Children are going hungry as cost of living crisis hits hard | 7.30

[Music] foreign packing school lunches is a source of stress I'm having three boys I ate a lot I'd say it's like a day-to-day problem they have come home and said that they're still hungry and if I could put more in their lunch box but I just don't have anything else to put in there Misha relies on part-time work government benefits and Charities to make ends meet it's kind of stressful for mum to like you know I'm trying to provide for us and yeah we haven't really been able to get money to go for food so that's why we go to the food bank sometimes we have to have cereal for dinner like toast or yeah just really basic stuff like that like sometimes I won't even eat so then my boys have food and that's not like a one-off thing it happens quite a bit a 2022 survey by food relief charity Food Bank found 1.3 million Australian children experienced severe food insecurity in the previous 12 months families with children were more likely to go hungry and single parent households struggled the most we see children arriving at the research hungry we can tell the way children Devour the food that they are really hungry Professor Sharon Bessel is conducting a long-term study into families experiences of poverty she says hunger is likely under-reported and that it's common for children to hide it they know that their mum's hungry too and so here we have children as young as seven eight nine not telling anyone that they're hungry because they don't want to see their mum skipping meals for them in this Warehouse on Sydney's outskirts fruit bread cereal and long life milk are ready to be sent to schools across New South Wales and the ACT make sure we've got it and we'll make sure we get those orders out thanks very much the not-for-profit food bank says it can't keep up with the demand for its School breakfast program we're sitting at about 1.5 million serves of breakfast over the last 12 months to schools and that's going up all the time it's gone up 50 on last year and it just keeps increasing we're facing the same pressures of the rest of the communities at the moment so supply chain cost pressures prices are going up all the time just being able to get stock is important for us as well it's becoming more and more difficult as the months go by [Music] [Applause] this Primary School in South Australia sees how hunger interferes with learning so when children are hungry they can be irritable tired lethargic and unable to concentrate they can be distracted thinking about when will they get to eat they can feel sick you know if you're really hungry you actually get a stomach ache the school provides a breakfast program sandwiches at lunch and sometimes sends food home we know that sometimes children don't come to school or families of children don't come to school because there isn't food so we work really hard to make sure that's not a reason not to come to school but sometimes parents are feeling embarrassed or don't want to ask for help South Australia's children's commissioner Helen Connolly wants schools across the country to provide free lunches maybe it's time it's tough hate to actually give children their main meal of the day at school for all children [Music] I think it's disgraceful that it's come to this we're one of the richest countries in the world in the New South Wales Southern Highlands single mum Tiffany says it was hard to afford food even before the cost of living crisis I have an entry meal of the day for a long time I can't remember when the last time I was like that I ate three meals a day you know I had something small for dinner or something like that and [Music] that's about it she says her jobseeker payment and family tax benefits are not enough to provide for her three children living at home I have a lot of money and everything's so expensive some people they just don't see it and it just goes straight over their head and they're like oh it's not that big of a deal do you think your kids ever go hungry oh all the time yeah all the time how does that make you feel terrible absolutely gutted it is an absolutely horrible feeling I wouldn't wish it upon anybody [Music] today the government is announcing the doubling of the job Seeker allowance formerly known as new start for a period during the pandemic things did become easier with a boost of 550 a fortnight you were able to afford things and live with some sort of respect you know feel a bit more respectable and then of course they take it away and you're back to square one the coalition government later cut back the payment a policy decision was taken to plunge people including many many thousands of children back into poverty the unemployment benefit Rises with inflation but in real terms it's just fifty dollars a fortnight higher than it was before the pandemic the labor government has not committed to a permanent increase despite having called for one while in opposition it should be increased okay that's that's the fact it's not enough to live on in a statement Social Services Minister Amanda rishworth told 730 the government provides 1.4 million dollars to food relief Charities and a further 50 million dollars in emergency Financial relief the government needs to act around the the level of benefits but we as a community need to give license to the government to do that we need to collectively say we do not want this Injustice to continue [Music] they refer to it as the cost of living it's not the cost of living it is the cost of survival because that's all you're doing it's not living there is no living here [Music]

Channel: ABC News (Australia)

Views: 132,736

Keywords: Australia, abc, abc news, news, hunger, food, children, hungry, kids, families, parent, single parent, poverty, welfare, school, cost of living, pandemic, meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner

Id: W58k0mInRpg

Length: 7min 55sec (475 seconds)

Published: Tue Mar 14 2023