Australia's state and territory councils of social service are calling on the federal government to set a target to reduce the number of Australians living in poverty and to develop a national plan to tackle the issue.
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According to the Australian Council of Social Service, more than 2.5 million Australians, including 600,000 children, live in poverty. At the start of national anti-poverty week, the councils say a strategy to address inequality must be part of the Turnbull government's economic agenda.
The eight councils are calling for the anti-poverty plan to include a clear target to reduce the number of people who live below the poverty line, although they have not yet nominated a target themselves.
Australian Council of Social Service chief executive Cassandra Goldie said the councils wanted to work with the government and business to "build a consensus" about what measures should be used.
But the councils, which include the Victorian Council of Social Service and the Council of Social Service of NSW, say the national plan should also involve "concrete" changes such as increasing unemployment benefits by at least $50 a week, boosting family payments to sole parent families and increasing assistance to the long-term unemployed.
Dr Goldie cautioned that as the Turnbull government hunted for savings, it should not look at areas of the budget that were already "failing to deliver on their purpose".
Setting the poverty line at $400 a week for a single adult, a 2014 ACOSS report found that 2.55 million Australians were living in poverty. Earlier this year, the Committee for Economic Development of Australia found that between 1 million and 1.5 million Australians lived in poverty based on whether people had access to necessary goods and services and social exclusion measures.
The councils of social service call comes as Anglicare Australia releases a report in which it argues some Australians are being left "further and further behind".
It says there is an "enormous and widening gap" between Australians on generally good incomes and those who live on benefits.
"Lower living standards are linked to poverty and this in turn links to ill health, unemployment, under-employment and lack of social connection," Anglicare Australia deputy director Roland Manderson writes.
Recent National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling research done for Anglicare Australia shows that the gap between Australia's richest and poorest grew by 13 per cent over the past decade and is projected to jump by a further 10 per cent over the next 10 years.
