The thing that Saunders does not understand is that in wealthy societies where there is no starvation or dying from exposure, poverty is about being unable to participate in the society with respect and esteem.

A relativistic definition of poverty is not adopted by ‘the left’ just so they can advocate redistribution of income. It is favoured because it is the only real way of understanding what it means to be poor. If parents cannot afford Nike trainers for their child, the child ‘feels’ poor. The lack of money for trendy shoes ‘means’ poverty in our society.

Getting people into work is a great idea but not if the jobs do not pay an adequate wage. Public education about ‘choice’ is another ‘socialist’ idea that would address the poor choices made by 'the poor'. Social engineering clearly works in other areas (like the current ads about sexual violence against women).

But another way to address ‘poverty’ is to actively promote achievements other than economic success as the measure of a person’s value. Unfortunately, the organisation that Peter Saunders works for is a prime purveyor of the idea that a person's income indicates their success as a person and the idea that economic growth is the only way for us all to achieve wealth.

peter , if so many americans are so rich and being so rich, [ after having consumed more scarce resources to get there than any one else on the planet ] is so good ..... why are they so unpopular with the rest of the world. methinks they are not on the right track . they seem to think mainly of themselves and making and keeping a lot of money , pretending to be democratic while not wanting to lift up their poor , which i would have thought would have been a good example to the rest of us .
bill gates may be a rare and very welcome exception ... i admire what he appears to be doing .

The modern higher standards which are imposed upon all, regardless of income, prevent battlers being able to battle. Frugality has been regulated into a crime in many instances. Gone are the days when one could build their house around themselves,e.g., live in the garage first and progress slowly. Gone are the cheapo first-cars we made do with. Many parents must now outfit their children for school as per prescribed standards using credit &/or govt. assistance.Previously they could cut costs, now denied them. Even the family dog is under seige, as it's now considered that only those 'with suitable means' should have one. The user pay system also created new expenses, especially govt services which once were free; our ambulance service rendered free first aid and services, reducing unnecessary crowding at outpatients and doctors rooms.I also fondly remember the cheap 'Adult Education' opportunities. I would like to see a comprehensive list of the services we've slowly lost. I still believe the maxim 'Frugality is the sister of Prudence', is helpful when one's means are short, and
the fact that the inescapable costs of these higher standards to be borne equally handicaps the 'have nots'. Perhaps with modernity, the less well off no longer want the freedoms to improve their lot under their own steam and affordability!

In this article Saunders' claims, using GDP figures, that real incomes have increased by 14% from 1995 until 2002 and in "Australia's Welfare Habit" (p5) Saunders claims that average real incomes have more than doubled since the 1960's.

This, of course, explains why it was possible for my late grandfather to raise a family of four children, buy a well built freestanding house and take his family to a holiday, by the beach, at Maroochydore, each year, for the entire six weeks of the summer holidays, through the fifties and sixties, all on the single wage of a primary school teacher, wheras today even two middle class incomes are insufficient to pay the mortgage for often a cramped and usually poorly built townhouse unit.

Also, the GDP measure also counts natural disasters, break-ins and traffic accidents as all 'adding' to our prosperity.

It is therefore for very good reasons that Simon Kuznets, who devised the GDP measure, warned in 1934 against its use in the way that Peter Saunders has in this article.

(From "Growth Fetish" by Clive Hamilton, p13: He told the US congress 'The welfare of a nation can scarcely be measured from a national income'. Kuznets watched in dismay as his warnings were ignored and economists and policy makers grew accustomed to equating prosperity with growth in national income.)

I would therefore suggest that, notwithstanding Saunders' cooked up figures, that poverty is real and getting much worse in Australia today, both for welfare recipients and for many workers. Again, I ask him to tell us why the conclusions, of Elisabeth Wynhausen's account of what it was like to try to live as a low wage worker in "Dirt Cheap", are wrong.

Mollydukes, the trouble is that 'participation' is not necessarily related to any income level. If one is to 'participate', then clearly the opportunity to do so must be there, but again, it's not necessarily related to your capacity to buy NIKE shoes for you children. I don't think income is a good indicator of poverty. The perfect example is a sex worker with a heroin addiction. That worker may earn $5000 a week, but have difficulty feeding/clothing his/her children; thus experiencing hardship. Income is not a good measure of participation. There is clearly, as Saunders points out, a "behavioural" component to poverty. My family is one of those low income families (what you call "povo"),single parent [on pension] and 3 children [I'm doing final year at uni, my sister was expelled in year 9 (now goes to TAFE and works 2 jobs) and my brother is currently 14, not going to school & playing Counter Strike all day whilst smoking weed). We manage to more than just 'get by'. Tell me how we're not participating?

Peter Saunders is entirely correct. I no longer give a stuff about poverty in Australia (or anywhere else) because I know that it is a completely debased concept. It's a meaningless word game created by people who think like Mollydukes.

Using relativistic poverty we get crazy results. For instance if we treat the whole world as a single society then we get a lot less relativistic poverty than if we treat it as a set of separate nations and then tally up the poverty afterwards. If we treat the world as a single society then nobody in the USA or Australia is in the bottom 10%.

Mollydukes is talking about "social exclusion" and pretending that this is what we should refer to as "poverty". Well social exclusion in Australia may be a problem but it's not the same as being in Ethiopia during a famine and watching your kids starve to death whilst you sit by helplessly and wait for your turn. And its a complete insult to the plight of these starving people to claim that poverty in Australia has increased when all Australias are richer than they used to be.

Peter Saunders shines light onto a perverted little word game