• Nicholas Gruen

17 September 2007Child poverty fell significantly between 1985 and 1995, and the gains have persisted under John Howard, writes NICHOLAS GRUEN in this special report for APO

ONE of the world’s experts on the tax and welfare systems of the developed countries was in Melbourne a few weeks back. Australian Peter Whiteford was out from the OECD in Paris to give a talk to the Brotherhood of St Laurence on child poverty and in particular the success or otherwise of tax and transfer systems in helping to alleviate it.

In the front row of the audience were former Brotherhood executive director Peter Hollingworth (who worked there for 25 years) and former social security minister Brian Howe.
When Peter Whiteford put up the slide reproduced below, I thought to myself, “Take a bow, Brian Howe.” (In fact I even said the same - behind Howe’s back - to the person sitting next to me.) As Whiteford’s figures showed, in the ten years from 1985 to 1995 the number of children living in poverty fell from nearly 16 per cent of all children to 11 per cent

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