Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today I want to thank generation Y, who are out there leading the charge to make poverty history. It is generation Y who are the first generation with the resources, technological capabilities and globally agreed framework to end extreme poverty, and it is generation Y who are actually taking up the charge and leading the challenge to make poverty history.

All of us this week around parliament have been attending various events for the Make Poverty History week. Most of the people are younger people—people who are out there trying to make a difference. We often say that young people are non-passionate, non-concerned and non-involved, that they do not care and that they are too busy getting on with their lives and their consumer habits. I have been blown away by the commitment of this generation, this group of young people, who are out there taking up the challenge, who are not prepared to say that it is too hard and who are prepared to say: ‘Yes, we can make a difference. We can make a difference in our lifetime and we will.’

On Saturday I had the privilege of seeing about 100 young people take up the challenge. They were taking the challenge to knock out poverty. They took the step of going out and knocking on 10,000 doors around the suburb of Blackburn in the seat of Deakin. The member for Deakin, Phillip Barresi, Lyn Allison from the Democrats, a representative from Family First and I were all there. It was support from all sides of politics, with the will to see an end to poverty and to support these kids who were going out to knock on doors.

I was pretty impressed. I do not like doorknocking at the best of times, but these kids were taking it up with gusto. They were absolutely prepared to go and do it in droves, and a good 100 to 150 of them turned out on Saturday to do it. Their aim was to spread the word about the issue of poverty. They were going out to speak to residents about foreign trade, debt and aid, to better equip them to support the campaign against global poverty.

They were going to talk to residents, not to push them into too much but to make them aware of the issue, to get them to sign up and to put the pressure back on us as politicians. We can all sign up to the eight Millennium Development Goals; we can all say that we want to see an end to extreme poverty, that we want to see global education and that we want to see AIDS and other diseases eradicated. But we all need to actually do it with dollars. These young kids are out there in droves, with lots of P-plate cars and with lots of them even having to be driven around by parents, because it was school-age kids going out there to knock on doors, to create awareness and to get people involved in this grassroots campaign.

I want to particularly thank Hugh Evans, the 2004 Young Australian of the Year, who is behind the Oaktree Foundation, which is leading this charge. I also want to thank World Vision, which was there supporting this and rallying it. There was a call from Axle Whitehead, the host of the popular music show Video Hits, who launched Knock Out Poverty—an invitation to Make Poverty History—and invited others to join the battle. Others did join the battle and I hope we will see an end to poverty. (Time expired)