A new report suggests a quarter of the country's children are living in poverty.
The first Child Poverty Monitor aims to measure the progress of poverty indicators annually to reduce hardship and raise awareness.
It found 265,000, or 25 per cent of children are in poverty, meaning their families live off less than 60 per cent of the median household income of $1400 a week.
Of the children in poverty, 17 per cent are missing out on basic necessities like a good bed, doctors visits, heating, meat and fresh fruit and vegetables.
The report says 10 per cent of children are in severe poverty, which means they are going without the things they need and their low family income means they don't have any opportunity of changing this.
