http://www.thepunch.com.au/tags/poverty/ Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. en Copyright 2012 The Punch penberthyd@newsltd.com.au penberthyd@newsltd.com.au Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 Politics, opinion, world news, sports news, latest news, views, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard, Nathan Rees, Malcolm Turnbull, Peter Garrett, Barnaby Joyce, Australian, federal politics, opinion polls, election, The Punch, thepunch, punch ExpressionEngine 1.6.7 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 15 http://www.thepunch.com.au/images/punch-logo-rss.png http://www.thepunch.com.au/ 144 70 Politics, political opinion, world news, sports news and the latest news and views updated live, daily on The Punch - Australia's best conversation. Search The Punch keywords http://www.thepunch.com.au/search/ http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/meet-the-new-working-poor/ The 2012 Salvation Army survey into the economic and social impact of cost of living paints a grim picture of life in Australia right now. Even people with jobs and regular benefit payments are struggling to make ends meet. They can’t pay bills or send their kids to after school sport. And in the worst cases are forced to go without food and prescription medicine to keep their heads above water. This is a modern crisis. And it’s growing. According to the Salvos the number of people relying on their charitable services increases every year. As the saying goes, thank god for the Salvos. But just how sustainable is this band-aid approach to financial stress? penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/meet-the-new-working-poor/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/meet-the-new-working-poor/#item8522 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-happened-to-thegovts-promise-to-help-the-poor/ The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-happened-to-thegovts-promise-to-help-the-poor/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/what-happened-to-thegovts-promise-to-help-the-poor/#item8464 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/To-help-stop-poverty-this-is-what-Im-eating-this-week/ Yesterday, along with thousands of other Australians, I began the Live Below the Line challenge. The idea is to live on just $10 worth of food from Monday to Friday. Why? To stand in solidarity with the 1.3 billion people who live in extreme poverty, which is calculated by the World Bank as living on what you can buy for two Australian dollars per day. Considering the average Australian household’s weekly spend for food is around $200, and a skim latte can set you back $3.50, you can see living on $10 for the week is quite an undertaking. So, what did I do with my $10? Yesterday, I took myself off to the supermarket and bought the following: penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/To-help-stop-poverty-this-is-what-Im-eating-this-week/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/To-help-stop-poverty-this-is-what-Im-eating-this-week/#item8431 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-cost-of-poverty-is-way-more-expensive-than-the-dole/ It’s easy to blame people for being outside the labour market or on its low-paid fringes. It’s easy when you’re passing judgment from a comfortable vantage point, well above the fray. The members of my organisation, the St Vincent de Paul Society, however, are painfully close to the reality of poverty in a prosperous nation. Every day, we see how hard it is to survive on social security payments. The people who have been left out of the economic prosperity that has been generated in this lucky country are waging a daily battle for survival. It’s a battle that is being waged from below the poverty line. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-cost-of-poverty-is-way-more-expensive-than-the-dole/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-cost-of-poverty-is-way-more-expensive-than-the-dole/#item8254 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-complete-course-in-modern-culture-in-one-album/ Brisbane songwriter maestro Robert Forster fell into an old but reliable trap last month when he used Bruce Springsteen as a contrast at the beginning of a brilliant critique of the Dirty Three’s latest opus Toward the Low Sun. After listing four song titles from Springsteen’s show-stopper record, Wrecking Ball, Forster says the names of the tunes give away the whole disc as a dud. “...these song titles, shop-worn and spare even by Springsteen’s standards, offer little encouragement to listen to an album that seems to be stuck in old ground,” he wrote in The Monthly. Never judge a book by its cover, our betters told us when we were young and learning. Never a truer word, as they say in the backstreet bars of any town with a musical heart. