Teddies Take Over Australia Parliament House
July 29, 2025
Every Federal member of Parliament was handed an End Child Poverty teddy, representing the impact poverty has on children.
End Child Poverty partners Toni Wren and Jamie Crosby, caught up with House members Andrew Charlton, Sarah Witty, David Moncrieff, Mark Dreyfus, Monique Ryan, and Matt Gregg and Senators Larissa Waters, Deb O’Neill and David Pocock. Our teddy also bumped into Kate Colvin from Homelessness Australia and refugee advocate Kon Karapanagiotidis OAM. We also spotted Jordon Steele-John had posted a pic with his teddy.
Teddies symbolise those that are lost when children must leave home due to violence, poverty, high rents, and homelessness.
“When I moved, I didn’t even get to bring my baby teddy bear, this made me sad and nervous.”
– Mary, 7 years old
Living in poverty for children isn’t just about missing out on meals or a safe place to sleep.
Children who live in poverty are sometimes forced to move frequently.
This can be sudden and means they can’t return home to collect their teddies.
Just like friends, children develop deep bonds with their teddies, so when they have to leave them behind, it can be like losing a best friend.
For children, a teddies represents security, companionship, comfort, belonging, safety and most importantly friendship.
Losing a friend at such a young age, can have a lifelong impacts.
Across Australia, 165 service organisations, Councils of Social Service, peak bodies, Children’ Commissioners, academics, researchers and community groups alarmed by the rising number of children living in poverty have banded together under The End Child Poverty campaign.
We have invited every MP to meet with our partners to learn more about how they can end child poverty in Australia and look forward to those meetings.
