Dr. Tricia Keilthy:

I thank the Senator for her questions and raising some important points. We can speak to our experience of parenting support. We conducted research in 2018 involving interviews with 30 families living in poverty. That indicated in detail their experience of living below the minimum essential standard of living. For those parents, there was much shame and guilt associated with their children growing up in poverty. They did everything they could to minimise the impact of poverty on their children's lives, trying every way they could to ensure they were able to do what other children take for granted, such as going on school trips, having nutritious food when they could afford it and things like that. There was much feeling of guilt in those parents when they had to say "no" to their children.

We asked the parents what they wanted or what would help their situation. Across the board, it was really about good quality jobs, being able to access training that would support them in getting better quality jobs and almost every family said childcare was the number one need. In our experience, it is a lack of income and not a lack of parenting ability that influences a child's experience of poverty. Those parents just need the right supports at the right time to ensure they can build a better life for their children. That is really about ensuring we have affordable childcare and affordable housing that is accessible and of good quality.

The Senator raised a really important point around standards. We see families who are in very poor-quality accommodation.

Due to the current state of the market, they feel they have no other option but to accept very substandard accommodation, in particular in the private rental sector. We need to ensure housing is of good quality, as well as being affordable, because energy poverty is a very real issue for many families.

We spoke about food poverty a lot, and we see it in almost every facet of community organisations. It is a symptom of wider issues. In our experience, when times are tough, the one area families have discretion over is the food budget. It comes down to addressing the drivers of food poverty, such as low pay and inaccessible public services, and ensuring that families are supported. The blueprint is in the Better Outcomes, Brighter Future paper. We know what policies are needed. We know what the problems are. It is now about taking action and ensuring that the resources are there to address this for once and for all.