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Speaker 1: We'll talk to the Prime Minister shortly about the so

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Speaker 1: called poverty issue. The report came out Friday, of course,

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Speaker 1: or was it Thursday, can't remember. It actually uses the

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Speaker 1: word Hardship's not a poverty reports. Hardship report. Kids in

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Speaker 1: hardship roughly the number is flat. It's about fourteen percent

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Speaker 1: apparently of kids allegedly live in some form of hardship.

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Speaker 1: Hardship is often replaced, of course, with the word poverty.

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Speaker 1: They're different things. Also, the measure of hardship is open

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Speaker 1: to real inquiry. Iye would have thought. See the Stats

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Speaker 1: Department produce this latest report. They interviewed eighteen thousand families.

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Speaker 1: Hardship is a house that goes without seven of the

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Speaker 1: eighteen necessities, paying for the power bill on time, feeling cold, etc. Now,

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Speaker 1: without getting too picky, a seven year old who lives

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Speaker 1: in a house whose power bill's overdue has nothing to

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Speaker 1: do with hardship unless the powers cut off, which mainly

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Speaker 1: it isn't. Of course, I watched a press conference last

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Speaker 1: week with the Prime Minister and the police and the

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Speaker 1: Justice ministers on crime and the poverty question came up.

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Speaker 1: You know, the word they use poverty, not hardship. The

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Speaker 1: question inferred, as they so often do, was what were

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Speaker 1: the government going to do about it? Now? The answer

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Speaker 1: was one of only three. There's only three possible answers.

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Speaker 1: One is the labour answer, hand out more money, Two

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Speaker 1: is the government answer, grow the economy. And three the

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Speaker 1: answer that's very rarely used, get the parents to pull

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Speaker 1: their finger out. See. My read of these stats is

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Speaker 1: that given the number is steady i e. About fourteen percent,

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Speaker 1: you are essentially dealing with the same people, many of

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Speaker 1: them are hopeless. Under Adirn, her personal project, remember, was

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Speaker 1: to reduce child poverty. Didn't happen under this government hasn't

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Speaker 1: happened either, So approaches one and two haven't worked. There

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Speaker 1: are rightly or wrongly, obviously wrongly. A group of people

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Speaker 1: who struggle their circumstances will be little different to the

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Speaker 1: many who have it tough as well, Yes, but get by.

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Speaker 1: They have kids that aren't in hardship, but they face

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Speaker 1: the same fiscal issues. It'll be benefit related. It will

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Speaker 1: be about decisions about priorities, what bill gets paid first.

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Speaker 1: Half far down the food chain literally and figuratively, are

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Speaker 1: the kids within the same fiscal envelope. Some kids are fine.

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Speaker 1: Some will be a statistic that sadly is not the

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Speaker 1: government's real problem. Govern moments can only do so much.

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Speaker 1: Sometimes parents might have to do a bit more, be

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Speaker 1: a bit better. The child, as always, is innocent. You

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Speaker 1: don't choose to be born to some of the parents

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Speaker 1: who masquerade as parents, of course, but these stats tell

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Speaker 1: a sad truth. I don't think there is an answer.

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Speaker 1: Whether it's fourteen percent or fifteen percent or eleven percent,

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Speaker 1: there are no miracles for more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: Listen live to news talks that'd be from six am weekdays,

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