Anti-Poverty Week

Benevolent Society Early Years Centres
2025-10-16 - 2025-10-18, 2025-10-14 - 2025-10-16 | Gracemere/Mount Morgan
Benevolent Society Early Years Centres in Gracemere/Mount Morgan, Browns Plains, Beaudesert and Acacia Ridge. Each supported playgroup is being encouraged to cook a meal with the group and provide ideas around cooking low cost no cost meals. Our budget for the cooking of the meals in the group will include the items to cook for the group and an additional 10 packs of the items for a family to take home.
Organiser is Benevolent Society

Rental Affordability Snapshot: Essential Workers Report 2025
2025-10-16
Anglicare Australia will be launching a companion piece to its annual Rental Affordability Snapshot 2025, which examines affordability of rental properties for Australians who earn the lowest incomes, people on Commonwealth income support and minimum wage earners. In this special release, Anglicare Australia tests if it is possible for essential workers to rent a home in the private market.

ABC Radio Qld Regional Drive Program
2025-10-15 16:30 - 17:00, 2025-10-14 16:30 - 17:00, 2025-10-13 16:30 - 17:00 (Australia/Brisbane)
ABC Radio Qld Regional Drive Program with Adam Stephen will focus on four key areas of poverty at 4.35pm Monday to Friday during Anti-Poverty Week. Here it live on AM or FM in Cairns, Townsville, Rockhampton, Mackay, Emerald, Gladstone, Whitsunday, Mount Isa, Charters Towers, Charleville, Longreach, Ingham, Hughenden, Dunk Island, Weipa, Karumba, Moranbah, Barcaldine or all places in between. Listen live online or after https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/north-qld-drive

BSL Talks: measuring poverty in Australia - Henderson’s Legacy and the Path Ahead
2025-10-15 12:00 - 13:00 (Australia/Sydney)
2025 marks 50 years since the release of Australia’s landmark Inquiry into the nature and extent of poverty, chaired by Professor Ronald Henderson.
The Henderson Inquiry laid the foundation for how we understand and measure poverty in Australia. The Henderson Poverty Line has been a consistently measured long-term benchmark – relative to average living standard. It is the same today as it was 50 years ago, but it needs refreshing.
Globally, 156 countries have adopted either a monetary, multidimensional, or combined approach to poverty measurement. Best practice is to have both – Australia has neither.
As part of ongoing work to support improved poverty measurement, the Brotherhood of St. Laurence and the Melbourne Institute have developed a demonstration Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) for Australia. This work draws on the internationally recognised methodology of Professor Sabina Alkire, Director of the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative and global leader in poverty measurement.
Facilitated by BSL’s Chief Strategy and Impact Officer, Zeah Behrend, join our latest BSL Talks discussion with Dr Nicole Bieske (BSL’s Director of Research, Policy and Advocacy), Dr Melek Cigdem-Bayram (Ronald Henderson Senior Research Fellow, Melbourne Institute and BSL) and two experts with lived experience, Jo and Tamara, as we explore what having official poverty measures would mean for Australia. Register here https://events.humanitix.com/bsl-talks-measuring-poverty-in-australia-henderson-s-legacy-and-the-path-ahead

Anti-Poverty Week Hobart Event
2025-10-15 11:30 - 12:30 (Australia/Hobart) | Elizabeth Street Mall (near Information Centre), Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia
Join us in the Elizabeth St Mall for this year’s Anti-Poverty Week event, where community organisations are coming together to shine a light on the realities of poverty and food insecurity in Tasmania.
The event will feature:
Stories of lived experience shared through short audio interviews and a video displayed on the Optus screen.
Sector collaboration with organisations represented onsite in matching T-shirts to show solidarity.
Creative contributions from local students, including banners and signs carrying key Anti-Poverty Week messages.
Displays and stalls supported by sector organisations
The key program, including speakers and media opportunities, will take place between 11:30am – 12:30pm.
This event is about raising awareness, breaking down stigma, and calling for action to reduce poverty in our community.

