Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

8 September is United Nations International Literacy Day,

(ii)

literacy is integral to individual empowerment, civic and social development and global peace and harmony, and

(iii)

in the international literacy decade, much work is still needed to realise the goal of increasing global literacy rates by 50 per cent by 2015;

(b)

recognises that:

(i)

one in five adults worldwide are not literate and two-thirds of these are women,

(ii)

75 million children are not enrolled in school, and

(iii)

in Australia, there is an enormous gap in the English literacy rates of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people; and

(c)

calls on the Government to continue to work with the United Nations in pursuit of its goal to increase literacy across the globe and in Indigenous communities throughout Australia.

Question agreed to.