Australian Poverty Week 2025, Why We’re Focusing on the Wrong Things

National Poverty Week is here again, a time set aside to raise awareness of poverty around the world. In recent years, this week has helped shift the focus closer to home, bringing attention to the poverty that exists in our own backyard.

Listening to the radio this morning and scrolling headlines, the focus this year is on the alarming statistic that 1 in 7 Australians are now living below the poverty line. That is 14% of our country's population, the highest figure in recorded history. This has sparked debates about how poverty is measured and whether new definitions and markers are needed, with many believing the true number is even higher.

This is alarming. Nobody should live in poverty, especially in a high-income nation like Australia. But let’s not get stuck on definitions.

What I hope these reports and headlines don’t distract from is the lived experience of those facing poverty every single day. Facts and figures tell only one part of the story. They can quickly lead to political arguments and blame, without bringing any real understanding or change.

As someone living and working in the most economically disadvantaged neighbourhood in Victoria, it is important that those in power recognise that while poverty may be increasing across the country, poverty in Australia is not new. In neighbourhoods like Norlane, poverty is all many people have known, not just in their lifetime, but across generations.

When we talk about the kind of poverty that exists here, what we often hear back now is, “Poverty exists everywhere,” or “It is hard for everyone.” And yes, it does, and it is. But my concern is that solutions will focus on those experiencing poverty for the first time, while those who have been born into deep, generational poverty will once again be forgotten.

Those living here, those experiencing the harshest end of poverty, need to be heard, and community-led, preventative approaches need to be developed from within these neighbourhoods, led by the people most impacted. Individual responses will not work. Top-down approaches will not work. More services alone are not the solution.

We believe that to truly see an end to poverty, we need two things:

1. Locally Led Change

Unleashing the potential of local people in local places, working at grass-roots level to bring about change in communities experiencing poverty.

2. Systemic Shifts

Upstream, preventative approaches that ensure equitable access to food, housing, healthcare and quality education in every neighbourhood across Australia, not just some.

Let’s take these new figures seriously, but let’s also work with, listen to and be led by those most affected. And let’s not only aim to reduce poverty in Australia, let’s work to end it, for everyone, for good.


Kaylene Reeves - Co Director of The Good Neighbourhood Project