Kate Ellis (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Early Childhood Education, Childcare and Youth) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to present a bill for an act to amend the Higher Education Support Act 2003, and for related purposes.

to present a bill for an act to amend legislation relating to higher education, and for related purposes.

Laurie Ferguson (Reid, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Multicultural Affairs and Settlement Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to present a bill for an act to amend the Migration Act 1958, and for related purposes.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to present a bill for an act to amend the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 in connection with emerging technologies.

Wilson Tuckey (O'Connor, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to present a bill for an act to amend the Renewable Energy (Electricity) Act 2000 and for related purposes.

Julie Owens (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to move:

That the House welcomes the news of recent progress toward the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), in particular:

(1)   recognises there has been a substantial decline in the proportion of people living on less than US$1 dollar a day and a substantial increase in the proportion of people with access to clean water;

(2)   acknowledges that despite some progress, a number of MDGs are off-track and that a business-as-usual approach will mean the MDGs will not be met globally by 2015;

(3)   notes its concern that in a world of plenty there are still unacceptably high child and maternal mortality rates in the developing world;

(4)   recognises that progress toward the MDGs is being hampered by the global financial crisis, the global food crisis and the global effects of climate change;

(5)   welcomes Australia’s progress on developing a global partnership for development while recognising that our progress falls short of the aspirations we expressed when joining with the nations of the world to set the MDGs; and

(6)   acknowledges Australia needs to turn its aspirations into actions that draw us closer to achieving the MDGs by 2015.

Kerry Rea (Bonner, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to move:

That the House:

(1)

applauds the Government’s increase of total health funding in the foreign aid budget and an increase in spending to maternal, newborn and child health, which is much needed when in our region, including South Asia, 200,000 mothers and 3.2 million children are dying every year from preventable causes;

(2)

notes that:

(a)

Australia still requires an increase in total health funding in the foreign aid budget to meet its fair share by 2015 to reduce Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 4 and 5;

(b)

Millennium Development Goal 4 to reduce child mortality by two-thirds and MDG 5 to reduce maternal mortality by three-quarters have made the slowest progress of all MDGs and are off-track to being achieved by 2015;

(c)

Millennium Development Goal 5 has made virtually no progress globally and has reversed in most of sub-Saharan Africa in the last 20 years—it is the only MDG not making progress of any significance;

(d)

the health MDGs are achievable but require increased effort and greater cooperation from all developing and developed countries; and

(e)

evidence indicates that successful proven, cost effective strategies exist that can reduce child deaths by at least 60 per cent and maternal deaths by 75 per cent, which would save the lives of 240,000 children and 26,000 mothers in our immediate region each year;

(3)

acknowledges the importance of the Australian Government increasing its support for health systems in the Asia Pacific region and in Africa (though coordinated mechanisms including the International Health Partnership) to ensure that adequate, coordinated, long term and predictable donor resources are available to support effective basic and reproductive health plans and systems in each developing country in our region; and

(4)

recognises that:

(a)

greater focus must be placed on training health professionals and midwives to ensure significant reductions in newborn, child and maternal mortality;

(b)

system strengthening must also be ensured to provide incentives for staff to be retained in countries and areas of need; and

(c)

an increase in Australian support for maternal and child health related spending is required to support the provision of basic health services and health system strengthening and reflect Australia’s fair share of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries, which will demonstrate Australia’s leadership and commitment to ending the preventable deaths of children and mothers globally.