More than one in 10 Aussies 'in poverty'

from The Herald Sun

By Kim Christian

MORE than one in 10 Australians are now officially categorised as living in poverty, with three per cent classed as working poor, a new study has found.
Research based on Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) figures reveals the overall rate of poverty in Australia now stands at 11.1 per cent while three per cent, or 439,200 Australians, are classed as working poor.

The study, by the University of Canberra's National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling, identified working poor as households with an income of less than $539 per week, or half the average weekly wage, based on a 2005-06 ABS survey of income and housing costs.

"The rate of poverty amongst people in working households was around three per cent,'' a senior research officer at the centre, Alicia Payne, told a conference on poverty in Sydney today.

"Working does generally prevent the household from being in poverty. However, even though people can be working they can still struggle to have a sufficient income to keep them out of poverty.''

She said 28 per cent of working poor households received incomes that were more than $200 below the poverty line, and 25 per cent had incomes of between $100 and $199 below the poverty line.

The Perspectives on Poverty Conference is being held in the lead-up to International Poverty Day tomorrow.

Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Workers Union national assistant secretary Louise Tarrant said the Federal Government's recent announcement of $34 billion in tax cuts was unlikely to help the working poor who required better access to health and childcare services.

The Federal Government had transferred risk to individuals through measures such as tax breaks, Ms Tarrant said.

She said tax cuts were a way of paying people to fix their own problems.

"The fact that you give low-paid workers a tax cut ... doesn't go far to fixing the broken health system or actually funding appropriate dental care or child care,'' she said.

Former office cleaner and union campaign organiser Lu Liu said the average wage for a Sydney office cleaner was $302 per week, with most cleaners working three hours per day between 6.30pm and 9.30pm.

"The workload is hard and the hours are short,'' Mr Liu said.

"We don't want to be invisible anymore.''