Customer Reviews

The Lowest Rung: Voices of Australian Poverty

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I am so glad I picked this book to read. From the outset I knew I was reading something that was not going to portray real "battlers" as victims, but as people. The "Voices" are from a broad range including social workers, residents, government ministers, clerics and others. Mark Peel has clearly worked hard to show things as they really are by picking through the stories he is told to arrive at a truth. Because he has done this with humility and compassion, the truths that he arrives at are indisputable.

This book has shown me things that I was ignorant of and things that I already knew and provides it in a context that is both humanitarian and factual. It is a must-read for anyone who continues to claim that "they" have a choice and that their choice must have been to live in poverty. Peel shows us that it is clearly not the case. He allows us to live vicariously through the injustices that the subjects have faced and continue to face, giving us insight into the very real challenges that the terrorism of poverty poses - in our own backyards.

"The Lowest Rung" was published in 2003 but is based on research conducted during the mid 1990s. If anything, the situations faced by the people in this book are worse now than they were then. It should serve as a warning to everyone that poverty can often be only a step away and that it is vital to protect every man woman and child from this cruelty, lest we face it ourselves.