House debates

Wednesday, 20 March 2013

Statements by Members

Oaktree Foundation: Roadtrip to End Poverty

1:46 pm

Photo of John MurphyJohn Murphy (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week I met with Claire Angel-Auld, a wonderful ambassador for the Oaktree Foundation Roadtrip to End Poverty, and a number of other wonderful ambassadors. This is their message to this House:

We are one thousand motivated Australians, who each have a story, and who are passionate about ending global poverty in our lifetime.

We are not lawyers, or corporate executives. We don't own mines or the media. We are school students, university students, workers, and social media users. But we have a voice. And we will use our voices to empower our global brothers and sisters who, of no fault of their own, are born in other nations, of extreme poverty.

Our arbitrary birth into a nation of wealth and resources means that our good fortune, future and chances are decided pre-emptively. We must use this fortune, and the knowledge of circumstance to spread our fair share.

We are global citizens, we are humanists, we are realists. Extreme poverty can and will be eradicated in the next 20 years under a 0.7% foreign aid contribution of our GNI. Seventy cents per one hundred dollars ends 99% of the 500,000 maternal deaths each year in developing countries. Seventy cents per one hundred dollars provides 137 million women with access to family planning. Seventy cents per one hundred dollars facilitates aid effective programs to save millions of lives from preventable diseases. Seventy cents per one hundred dollars sends millions of children to school instead of the fields.

0.7% brings 1.4 billion people out of extreme poverty.

Well, may the Oaktree Foundation, Claire Angel-Auld and— (Time expired)

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