may trickle down or not, to those on the lower socioeconomic rungs?

And but for a disastrous world war and the keynesian economic stimulus it forced on us along with mountainous government debt, to invest in ourselves! May still have been shrinking still?

Instead and thanks in no small part to that very stimulus, we became the third wealthiest nation on earth and a creditor one at that! Where we went through a period of unprecedented prosperity and wages growth!

Brought to an effective halt in the US, around thirty years ago, by the economic fundamentally flawed gospel of Chicago and its handmaiden Reaganism and Thatcherism. Manifesting as extreme capitalism, quite gross individualism; and the greed is good syndrome that heralded its disastrous Trumpish imposition on most western style economies!

By all means share, but via cooperative capitalism that promotes and improves the average lot of all who are sharing both endeavor and reward!

Yes, charity begins at home, but as self esteem restoring hand ups, not demeaning hand outs, or in our face, obnoxious control related charity, that further exacerbates and entrenches intractable endemic generational poverty!
Alan B

I believe now, after the horse has bolted on classifying an Australian as such, citizenship should be stratered.

Immigrants should prove their ability at self support of themselves, and additional family members, through a stratered entry visa.
Mandatory waiting periods of years, not months, should apply to intending citizens.

This alone would reduce poverty, by reallocating scarce welfare resources, and equally scarce public housing, to long term citizens as a priority.

Anti-Poverty Week is just a feel good slogan for a Left, money-grubbing charity. Groups like this one have claimed to be fighting poverty for decades, with no effect. All these "weeks" for this and that, year in, year out, prove the ineffectiveness of their nonsense.

There are not "too few jobs" ; there are too many people. We don't need any more workers than we have. Globalisation i.e redistribution of wealth, has removed most of our industries, and the attendant jobs have gone forvever.

But still, our maniacal politicans import 200,000 unneeded people, plus 'refugees' annually. Globalisation and immigration will eventually kill Australia.

Not enough income? Welfare was never intended to be 'income'. It is a temporary hand out for short-term unemployment. The cost is spiralling, and people thinking it is a normal way of surviving are in for a big shock if, like unworldy, socialist Anglican urgers they think the dole, new start and other money-for-nothing schemes are going to increase. The way this country is going downwards, welfare will soon be history.

People on welfare should not be blamed. It is the politicians who are at fault for bringing in more and more people who are simply not needed.

Hey ttbn,
One of the larger issues here is private central banking.
Growth basically equals debt, as money is borrowed into existence.
Say you borrow and print a billion dollars to start a new currency.
With interest, you suddenly owe more than the amount of cash you borrowed; or that actually even exists.
So the system relies on borrowing more money into existence to pay for the costs of the old debt.
It's a pyramid scheme where the amount of debt grows larger and larger than the money that actually exists.
The eventual destination is austerity, sale of nations assets at firesale prices and the peoples wealth all ends up in the hands of the bankers, and the people ruled over by the bankers.

Armchair,

Private central banking is more a myth than a problem. Despite what conspiracy theorists tell you, the USA is the only country to have a central bank that isn't completely in the public sector.

And money paid as interest does not automatically get taken out of circulation, so your idea that it's a pyramid scheme is false. Although in practice, more money will be put into circulation because the economy will grow and demand for it will increase.

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ttbn,

No matter how many people we have, the government can implement policies which result in them all having jobs. Conversely, no matter how few people we have, the government can implement policies resulting in mass unemployment.

We should be breaking down, not putting up, barriers which prevent people from fully participating in society. Why is that so hard for those on the right to understand?

I think, sumerising comment here, the answer to poverty is straight forward enough. What is lacking, is an empathy of political capacity, towards the poor.

Poverty is confronting to these people. To coin a phrase; "kick them while there down", is the political motive behind those who actually control the means, those who are in a position to actually help those who are in the perilous state of poverty.

I'm getting a bit "over" the pompous likes of Malcom Turnbull, berating those on welfare, and categorising them in terms of lifters and leaners.
It is difficult to imagine that pompous "C..." scratching up pennies to pay his power bill.

I mean, how close is that attitude to his ilk of Malcolm Fraser. "Life wasn't meant to be easy! What F* arrogance!
I think we need our own Donald Trump to upend this system. Could that Donald be a Pauline?

@diver dan, Monday, 17 October 2016 8:25:08 AM

Diver, OMG, is this really you who suggests: "...encouraging the sale on the world stage, of Australian real estate to foreigners."

But, but, the Chinese Diver, the Chinese. Have you forgotten already?

If you need reminding of the growing and unwelcome influence of the Chinese Government in Australia, check out the following:

1) http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7923
(JOHN FITZGERALD. Beijing’s Guoqing versus Australia’s way of life.

2) http://johnmenadue.com/blog/?p=7880
STEPHEN FITZGERALD. China’s deepening engagement in Australian society: is it a concern?)

The problem with demcracy and capitalism in todays world.

The politicians were supposed to uphold the egalitarian ideals of democracy,
but power has shifted from the political to the economic,where there is no democracy.

I was watching a talk on this the other day.
I thought it pinpointed whats gone wrong in todays so called democracies and
why the poverty gap is widening.

nana

so you dont want to bear any cost for other peoples children

but you do want a healthy young army to go to war for you if world war3 breaks out.
Also you want young strong health workers and doctors when you need medical care.

Do you want to live in a decaying, aging society?
Would you like to live in the desert, alone, with no vibrant young life around you at all.

You benefit greatly from other peoples children, but you want it all for free.
Typical of the selfish attitude that is destroying its own society with the cry
of "more for me"

mass unemployment is set to get much worse.
Pizza Huts and food delivery bosses cant wait to get the freed up
regulations that will allow them to do away with drivers and use drones.

