Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting with Haley Gould, Amanda Merrett, Dianne DeVos and Katie Ahmad, participants in the Micah Challenge, who travelled all the way from Melbourne's south-east to shine the light on tax avoidance and evasion. The Micah Challenge is a global movement of Christian groups, churches and agencies that work towards reducing poverty. The Micah Challenge has been involved with the Make Poverty History Campaign, working towards achieving the United Nations Millennium Development Goals. One of the campaigns that the Micah Challenge is focusing on this year is shining the light on global issues that are impeding development, and they want decision makers to act. Yesterday, the issue of tax dodging and corruption was highlighted as a significant global issue. The women I met with made a well-informed and an articulate presentation about how tax avoidance and evasion in developing countries are an obstacle to lifting people out of poverty. Micah Challenge believes this issue should be on the agenda at the G20, and I want to ask the Treasurer, on their behalf, to raise this important issue in that forum. If developing countries had access to these lost revenues, Christian Aid estimate they could save the lives of 350,000 children each year. I thank Katie, Haley, Dianne and Amanda for travelling to Canberra to meet with me and for shining the light on tax avoidance and evasion.