Stats and Stones: Vinnies’ report from the trenches on the poverty wars in Australia.On 30 May, Vinnies released an Issues Paper entitled The Reality of Income Inequality. It received fairly wide publicity in both the print and electronic media.
The Australian published an opinion piece critical of our Paper by Peter Saunders of the Centre for Independent Studies (10 June) to which The Australian gave us the right of reply (15 June). Then followed two critical articles by columnist, Christopher Pearson (18, 25 June).
The criticisms levelled at the Paper can be summed up as follows:
1. Income inequality has not grown significantly.
2. Our concern with inequality is out of step with Catholic social teaching.
3. We have exaggerated the number of people living in households with an income of less than $400 a week.
4. Australia is generous in its provisions for low income Australians compared to other similarcountries.
The Australian declined our request to publish our replies to the last two articles that were critical of our position. I have included these unpublished letters at the end of this article. Other unpublished letters of support for the St Vincent de Paul Society are also made available on our website (www.vinnies.org.au)…
Tags: Advocacy