What about drones on speeding duties instead of cops with speed guns.
Drones could also quickly zero in on crimes in progress. Although humans would still be required to physically arrest the criminals. Unless the drones could be fitted with a net or lasso the offenders and then a big pilice bus just go ariund and round them all up.
Funny idea I know, but it amuses me to think if it.

Then we have the driverless cars, trucks and buses revolution, maybe even driverless
trains. Lots of jobs lost there.

Plus robots are becoming ever more advanced, they can now walk and converse with people, and recognise faces. Now if the elite,wealthy, put all those people out of work
but dont compensate the working classes for their loss of income, then prepare for the revolution.
A society in which everybody prospers is a happy society, a lesson those who are
greedily grabbing the lot would do well to understand.

After all who wants to live in a society where everyone is miserable.

Pilgrim...
You are forgiven for misunderstanding my ambiguous text on foreign ownership of Australian real estate. The meaning is, that the Government approves and encourages foreign ownership to the detriment of Australians, (whoever an Australian is today, is also very ambiguous)...
I agree with the content of your links. The Chinese "Thing" is out of control.
A walk through Sydney CBD will have you wondering if, by some magic, you were misdirected in your travels, to Hong Kong!
That view of course is anickdotal, and would be amusing if not for the reality of the prime suburbs of Sydney, cascading into the gleeful hands of Chinamen

Poverty can be seen in two ways. There is absolute poverty where, by any measure someone or some group is living in abject poverty seen by such things as not having enough to feed, shelter or clothe themselves. Think Malawi, Niger, Central African Republic.

Then there is relative poverty where someone is poor as compared to someone else. I'm poor compared to Bill Gates, but a Chinese peasant is poor compared to me.

In Australia we have relative poverty and always will have irrespective of what polices are implemented. Poor in Australia means living on less than 50% of the median household income - the so-called poverty line. But someone living below the poverty line now is much better off materially than a similar person from say 1970 - 30% better off in real terms.

By definition we cannot reduce poverty in Australia because the poverty line continues to rise as the nation grows wealthier. (Well we could do down the path of ensuring everyone was equally well off but anyone mildly conversant with the 20th century knows that that just leads to everyone becoming equally poor).

Anti-poverty campaigners aren't really able to overcome poverty (as defined). All they are trying to do is to alleviate the relative poverty of some by appropriating the resources of others.

I'd much prefer to see poverty defined in absolute terms. Set a benchmark as to what a poor person would need to have to not be poor and aim to achieve that. eg define poverty as not being able to provide shelter, clothing and 2000 calories per day. Then make sure everyone can do so. By such a definition poverty would be quickly resolved in Australia.

CHERFUL, be careful making assumptions about people you don't know. I provided a multitude of young people to provide for me in my old age. And at my own expense at that. Four children with no government support at all and now I have dozens of grandchildren who will grow up and pay taxes to provide my pension and other benefits.
But the children born to long term unemployed or career single mothers are not likely to become tax payers, in fact just the opposite. They are going to cost taxpayers welfare support for most of their life. Studies have shown that the children born into multigenerstional welfare families are not likely to lose their dependence on government support.
No species on earth has been able to survive if they can't provide for their own young.

Big Nana,
when you talk about single mothers, what about all the unwed or divorced single
fathers with their new wives and girlfriends and often more children to that woman sitting in the crowd, They arent bad mouthed like the women theyve pissed off
from ,leaving them alone to raise the kids they left behind. What about some blame there.

You received no government support when you raised your children, well neither did I
but we damm well should have,received family benefits. Youre saying motherhood has no value and is worth nothing in monetary terms to the men and the society women live in.
You should be standing up for women and motherhood. I want my daughters to
be respected as women and for the work mothers do unlike previous generations
They'll dam soon conscript out kids to die in a war, if they decide to do so, they did in the vietnam war. How much is your childs life worth to society, when they want to use them.

My husbands mother said, "i didnt raise a son for 20years to have him sent over there and shot". She raised 4kids in her generation to with no money to call her own for all the work involved in that. Then they headhunt all the young ones to make money for them, and dont they love the consumers provided by womens wombs.

You shouldnt be saying motherhood has no monetary value to society, to do so is to
denigrate women and motherhood. I had my kids in a time of no family benefits too, but I sure as hell would stand up for the women of today, in being entitled to renumeration for the hard work of motherhood. It takes it out of the servant, slave roll and acknowledges the value of motherhood to society. That recognition for womens work has been a long, long, time coming.

A woman should not purposefully have children she can't support, whatever her biological urge. IMO, it is not her right to have herself and her children supported by the general public, and it is not a public service she is doing.

There are many potential parents yearning to nurture and raise children with their own resources, but are biologically incapable of doing so.

I see a synergy here that existed before the age of entitlement.

You've got it the wrong way round, Luciferase: a woman should not be put in a position where she can't support children. The children have a right to be supported by the general public, and are likely to pay back the cost of that support many times over through the tax system.

We should remove financial barriers to what people can accomplish.

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mhaze,

Keep in mind that absolute measures of poverty go beyond abject poverty. There are financial circumstances, and even some non financial circumstances, that prevent people from fully participating in society. These must be dealt with. Note also that as societies get richer, the requirements for participating in them are likely to rise.

Regarding your criticism of Australia's poverty line measure, you've got the implications wrong. You don't need to ensure everyone is equally well off just to get them above 50% of median wealth. It's perfectly possible, though I'd much rather we concentrate on more objective standards of poverty.

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CHERFUL,

Drones are unlikely to have much of an effect in that area, as their ability to interact with customers is limited and flying is quite fuel intensive. And fixed speed cameras are better value for detecting speeding motorists.

No matter how many people lose their jobs, the government can implement policies to enable them all to gain jobs. But they choose not to; there's more political points to be scored by fining scapegoats than explaining the truth.