Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Members will be aware that this week Micah Challenge, a global alliance of churches and Christian groups, are holding a Voices for Justice event in Canberra as part of the campaign in support of the Millennium Development Goals. Micah Challenge is working closely in this objective with the Make Poverty History coalition of more than 60 aid agencies, community groups and religious organisations within Australia, which is calling upon the Australian government to take the following steps needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals: increase Australia’s aid and ensure it is used effectively, make trade fair, drop the debts of poor countries, help poor countries keep their governments accountable, and tackle climate change in developing countries. In the Millennium Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2000, leaders from all over the world, including Australia, resolved that:

We will spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty, to which more than a billion of them are currently subjected.

I am aware that there is a private member’s motion about poverty to be debated shortly. I congratulate the member for Parramatta for moving the motion and all those members speaking in support of it. I hope that, with bipartisan support, this parliament and this government can help ensure an end to poverty in our lifetimes.

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