Bundaberg Anti-Poverty Week Community Gathering
2025-10-15 08:30 - 09:30 (Australia/Brisbane) | Buss Park, Bundberg CBD, 194 Bourbong Street, Bundaberg, Queensland, 4670, Australia
🗓 Tuesday 15 October 2025
🕣 8:30am – 9:30am
📍 Buss Park, Bundaberg CBD
Join us for a thought-provoking morning as we come together to raise awareness during Anti-Poverty Week. This free public event will explore the realities of poverty across Australia and right here in Bundaberg.
Attendees will receive a small food pack to help visualise what children living below the poverty line receive through Foodbank Queensland’s School Breakfast Program. The program is available in 430 Queensland schools, with many more on the waitlist. For some, this may be all the food they eat in a day.
The event will feature speakers and community voices discussing:
– The scale of poverty at national, state, and local levels
– What support is currently available
– What more we can do to help those who are struggling
Let’s stand together to raise awareness, inspire action, and build a stronger community where everyone has equal opportunity to thrive.

Workshops
2025-10-15 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Sydney)
No Place for Poverty are running several workshops with several groups, including:
– City of Stirling staff
– Perth Global Shapers
– Communicare and Anglicare staff
The workshops are tailored to the audience but largely, help them to understand what is happening and what they can do about it in their own worlds

Supporting Families in Crisis
2025-10-15 07:00 - 09:00 (Australia/Sydney) | 1/15 Hope Street South Brisbane, 1/15 Hope Street,, South Brisbane, Queensland, 4567, Australia
Join us on Wednesday 15 October to talk about the reality of family homelessness and poverty in Brisbane and show solidarity with locals who need our support.
Right now, hundreds of Brisbane families are living in motels – not by choice, but because there’s nowhere else to go.
We’re asking our community to stand with local families who don’t have a home, by helping to fund a temporary roof.
Brisbane is facing a growing homelessness crisis, worsened by a lack of affordable housing and an overwhelmed social housing system.

Unfinished business: 50 years after Henderson
2025-10-14 13:00 - 14:30 (Australia/Sydney)
Registration information is at: https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/unfinished-business-50-years-after-henderson-tickets-1736078881669
The Henderson Commission of Inquiry into Poverty (1972-1975) identified structural inequality as the primary driver of poverty and recommended a suite of measures to ensure no Australian would fall below the poverty line. Fifty years later, around 3.3 million Australians (13.4%) remain in poverty, with persistent gender inequality and the welfare state’s systematic failure to serve First Nations peoples representing critical unfinished business from Henderson’s agenda.
This online panel event examines the trajectory of Australian poverty policy since Henderson’s landmark report, analysing why many of the report’s core recommendations were not implemented and how poverty has evolved in the context of labour market casualisation, housing unaffordability, and the development of an increasingly punitive social security system. The panel discussion will be guided by three key questions:
How has the nature and measurement of poverty changed since 1975?
What structural barriers continue to prevent effective poverty reduction?
What future policy innovations could achieve Henderson’s goal of ensuring no Australian falls below the poverty line?
Drawing on contemporary poverty research, policy analysis, and lived experience, panellists will assess contemporary social policy frameworks against Henderson’s original vision, while also exploring future opportunities for change.
Facilitator:
Dr Cassandra Goldie AO is CEO of ACOSS and Adjunct Professor with UNSW Sydney. Cassandra has represented the interests of people who are disadvantaged, and civil society generally, in major national and international processes as well as in grassroots communities. Cassandra is Co-Chair of the ACOSS and UNSW Sydney Poverty and Inequality Partnership, and a member of the Federal Government’s independent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. In 2023, she was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for distinguished services to social justice through leadership and advocacy, promoting the rights of marginalised and disadvantaged people.
Panellists:
Associate Professor Bruce Bradbury is an Associate Professor at the Social Policy Research Centre (SPRC) and part of the UNSW Poverty and Inequality Partnership. His research looks at poverty, inequality and economic disadvantage and the role of government policies in their creation, alleviation and prevention. He is the co-author of the 2015 book Too many children left behind: The U.S. achievement gap in comparative perspective and a co-editor and author of the 2001 book The Dynamics of Child Poverty in Industrialised Countries.
Professor Kay Cook is the Associate Dean of Research in the School of Social Sciences, Media, Film and Education at Swinburne University and the only female academic or qualitative researcher on the federal Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee. Her research focuses on the gender of social policy processes and their outcomes, which are often most striking and disadvantageous for single mother families.
Jeremy Poxon is a welfare rights activist based in Ballarat. As a lead organiser on the grassroots campaign to Raise the Rate, Jeremy worked alongside welfare recipients to push their demands for economic justice to the forefront of the national agenda. His investigations and condemnations of Australia’s welfare system regularly appear in the ABC, The Guardian, SBS, and elsewhere.

