Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. On Tuesday this week I, like many other members of this parliament, met with young people from the Micah Challenge. I found it so invigorating and refreshing to meet with young people who are not only looking at improving lives of people within their own city, region and country but they are looking outside Australia and have a much more global perspective on the need to address issues such as poverty, clean water, child and maternal health, and many of the other Millennium Development Goals. These are young people that spend their life and put all their energy towards improving the lives of people in developing countries.

Since 1990, around the world, two billion people have been lifted out of absolute poverty and the proportion living below absolute poverty has been halved. The percentage of children suffering from poor nutrition has dropped from 40 per cent to 27 per cent of all children, with an additional 110 million in school, and over 90 per cent of all children at primary level are now enrolled. In almost all countries, girls now have the same chance as boys to complete primary school education. Rates of childhood death have been cut by 37 per cent. Paternal death has been cut by 47 per cent. Rates of new infections and deaths from the very most deadliest infectious diseases—HIV, TB and malaria—are all dropping. Access for people to improved water sources has risen from 76 to 89 per cent and access to improved sanitation has risen from 49 to 63 per cent. These are the figures that the young people from Micah 10 gave me when they visited.

I have recently returned from Pakistan, where I learnt about how some of these issues are still prevalent. We learnt about areas where stunted growth from poor nutrition is still commonplace. There is a need for the Millennium Development Goals associated with child death and maternal death to be significantly improved. I visited PNG and the Solomon Islands a couple of years ago with the health and ageing committee, and particularly in PNG I learnt about the prevalence of TB and malaria, and the impact the multi-resistant TB was having on the lives of people living in that country. The visits to these countries and talking to people working on the ground brought home to me very graphically the reason that we as a country should continue to invest in aid. We have made a commitment of 0.5 and to work towards 0.7. Every time I meet with these young people and see their zeal for really helping other people, it gives me faith in the younger generation. It shows me that young people do care and young people are prepared to put other people in front of themselves. I do not think it is the exception; I think that generally speaking young people believe in promoting a positive future.

The unfinished business as far as Micah 10 is concerned is halving the proportion of people who do not have access to clean drinking water—and we all know how important clean drinking water is for health; reducing child mortality rate by two-thirds; reducing maternal mortality by three-quarters; and halving the proportion of people without access to an improved toilet. These are all very important goals. It is our global responsibility to support achieving these goals and to provide assistance to those developing countries. If young people like those in Micah 10 can make this sort of commitment, I think as a parliament we can do the same.