Even the most conservative estimate of poverty in Australia is sobering. At the end of the 20th century, over one and a half million Australians were living in poverty in the midst of increased economic prosperity. Yet research into attitudes towards poverty suggests that while few Australians dispute its existence in the country, many fail to acknowledge it within their community.
In 1999, the Brotherhood of St Laurence conducted a study called Understanding Poverty. Only 56 per cent of respondents considered poverty in Australia to be a significant problem. In fact, poverty was placed last among eight prompted issues as the most important facing the country. In contrast, unemployment and the divide between rich and poor were rated as major concerns.
This apparent contradiction is an example of what John Fox calls the ‘silo’ perception of poverty, where relations between problems are not adequately recognised. Fox is the co-ordinator of social planning at Hume City Council in Victoria. He says that in reality the volume of job advertisements is not an adequate measure of opportunity, and tends to promote assumptions that the poor aren’t taking advantage of vacancies.
‘It’s not enough that the job is advertised,’ he points out, ‘but that people have the chance to undertake education, have access to transport, child care, things that make it possible for them to take up the job.’
Fox asserts that there is a cultural focus on individual responsibility, such that community fails to understand why some people are barred from employment. ‘We look at things, if you like, from the individual out, rather than from society in. Part of that is saying that the individual is completely responsible, that the individual can overcome any odds.’
Sally Jope, a social researcher on poverty issues, believes that this emphasis on individual behaviour feeds negative images of the poor as welfare cheats. ‘If you talk about poor people,’ she observes, ‘you can individualise it and point out shortcomings. You can distance yourself from it. “Those people, there’s something wrong with them”. That sort of approach.’
In this way, she says, distinctions between ‘deserving’ and ‘undeserving’ are cultivated. The problem of poverty becomes a problem of what to do with the poor.
Jope believes that government relies on such attitudes. ‘If we appreciated poverty as a real issue,’ she says, ‘then there would be budgetary implications, and government is very much about withdrawing and leaving it to the market to sort out