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Speaker 1: Advice to the government. A run child poverty reduction has

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Speaker 1: been made public. So the target set by the previous

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Speaker 1: labor government, it turns out, according to Treasury, is no

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Speaker 1: longer quote unquote, no longer realistically achievable. They as to

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Speaker 1: make the bill to be three billion dollars the child

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Speaker 1: poverty reduction. Minister Louis Upston is with us on this

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Speaker 1: is a very good morning to you.

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Speaker 2: Good morning Mike.

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Speaker 1: It was a thought bubble, wasn't it of miss a

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Speaker 1: Dern at the time, And nothing really material who was

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Speaker 1: achieved despite the fact she wanted it to be. Isn't

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Speaker 1: that the cold hard truth about it?

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Speaker 2: Well, the reality is they threw lots of money at

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Speaker 2: it and the number of children in material hardship went

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Speaker 2: up four one hundred extra children living in material hardship

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Speaker 2: six years of labor.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. So when Mendes March is quoted this morning is

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Speaker 1: saying it's a choice and all you have to do

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Speaker 1: is write a check, he's wrong as well, isn't he.

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Speaker 2: Well, the reality is we know that children do best

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Speaker 2: when the economy is going well, when they've got parents

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Speaker 2: and work, they're attending school and they've got great opportunities

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Speaker 2: ahead of them. That's why we're taking practical steps to

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Speaker 2: grow the economy, deal with the cost of living crisis,

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Speaker 2: like providing tax release and making sure kids are at school.

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Speaker 2: Those are the things that actually make a difference in

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Speaker 2: child poverty, and that's what we're focusing on.

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Speaker 1: Do you have any sense of if your prescription is

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Speaker 1: right when that manifests itself in tangible outcomes that we

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Speaker 1: can see in a positive direction.

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Speaker 2: Well, we know for children there is a lag, but

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Speaker 2: we are absolutely focused on the things that make a

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Speaker 2: difference for me, for example, making sure we've got more

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Speaker 2: households and work. We do know that we're in a recession,

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Speaker 2: so unemployment is higher than we'd like, but that is

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Speaker 2: a direct result of the wasteful spending that the previous

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Speaker 2: government made. Though we've got a few challenging months ahead,

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Speaker 2: but it will come right.

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Speaker 1: The three billion dollars, does anyone know whether that's real

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Speaker 1: or is that just a guess? Even if you did

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Speaker 1: want to spend the money, and if you did think

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Speaker 1: that by spending the money it would make any material.

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Speaker 2: Difference, well that's the figure that Treasury had come up

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Speaker 2: with to reach the target.

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Speaker 1: How they with those numbers, so they guess they've got

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Speaker 1: a dart board. Is there's something more sophisticated than that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, they're always seem big round numbers, don't they.

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Speaker 2: Well, it were doing more of what Labor wanted to do,

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Speaker 2: including lifting welfare payments, transfers and a range of other measures.

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Speaker 2: But the reality is the child poverty numbers were getting worse.

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Speaker 2: Labour's approach wasn't working. That's why we're going to do

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Speaker 2: something different from what they were doing. And we know

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Speaker 2: that the economy, having a growing economy is the best

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Speaker 2: opportunity for us to lift children and families out of

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Speaker 2: hard gip will if you do.

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Speaker 1: Grow the economy, get down to the crunchy stuff, which

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Speaker 1: is the people who don't want to participate in a

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Speaker 1: growing economy to better themselves, and it's the children who

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Speaker 1: are the unwitting victims of that attitude.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's that's always the challenge. But that's why

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Speaker 2: what we are doing at the moment is making the

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Speaker 2: welfare system far more active, so it is more difficult

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Speaker 2: for people to choose not to participate. As we know,

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Speaker 2: under national there's rights and responsibilities and while the welfare

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Speaker 2: system is there to support you in your time of

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Speaker 2: need and your children. Actually, there's some expectations that you

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Speaker 2: take steps that you need to take yourself, and presumably

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Speaker 2: we will hold people accountable for that.

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Speaker 1: Sure, and this presumably ties. And we had Tima Potucker

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Speaker 1: on earlier on this morning, and this presumably ties. And

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Speaker 1: with the emergency housing numbers which have gone from emergency

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Speaker 1: motels into social housing, that in and of itself help

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Speaker 1: some kids out.

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Speaker 2: I'm assuming yeah, absolutely, so we want to see more

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Speaker 2: children at school. We want to see housing more affordable.

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Speaker 2: When families have stable housing, it makes it easier for

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Speaker 2: them to be attending school regularly, and in by attending school,

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Speaker 2: we want kids to do well and that's why we've

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Speaker 2: also had an achievement target. Those are the sorts of

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Speaker 2: practical things that's our children up for a great future

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Speaker 2: and that's what we're doing.

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Speaker 1: Good stuff. Appreciate it very much, Louis Upston, who's the

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Speaker 1: Child Poverty Reduction Minister. For more from the Mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news Talks at b from six am weekdays,

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Speaker 1: or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio