The
Catholic Weekly
Online
Sydney
2 November 2003
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Christ’s message holds key, says Cardinal Pell
New cardinal-electors
Cardinal is ‘honoured and delighted’
New managing editor for Catholic Weekly
Wiggles help Vinnies
Change to super laws rejected
Service commemorates Night of broken glass
Don’t leave HSC study to the last minute
Poverty forum call
Italians come clean over holy water
‘Don’t change Medicare’
Hope on Smokey Mountain
New dean of education
‘Give generously’ appeal call
Passion added to atmosphere for players
Mother Teresa
Editorial: Be not afraid
Letters: Biblical errors?
Conversation: Donna Mulhearn, human shield and crusader for kids - Back to Iraq
with ‘lots of love, hugs and care’
The freedom of God
Jesus ‘Lord and healer’
Oath of Fidelity
Sandhills and history
The Italian connection
New deal for deaf high school students
New college Campus
US post
115 years in the sun
Rose Bay victory
Life of the ageing priest
Companions on a Redemptorist’s journey to his final vows
‘Richest year of my life’
Poverty forum call
By Damir Govorcin and Chris Lindsay
The Australian Catholic Social Justice Council has backed calls for the Federal Government to convene a national forum on poverty as one political leader suggests the huge Budget surplus be used for rural infrastructure and community services.
Bishop Christopher Saunders, chairman of the council, said at the end of Poverty Week that more can be done to address the causes and consequences of poverty in a co-ordinated way by including all levels of government and sectors of society in a poverty summit.
“There are encouraging signs our political leaders are looking to ease the burden of hardship for those who have missed out over the past decade,” he said.
“Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson has voiced the National Party’s preference for increased investment from a large Budget surplus to be devoted to regional infrastructure and community services. Thirty-three of the 37 poorest electorates in Australia are in rural areas.
“The Federal Opposition Leader, Simon Crean, has signalled commitment to a poverty summit that would set long-term objectives for employment, health, education and community services.
“The statistics show the persistence of poverty despite a decade of outstanding economic performance. Over 80,000 low-income Australians pay more than half their income in rent and 680,000 children live in jobless households.
“About 134,000 Australians are long-term unemployed and indigenous Australians, sole-parent families and people with disabilities remain vulnerable to poverty.”
Fr Joe Caddy, spokesman for Catholic Welfare Australia, says: “Australia is too fast becoming a country that is divided between the haves and have nots. While this has been a decade of unprecedented prosperity, those on the margins are being left further and further behind.”
“Our failure to address poverty will have grave implications for social cohesion and Australia risks becoming a deeply divided nation,” he said. “This can be averted but only with a united national response.”
Earlier the president of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference, Archbishop Francis Carroll, joined with heads of other Churches and leaders of the Jewish and Islamic faiths in sending a letter to the Prime Minister, John Howard, urging him to support a national forum on poverty.
The letter, which was also circulated to state premiers and territory chief ministers, calls on political leaders to support a national forum to develop a strategy to reduce poverty, and hopefully eliminate child poverty in Australia.
It says if current trends of wealth distribution continue, Australia is in danger of losing its traditional character, which is based on notions of a fair go and mateship.
“Recent years have seen the emergence of second and third generation unemployment,” the religious leaders say in the letter.
“Hundreds of thousands of children in Australia are growing up in poverty, in families that have never known an adult in regular employment.
“We are concerned that Australia urgently needs a national forum, to develop a national strategy to reverse these trends and to focus on management ... of the adverse effects of global developments on our country.”