Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

to move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

Sunday 20 February to Sunday 27 February 2011 is Donate Life Week, Australia's national awareness week to promote organ and tissue donation; and

(b)

organ donation is giving the gift of life, yet is a gift that most people do not know how to give;

(2)

acknowledges that:

(a)

one third of Australians do not know that family consent is needed for organs to be donated when someone dies;

(b)

there are more than 1000 people on organ donation waiting lists and were only 279 donations in 2009-10, despite the year being our highest annual donation rate in a decade; and

(c)

on average, every deceased organ donor in Australia may contribute to between three and ten transplants;

(3)

encourages all Australian men and women to:

(a)

set some time aside during the week to talk about organ and tissue donations with people closest to them; and

(b)

consider organ donations and sign up for the Australian Organ Donor Register; and

(4)   pays tribute to organ donors who have kindly given the gift of life.

to move:

That this House:

(1)

notes that:

(a)

for more than 2000 years religious groups such as Assyrians, Mandaeans, Chaldeans, Syriacs and other Aramaic speakers have called Iraq home;

(b)

in 2003, Australia was part of the ‘coalition of the willing’ that invaded Iraq in the belief that Iraq harboured weapons of mass destruction;

(c)

since 2003 there have been horrendous acts of persecution against these religious minorities in Iraq, including murders, bombings and extortion; and

(d)

the Catholic Church reports that one million Christians have fled Iraq since the 2003 invasion; and

(2)

recognises that:

(a)

thousands of people are sheltering in Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the northern regions of Iraq because they feel they cannot return to their homes for fear of death and persecution;

(b)

due to our part in the ‘coalition of the willing’, Australia has a moral responsibility to deal compassionately with these displaced people; and

(c)

it will be a damning critique on humanity and the Coalition forces, who have vowed to protect the people of Iraq, if religious groups with such a significant historical link to the region are forced out at the hands of terrorists.

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