Guy Barnett (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a)

welcomes the presence in Parliament House of more than 300 participants in the Micah Challenge Voices for Justice event, representing churches, schools and community groups in more than 80 electorates and from every state and territory;

(b)

notes:

(i)

the vital progress being made towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which aim to halve world poverty by 2015, seen through the reduction in child deaths from 12.5 million annually in 1990 to 8.8 million in 2008,

(ii)

that while progress is being made, a number of the MDGs are still off track, particularly Goals 4 and 5, which relate to child and maternal health, and

(iii)

the growing public support in the Australian community for the MDGs, demonstrated by more than 111 000 people who have signed the Micah call in support of the MDGs as part of the Micah Challenge campaign and an additional 40 000 people who recently signed the ‘Act to End Poverty’ with the Make Poverty History campaign;

(c)

reaffirms:

(i)

the commitment to the MDGs as important benchmarks for the global community to fight poverty, and

(ii)

that all eight MDGs are achievable with the political will of the global community;

(d)

recognises the United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s call to world leaders to attend the MDGs Review Summit in New York in September 2010, and the importance of this global meeting to measure progress and develop a clear action plan to achieve these MDGs within the remaining 5 years; and

(e)

calls on the Government to make clear at the UN Summit, Australia’s ongoing commitment to the achievement of the MDGs by 2015.

Question agreed to.