The great challenge in the mid 1980's is to find ways to insulate children from the lingering political and economic malaise which has overtaken many families in Australia.

Family poverty, as many of you will know, has overtaken the poverty of the aged with which Australian society and welfare organisations were so familiar until the 1970's.

Nevertheless it came as a shock to me to see in black and white from the Social Security Department the figures which showed that the number of children living in poor families had quadrupled between 1973 and 1983 to the point where nearly one in five children in Australia is being raised in poverty.