The Material-Opportunity-Relational (MOR )Framework, developed by the Children’s Policy Centre and based on extensive research with children, provides a means of understanding, assessing and responding to child poverty. It is a powerful example of a child-centred framework for developing policy and evaluating its impacts.

On 7 September 2022, the Australian Senate referred an inquiry into the extent and nature of poverty in Australia to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee. The Committee subsequently called for submissions and heard evidence from stakeholders across Australia.

The submission of the Children’s Policy Centre can be found here and the transcript of evidence from Professor Sharon Bessell can be found here.

The final report of the Inquiry was released in February 2024. Chapter four of the report focuses on child poverty and is structured around the MOR Framework and the More for Children research. The report can be found here.

Both the main report of the Australia to the Senate Community Affairs References Committee and the additional report the Committee Chair, (former) Senator Janet Rice provide a series of recommendations, which range from essentially patching existing systems, to systems and policy reform, to transformative shifts.

Taking Action to Reduce Child Poverty: Patching, Reforming or Transforming? by Sharon Bessell in the December 2025 issue of Social Alternatives analyses the Inquiry process and the recommendations of the Committee. It argues that while patching and reforming may improve children’s lives in the short-term, transformation of systems is needed to end child poverty and ensure all children can thrive.