Dr THEOPHANOUS (4:17 PM) —Last week in this chamber when speaking on the budget, I talked about international poverty and social injustice. I said that the matter has two dimensions. One is the international dimension and the other is the way in which poverty and social injustice are increasingly issues in our society.

It is pretty sad that so much of our contemporary political debate is focused very narrowly on economic indicators and not sufficiently on more social and human questions, including those about poverty and social injustice. Indeed, the words `social justice', which were prominent in the policy debates of the late 1980s and the early 1990s, appear to have disappeared from the public debate. Certainly they do not engender much interest in the media nowadays.

Much of public policy and public debate has shifted away from what might be called a broad focus on the human consequences of human policy decisions to a much more narrow focus on economic indicators. That is not to say that economics or economic indica tors are not important; it says that we need to focus more on some of these social dimensions. It is time that we reintroduced the concept of social justice, especially in Australia, into our public policy discussions.

Several years ago, in my book Understanding social justice: an Australian perspective, I attempted to sum up the issues concerned with defining social justice and what was important in trying to develop a socially just society. I understand that some people now feel it has become totally unfashionable to talk about social justice. One reason is that they feel within the context of a globalised economy the international pressures on the Australian economy are such that the capacity of the government to deliver social justice and programs concerned with the eradication of poverty has been significantly reduced.

While it is true that the role of the state in different societies has been reduced to a certain degree as a result of economic globalisation, I do not think we should use this as an excuse to run away from our responsibility as legislators and policy makers to protect the most disadvantaged and needy in our community. If we get to the point where we use economic globalisation as a reason for not putting into place policies designed to protect the weakest and poorest members of our community—those who are suffering the most—we lose our whole rationale as a civilisation and a society.

It is in this context that I want to address a couple of questions about what has been happening in Australia. Unfortunately, in the last few years, especially during the coalition government, we have had an increase in poverty and social inequality in this country. This increasing poverty and social inequality is reflected in the fact that the richest 200 people in Australia have increased their wealth by 20 per cent, according to the BRW review of a couple of weeks ago. However, those in the bottom ranks have actually reduced their incomes and, in particular, their access to important services such as education and health. I refer especially to certain areas of health not covered by Medicare, such as dental care. They have also reduced their access to welfare in emergencies.

In the early 1980s in my own electorate of Calwell, the situation was one of significant poverty and inequality. As a result of programs put into place between 1983 and 1996, especially up to the early 1990s, we had a significant improvement in this situation. For example, school retention rates for children in the area of Broadmeadows increased dramatically, especially in the first nine years or so of the Labor government. We had a very positive situation in which, for example, we went from about 30 per cent of children who began high school finishing high school to something like 80 per cent—in fact, higher than 80 per cent—by the early 1990s. I regret to say that now the situation is going backwards. We now have a bigger drop-out rate in high schools from the young people in my electorate, especially that part of my electorate. And that is not unique to my electorate but is the case in many electorates where there are significantly economically disadvantaged people living and trying to make a life for themselves.

That means the welfare agencies in our area are coming under increasing pressure. For example, the Uniting Church in my area, which provides food for the most disadvantaged people, people who in distressed situations come and seek assistance when finding themselves in emergency circumstances, is now unable to cope with the demand.

Homelessness is also a very big issue. With the reduction in investment in public sector housing by both state and federal governments, we have a situation in Australia where the queues of poor people applying for housing have increased dramatically. That a society as wealthy as Australia should have so many homeless people—thousand and thousands of homeless people—in the queues, with only the most dramatic cases being able to gain access to Housing Commission accommodation,

This is very serious. It is a matter that needs to be addressed. It is not a question that needs to be avoided. It is fair enough for the Treasurer to talk in glowing terms about a growing economy. But who is the economy growing for? Which sector is growing? What is happening to the homeless in our communi ty, to the poorer section in our community, to the long-term unemployed in our community?

Every day we have the Minister for Employment Services telling us how wonderful some of his programs are. I can tell you that in my electorate people cannot even get on to those programs because of the cuts that have been made to the provision of services in this area of training; even in the area of Work for the Dole, people cannot even get on to the programs. There has been a reduction in Centrelink in my electorate. We have had several managers leave because of the enormous pressure being generated by so many people being in trouble in my electorate in that area of Melbourne—indeed, I believe this is also the case in similar areas in Sydney and other parts of Australia where we have real levels of poverty.

As I said at the beginning, the responsibility to provide for the most disadvantaged in our community should rest with the government. The fundamental principles of social justice as outlined by philosophers such as John Rawls and others still stand. Notwithstanding the fact of globalisation, we in this community are still able to use resources to help that sector of the community. We have a responsibility as a society for that poor sector. We have a responsibility for these people. We should stop passing the buck between the state and federal governments and we should stop saying, `Well, in general the economy is growing; therefore, people in distressed situations don't need our help.' Those people—the long-term unemployed, the homeless, the unemployed youth and many others who are in distressed situations—do need our help. (Time expired)