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-complete-course-in-modern-culture-in-one-album/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-complete-course-in-modern-culture-in-one-album/#item8221 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-saddest-weirdest-most-honest-little-town-in-America/ New Mexico is strange country. On the White Sands Missile Range, they conducted the first atmospheric test of an atom bomb. Just to the east is Roswell, where the aliens allegedly crash-landed and the Men in Black concealed their crushed little bodies from the world. There’s the Holloman Airforce Base, near Alamogordo, where in the early 60s they launched the first chimp into space. There’s a lot of feeling in the atmosphere of central New Mexico. Driving through this vast, rugged, treeless place of towering mountains and their little brothers, the buttes that erupt from the broken landscape, you wouldn’t at all be surprised if the minute hand on your watch started spinning and the full petrol tank inexplicably drained to empty. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-saddest-weirdest-most-honest-little-town-in-America/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/The-saddest-weirdest-most-honest-little-town-in-America/#item8188 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/angry-cripple-in-poverty-disability-means-stigma-and-exclusion/ Lucy Daniel is the Advocacy and Policy Officer at CBM Australia, a development organisation working with people with disabilities in the world’s poorest places. It could be the plot of a great Hollywood movie. A political drama. With George Clooney or Matt Damon as male lead. And a young, feisty, female journalist who gets caught up in it all. The opening scene pans to a meeting room, high up in skyscraper land, with a marble round table, iced water jugs and leaders of a big global development Bank. “Gentlemen, you should be proud,” says the silver fox, “This policy forges the path to education for the poorest of the poor.” Clapping and shaking hands all around. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/angry-cripple-in-poverty-disability-means-stigma-and-exclusion/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/angry-cripple-in-poverty-disability-means-stigma-and-exclusion/#item7705 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-rinehart-whine-came-straight-from-the-heart/ You can’t blame Hope Rinehart for trying to get her Mum to pay for a cook, a housekeeper and a bodyguard. Optimism isn’t even her middle name - it’s right up there. And who among us wouldn’t have a fairly ambitious birthday wish list if Mum was the richest person in Australia? So Hope asked Mum for a cook (AND showed her willingness to negotiate by including a salary ranging from $40,000 to $225,000+ which means she’d presumably gun for Jamie Oliver but be happy with a Subway “sandwich artist”).  penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-rinehart-whine-came-straight-from-the-heart/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/the-rinehart-whine-came-straight-from-the-heart/#item7682 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-horror-movie-about-poverty-and-violence/ When the Snowtown murder trial concluded in 2003 a prominent criminologist scandalised the good people of Adelaide by saying there was nothing surprising or remarkable about the case. New Yorker Allan Perry, a lecturer in criminal law at the University of Adelaide, blamed what he called a subculture of degeneracy in the city’s most depressed and dysfunctional suburbs, defined by inter-generational welfare dependency, the daily abuse of alcohol and drugs, shocking levels of child abuse, child neglect and family violence. Dr Perry said the only thing which shocked him about Snowtown was that people were shocked by it. And he really cut loose in his description of my hometown, sending talkback and the letters pages into meltdown, and prompting the then Attorney General Mick Atkinson to tell him to move back to Brooklyn. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-horror-movie-about-poverty-and-violence/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/a-horror-movie-about-poverty-and-violence/#item7675 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday. http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/warring-tribes-mean-moderates-are-left-right-out/ One potato per family: First come, first served. That was the instruction to volunteers distributing food in dirt-poor Arizona last week. “The free potato distributions are for Arizona residents only. You must show photo ID with a local mailing address,” read the newspaper advertisement. Food assistance is the “new normal”, according to the charity Feeding America. More than half the clients of the Food Pantry system use it for more than six months of every year. penberthyd@newsltd.com.au (David Penberthy) Article http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/warring-tribes-mean-moderates-are-left-right-out/#comments http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/warring-tribes-mean-moderates-are-left-right-out/#item6959 Sat, 26 May 2012 20:00:49 +0000 The Australian aid sector’s fury at the aid budget cuts announced on Tuesday has been focused on the dollar figure that the Government has (or rather, hasn’t) allocated to foreign aid. But there’s another reason to be angry. Alongside its much-smaller-that-promised aid budget, the Gillard government delivered another announcement. “Australia is deepening its engagement with effective multilateral organisations including the Development Banks,” Foreign Minister Carr blogged proudly on Wednesday.