As Australians prepare to vote in 2007, they face important choices over the future fairness of their country. Australia’s headline figures of economic growth and low official unemployment stand in stark contrast to the daily reality of two million Australians who live in poverty. Despite economic prosperity, one in ten Australians struggle to pay for the bare basics such as housing, food, utilities and health care and often cannot access other essentials such as work, education, aged care, child care, counselling and legal services. The social and economic cost of this disadvantage can be seen in 'poverty postcodes', typically on the outer edges of metropolitan cities and in rural areas, where many people are unemployed, have minimal levels of education, live on low incomes and often have disabilities and illness.