Terror, Poverty and Pragmatism: a perspective on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (Oct 17, 2002)

We need to remember that social justice must be linked to eco-justice. The cost to the global environment would be unbearable if we achieved social justice by proliferating our consumption habits.

The UN Human Development Report 2001 contains a salutary caution: "the benefits of global growth do not necessarily spread automatically to the poorest countries or to the poorest people and consequently….expansion of the international economy does not translate automatically into human development of the world's poor".

The only way to move substantially toward a world where there is less poverty (and more peace) is if nations like Australia are prepared to bear the cost - and that is a challenge to the lifestyle of all of us.

It also raises an issue pertinent to our own backyard. Australia's international contribution must not be at the expense of social justice domestically.

Notwithstanding the debate about poverty levels in Australia, all statistical measures point to the fact that the gap between the richest and poorest is widening and the middle-income group is shrinking. (In 2000 the Australian Bureau of Statistics reported that the bottom 20 percent of households receive 3.8 percent of the total gross income of households and the top 20 percent receive 48.5 percent).

Perhaps the petty terrorism of criminal activity within our suburbs, often perpetrated by those who feel socially marginalised, is a symptom of this breakdown in egalitarianism.

Whether our focus is Palestine, Indonesia or West End, as social philosopher Zygmunt Bauman has said: "the poor will always be with us, but what it means to be poor depends on the kind of "us" they are "with".