Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton constantly talk about governing ‘for all Australians’, trotting out slogans like ‘no-one left behind’.

The truth is, hundreds of thousands of Australians are falling further behind every day and neither leader seems to care.

Growing inequality is having a huge impact on children and older people.

The Australian Council of Social Service notes that one in eight (13.4%) live in poverty. This includes 761,000 children. We know that being in poverty as a child has lifelong impacts, even if the child is later lifted out of poverty.

It doesn’t have to be like this. Australia is a rich country.

Australia Institute research showed that the COVID supplement, a $550 per fortnight payment to welfare recipients, lifted 650,000 people out of poverty, including 120,000 children.

This shows that poverty is a policy choice. If governments choose to, they could end child poverty and ensure that all older people have a dignified retirement.

Rather than tackle inequality, tax concessions and other tax loopholes are making it worse. Tax concessions worth tens of billions of dollars per year go overwhelmingly to the rich, while those who need government support the most are told that increases to welfare payments are unaffordable.

“What does it say about the quality of our political debate that during a cost-of-living crisis neither party wants to talk about Australia’s poorest and neither party has any plan to tackle inequality?” said Matt Grudnoff, Senior Economist at The Australia Institute.

“While many Australians are doing it tough, spare a thought for those who do it tough even when prices of everyday essentials aren’t rapidly increasing.

“Australia can act on poverty, but it is not a priority for our political leaders.

“When it comes to defence spending, there is always money available, but whenever the topic of increasing Jobseeker comes up, we are told it is unaffordable.

“We are going to give away $14 billion in investor tax concessions to make housing more expensive. But lifting the rate of Jobseeker so that our most vulnerable are not living in poverty would cost just $6 billion.”