Yvette D'Ath (Petrie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to talk about the commitment I have made as a woman, mother, and elected representative to do what I can to help women and children around the globe pull themselves out of poverty. I am not traditionally a morning walker and, as we all know, the parliamentary sitting day can often be long enough without adding a 6 o'clock start on a cool morning to the mix, but in these last few days I have been making a trek to work for CARE Australia's Walk in Her Shoes campaign. It is worth my walking around Parliament House each morning if it makes even the smallest difference in the lives of women and girls around the world.

It is day 3 of CARE Australia's Walk in Her Shoes campaign, in which I must walk at least 10,000 steps each day, Monday to Sunday, this week. I have clocked up over 30,358 steps to date, and 8,882 of those happened today by 1.30 pm. As a working woman and mother in Australia, I understand how lucky we are to live in a country that values education for women, equal rights before the law, rights to marry as we choose and increasing pay equity. I also understand how lucky we are in this country to be free to live and learn and work as we please, most of us without the chains of poverty keeping us from fulfilling our potential. I want to acknowledge the great work of CARE Australia in assisting so many people across the world. Last year it assisted 122 million people with 1,015 poverty-fighting projects. I am very proud to be part of one of these campaigns.