Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is with great pleasure that I rise to tell the House about a recent visit I had from the Hewett Community Church of Christ. Hewett is a growing suburb in my electorate. Occasionally the Community Church of Christ come to see me and in this case it was Reverend Scott Combridge, Beth Connor and Cindy Vennix who came to see me about the Millennium Development Goals, and they had a gift for me. I know how you feel about props, Mr Speaker, but I will ask the member for Chifley to help me hold up this handpainted banner. It has the hand prints of 50 local children and says, ‘We remember the poor.’ It is designed to encourage all of us to remember the poor, particularly the poor all around the world.

It has been 10 years since Australia and 188 other nations adopted the Millennium Declaration and committed to the Millennium Development Goals. These are important goals because they set a series of measurable targets: to reduce extreme poverty; to reduce hunger and disease; and to promote gender equality, education and environmental sustainability. It was all these things that the Hewett Community Church of Christ wanted us to remember.

It is important to remember that since 2000, hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of poverty, 40 million more children are now going to school and three million more children survive beyond their fifth birthday, and important progress has been made in the prevention and treatment of HIV-AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. We know that the health priorities of these goals include reducing child mortality; improving maternal health; combating HIV-AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria; and addressing the rapid rise of non-communicable diseases, particularly in the Pacific.

Australia has had a proud history of providing overseas aid. But since 2005 we have doubled the size of our overseas aid program. On current projections, the program will double again to more than eight billion by 2015. Importantly, this progress has been made with bipartisan consensus and has survived the global financial downturn—a time when one would have expected some pressure on our overseas aid program. It is important for the House to agree on this program because it is in our interests to help the world’s poor and there is a great deal of support in our electorates for it.

Increased aid is not just limited to government; Australian citizens are also generous donors. Last year, they donated around $800 million to development and non-government organisations. That $800 million came from 1.7 million Australians and between 2001-08 private donations increased by an average of 10 per cent per year in real terms. That is a very important thing. Private donations not only improve the lives of people overseas but also improve our lives because we feel good when we help other human beings.

One of my young staff members, Mr Andrew Anson, is involved in the Oaktree Foundation, a non-government organisation which unites young people to work together to end global poverty. It has over 350 volunteers, all under the age of 26. In May 2010, they organised a Make Poverty History road trip, which had 1,000 young people from across Australia campaigning for a week through marginal electorates on their way to Canberra before participating in the Make Poverty History summit, which was held on the lawns of Parliament House. Two South Australians, Adam Pulford and Nina O’Connor, worked tirelessly to put the campaign together from the South Australian end. It helped unite younger generations in the battle to eradicate global poverty.

We know there are many other people interested in and committed to this issue. We hope to see the Millennium Development Goals implemented in full and an end to poverty around the world.