Homelessness Conversation With Kate Colvin
2025-10-14 12:00 - 13:00 (Australia/Adelaide)
SACOSS’ Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Working Group will be hosting an online conversation with Kate Colvin from Homelessness Australia.
This discussion will explore challenges facing the homelessness sector, such as chronic underfunding, and increasing and more complex and persistent demand for support, as well as opportunities to advocate, at a national and a state level, for action on homelessness, housing insecurity, and poverty.
SACOSS’ Housing and Homelessness Advocacy Working Group is a network of community service organisations, grassroots and lived experience voices, local governments, and others with an interest in building shared advocacy on housing and homelessness issues, particularly in the lead-up to the 2026 State Election.
REGISTER HERE: https://sacoss.org.au/civicrm/event/info/?reset=1&id=291

Anti Poverty Week - Awareness
2025-10-14 11:00 - 13:00 (Australia/Sydney) | civic square launceston, Launceston, Tasmania, 7250, Australia
You are invited to join us for a BBQ and a compassionate chat about what we should be doing to create change.

Community Meal
2025-10-14 10:30 - 14:00 (Australia/Brisbane) | Kurilpa Hall, Brisbane, 174 Boundary St, West End, Qld, 4101, Australia
Every Tuesday
Open from 10.30am
With Tea Coffee

Anti-Poverty Expo 2025
2025-10-14 09:00 - 12:30 (Australia/Brisbane) | Kedron Wavel, 21 Kittyhawk Drive, Chermside, 21 Kittyhawk Drive, Chermside, Qld, Australia
Anti-Poverty Expo 2025: Tackling Hardship together
Forty services represented
Get information on over one hundred projects
Connect with over eighty industry experts
Group chat topics

No Place for Poverty Workshops
2025-10-14 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Sydney)

Queensland Parliament Breakfast Bag
2025-10-14 08:00 - 09:30 (Australia/Brisbane)
This event is a platform to elevate the voices of people with lived experience of poverty and to foster understanding and support for change.
Community sector organisations and people with lived experience of poverty will share their lived experiences, stories and insights as well as connecting with other service providers and decision-makers.
Anti-Poverty Week is also promoting key campaigns Raise the Rate, End Child Poverty and Everybody’s Home.
Light refreshments and breakfast bags and will be provided. The breakfast bags contain a simple meal—like what children might receive through a school breakfast program. These bags are a recognition of the everyday support that can make a meaningful difference in the lives of children and families experiencing poverty.
This is a closed event by invitation with RSVP needed to attend.

Anti-Poverty Week Podcast with Glen James
2025-10-14 | Online (see website for details)
Popular personal finance podcast Money Money Money hosted by Glen James will drop a dedicated Anti-Poverty Week podcast on Tuesday 14 October 2025.
Glen will be joined by Uniting WA Financial Counsellor Paul Jordan to explore poverty in Australia, reducing stigma and encouraging people to seek support when they need it.
Find Money Money Money wherever you get your podcasts.

ABC Adelaide Interview with Simon Schrapel & Alice Clark
2025-10-13 12:30 - 15:00 (Australia/Adelaide)
Join the ABC Adelaide Afternoons program with Jo Laverty, to hear from the national Anti Poverty Week chairperson and South Australian co-chairperson, Simon Schrapel and Alice Clark from Shelter SA to hear more about poverty, homelessness, housing, children and raising the rate. You can listen on 891 AM in South Australia or via the ABC Listen App. See you, or hear you there!

ACT Anti-Poverty Week Video
2025-10-13 12:00 - 13:00 (Australia/Sydney)
A video about poverty from the perspective of ACT community organisation frontline workers.

