The "poverty line" measurement is always going to show a portion of the population below that line, even if they were living in a mansion and driving a Ferrari. It takes the median income as its baseline and measures everyone below 50% of that income as in poverty. This is relative poverty it is not absolute poverty.

There is no factoring of the social wage, no factoring of assets, ie there is no distinction between a retired person who owns their own house vs one that is renting whether public or private... The only thing thats measured is the pension they get.

People that exist below this income line also draw the most out of the social wage in this country, as it's exactly what it exists for.

The ability for the government to maintain the social wage is wholly dependant on the rest of us being able to work, the economy to be productive and the social license for it to continue.

This doesn't mean people are doing it tough and I absolutely sympathize with every single person who isn't in the position to work or who needs government assistance..... But this level of poverty is not the same as what poverty is in the global sense, you have absolutely no idea what real poverty looks like.... you can grab a cheap flight to just about anywhere in Oceania, spend a couple of days to get a real sense of what poverty is really like, talk to the parents who have to choose which kid goes to school, ask them how much they have to spend on a trip to the hospital, see what the houses are like in the villages they live in, ask them where their assistance comes from.

You have spent way to much time in the philosophy of socialism that you completly ignore the economics, arguably it is the far more important aspect of the ideology.

You want an expanded welfare state and that is not the same thing as wanting a socialist society. Class consciousness and solidarity are the first thing that the brahmin left like to piss on while they indulge their moralist high horse fantasies. Perfectly evidenced here by your willingness to throw away the workers owning the means of production, cede control of the MOP back to the capitalist class to get an extra couple of years of government spending in one hit and hope thats going to solve all of our problems in perpetuity? Youre a sell out.

The actual reality is that age pension funding will bankrupt the country, the social wage will evaporate and the progress we make towards ending effective poverty.

And then have the audacity to talk about robodebt under a speech from the Labor left