Page 3086 - Week 09 - Thursday, 13 October 2022
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were 2½ times more women than men who were sole parents on a low income. We produced maps showing where those households were most concentrated, which I have enlarged, and I am tabling, so that you can see more clearly what the difference is. Note that dark blue is bad and bright green is good.
This gender-disaggregated data builds on a 2017 report produced by NATSEM for anti-poverty week, which showed the small areas within suburbs that had the highest concentrations of poverty. We know where it is, and we want to take action.
Experience of violence is a key factor in how women with children end up in poverty in the ACT, as we learned from a 2014 report by Domestic Violence Crisis Service, Staying home after domestic violence. More than half of families lost their homes, either rented or owned, within 12 months after separation as a result of domestic and family violence. The impact of this was explored in the July 2017 report from the Women’s Centre for Health Matters, Beyond crisis.
Low paid and insecure work also contributes to poverty and homelessness in the ACT. A 2015 report by the Housing and Homelessness Policy Consortium ACT found that housing stress in the ACT was highest among workers in the retail, accommodation and food services industries, who were incredibly hard hit by the economic impacts of COVID. This contributes to the modelled prediction that 55 per cent of workers facing housing stress are women.
Thank you for your patience, Mr Deputy Speaker; I am nearly done. In November 2019, ACTCOSS published Shattered myths—20 years of ACT Council of Social Service work on poverty. There is a lovely photo on page 6 of our very own Minister Rebecca Vassarotti, from her time as a poverty task group project officer in 1999.
I quote former ACT Chief Minister and community affairs minister Gary Humphries, who was nice enough to sponsor my Parliament House security pass back when I was a community sector social researcher working on these issues. He said in 2001:
There are no easy solutions for many community issues like disadvantage and poverty, and while the ACT government has a major role to play in addressing poverty, it cannot tackle the issue on its own. Great outcomes can only be achieved when the government, the community sector and the broader community work together.
We do not need another inquiry. We need action, and that is what this government is trying to do.
I remain the most optimistic member of the ACT Greens, hopeful that Ms Lee and her colleagues will engage constructively on how to put into action the priorities that the community sector has already advocated for, and which we know from existing research will make a real difference to the lives of Canberrans. I support the Chief Minister’s amendment to this motion. I present the following papers:
Poverty in the ACT—Data and reports—
ACT Cost of living report 2022—Tracking changes in the cost of living for low-income households in the Australian Capital Territory—ACT Council of Social Service Inc., May 2022.
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