'Connecting Communities': Anti-Poverty Week Community Gathering + Lunch
2025-10-13 11:00 - 14:00 (Australia/Adelaide) | Enfield Community Centre, 540 Regency Road, Enfield, Australia
WHEN: Monday October 13, 11am-2pm (Lunch served at 12pm)
WHERE: Enfield Community Centre, 540 Regency Road, Enfield
Join grassroots groups, local services, and others affected by poverty for this Anti-Poverty Week Community Gathering + Lunch.
There will be free food, info stalls, dancing and other activities, talks about your rights, and how to get active, and lots more!!
This is a day to connect with others who want to do something about the poverty crisis, and share advice, stories, resources, and ideas!!
All welcome!!
Hosted by Anti-Poverty Network SA, and Community Housing Limited’s Tenants’ Advisory Group.
Supported by Port Adelaide Enfield Council.
TO REGISTER: https://forms.gle/ZyegnXx9sW4rFM5F8
FURTHER INFO: infosa@chl.org.au or 8210 0200

ABC Radio Perth Interview
2025-10-13 09:00 - 09:30 (Australia/Sydney)
Alex Hughes will be live in the ABC studio with Nadia Mitsopoulos talking about Anti-poverty week, the rising rate of poverty in WA, and all the events we have had going on.

Media Release
2025-10-13 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Sydney)
The Smith Family / WorkVentures media release

Media Release
2025-10-13 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Sydney)
INCREASING NECESSITY OF DIGITAL DEVICES AND AI SKILLS THREATENS TO EXPAND THE DIGITAL DIVIDE AND LEAVE MORE STUDENTS BEHIND

No Place for Poverty Business News
2025-10-13 08:00 - 17:00 (Australia/Sydney)
No Place for Poverty will features not once but twice in the exclusive WA Business News. This is a subscriber based audience featuring large (to very large) WA businesses. One of the articles will be a Heart and Minds piece (charity focused) while the other will be an editorial.

Together in this: Connecting communities with support
2025-10-13 - 2025-10-19 | Lakeside Joondalup, Boas Avenue, Joondalup, Default, 6027, Australia
The Joondalup Wanneroo Ending Homelessness Group, a coalition of over 25 local community organisations, service providers and government departments, invite you to join them during Anti-Poverty Week for a time of connection, awareness, and action.
Eye Contact Photography by Phil England
Real stories, real faces – highlighting the lived experiences behind homelessness and housing insecurity.
Portrait photography series ‘Eye Contact’, supported by Heirisson Rotary Club
Hardship support
Learn about supports available for people in hardship and how you can make a difference.
Whether you’re looking for support, wanting to make a difference, or want to understand homelessness – this week is for you! Available on the day:
Vinnies WA homelessness support packs.
No Limits Perth emergency relief food supplies.
Website and flyers with service information.
Please see below schedule for Joondalup Wanneroo Ending Homelessness Group agencies represented, note information on all partnership agencies will be available across the week.
Let’s stand together to end poverty and homelessness. Because change begins in community.

Poverty in Australia 2025
2025-10-13
Poverty In Australia 2025: Overview by the ACOSS and UNSW Sydney-led Poverty and Inequality Partnership draws on the latest available data from the HILDA survey.

Stronger Together Podcast – Anti-Poverty Week Special
2025-10-13 | Online (see website for details)
Hosted by: Tanya O’Shea, Managing Director of IMPACT Community Services
Guest: Jess Watkinson, Foodbank Queensland
In this episode of Stronger Together, Tanya O’Shea sits down with Jess Watkinson from Foodbank Queensland to explore the realities of poverty in Australia and the critical role of food relief in supporting vulnerable communities. Released in alignment with Anti-Poverty Week, the conversation sheds light on:
– The scale and impact of food insecurity across Queensland and nationally.
– How Foodbank’s partnerships with schools, charities, and community organisations help bridge the gap.
– The importance of community-led solutions and advocacy in addressing systemic issues.
– Ways the public can get involved, from volunteering to supporting policy change.
This episode is part of IMPACT’s broader commitment to raising awareness during Anti-Poverty Week, including a community event at Buss Park on 15 October, where poverty statistics and experiences will be shared to inspire action.
The podcast continues its mission to amplify voices of resilience and promote wellbeing through empathy, storytelling, and collective action.
The podcast episode will be available from Monday, 13 October 2025.

End Child Poverty campaign CHAT for Change
2025-10-12 - 2025-10-18
Did you know that more than 1 in 6 children in Australia (17%) are living in poverty today?
It’s a heartbreaking reality, and the End Child Poverty campaign, launched by the Valuing Children Initiative in 2024, is calling for real change.
We invite you to get involved with the campaign by keeping up with social media content,
(Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram: @valuingchildreninitiave), share our content and pledge your support as an organisation.
During Anti-Poverty Week, you can watch our End Child Poverty video and have a discussion with your network about child poverty and what you can do to make a difference.
Join us now: endchildpoverty.com.au
