Peter Garrett (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Reconciliation and the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

Last year this parliament was visited by many individuals and groups who urged the government and MPs in this House to take up the great campaign that has transformed the world’s approach to alleviating poverty, the Make Poverty History campaign. The government and MPs were urged to ensure that the Millennium Development Goals were incorporated into the aid and development framework of Australia. These goals were agreed by the United Nations at the close of 2005. Amongst those groups was the Oaktree Foundation, a group of young people committed to helping break the poverty cycle by focusing on sustainable education. They visited here during their ‘road trip’.

The government has been too slow in recognising the importance of the Millennium Development Goals in building an integrated approach to development assistance in our region and too quiet in speaking out on the issue of poverty in our region. These young Australians who visited the parliament last year expect some action this year and will be watching closely to see positive steps taken by the Australian government.

I do know that a white paper is imminent and that the issue of Millennium Development Goals will be considered. But today AidWatch, an NGO dedicated to aid transparency, released a major report called Post Tsunami Aid in Aceh. Regrettably, it finds that AusAID and the Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development are the least transparent donor agencies. (Time expired)

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