Senator Allison to move on Monday, 11 September 2006:

That the Senate—

(a)

acknowledges the comments by President Karzai, on 8 March 2006, that ‘From fear of terrorism, from threats of the enemies of Afghanistan, today as we speak, some 100,000 Afghan children who went to school last year, and the year before last, do not go to school’;

(b)

notes the report by Human Rights Watch, Lessons in Terror: Attacks on Education in Afghanistan, which reports that:

(i)

attacks against schools, teachers and students in Afghanistan have risen markedly in late 2005 and the first half of 2006, with more attacks having been reported in the first half of 2006 than in all of 2005, including at least 17 assassinations of teachers and education officials, and more than 204 attacks on teachers, students and schools which have led to hundreds of schools being shut down or destroyed,

(ii)

the majority of primary-school-age girls in Afghanistan remain out of school and, at the secondary level, gross enrolment rates were only 5 per cent for girls in 2004, compared with 20 per cent for boys, and

(iii)

attacks on education have a disproportionate effect on the education of girls as some attacks are motivated by ideological opposition to girls’ education specifically, and parents often have a lower threshold for pulling their daughters out of school than boys, given greater social restrictions on girls’ movements and legitimate concerns about sexual harassment and violence; and

(c)

calls on the Federal Government to use access to education as a key benchmark to measure the success of Afghan and international efforts to bring security to Afghanistan, and in particular gender equality in access to education.

Senator Bartlett to move on Wednesday, 6 September 2006:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes that:

(i)

the week beginning 3 September 2006 is Child Protection Week,

(ii)

there have been repeated, fundamental major failures by state and territory government child welfare agencies to protect children from serious abuse and neglect, and

(iii)

it is time this issue was made a national priority and given a national focus;

(b)

urges the Federal Government to prioritise the encouragement of states and territories to develop uniform laws and strategies on child protection; and

(c)

expresses support for child protection to be made a national priority and for a royal commission to be held into ways to significantly reduce child abuse and neglect in Australia.

Senator Bob Brown to move on Wednesday, 6 September 2006:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes, with alarm, the 5 year prison sentence delivered by Chinese authorities to journalist Ching Cheong, the Hong Kong-based correspondent for Singapore’s Strait Times newspaper;

(b)

condemns the crackdown on dissent and free journalism in China ahead of the Beijing Olympics in 2008; and

(c)

calls on the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Mr Downer) to raise the matter with Chinese authorities immediately.

Senator Bob Brown to move on Wednesday, 6 September 2006:

That the Senate—

(a)

recognises that the logging of ancient rainforests in Papua New Guinea (PNG) is driving biodiversity loss and human rights abuses in that country at an alarming rate;

(b)

notes that:

(i)

PNG and Australian conservation and community groups have filed a formal complaint with the Australian National Contact Point for the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises against the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group Limited (ANZ), and

(ii)

the complaint alleges that the ANZ is actively facilitating and supporting the PNG operations of Malaysian logging giant Rimbunan Hijau, a company whose operations involve serious human rights abuses, environmentally-destructive logging practices and repeated serious conduct;

(c)

supports the actions of the conservation and community groups in bringing this potential breach of the guidelines to the Government’s attention; and

(d)

calls on the Government to take immediate action to investigate the allegations with a view to ending the forest destruction and human rights abuses occurring in PNG.

Senator Bob Brown to move on the next day of sitting:

That the Senate deplores the manufacture, sale and use of cluster bombs like those now deployed in Lebanon.

Senator Milne to move on the next day of sitting:

That the Senate—

(a)

notes with alarm that:

(i)

the 0.6°C of global warming that has already occurred is impacting Australia with worsening droughts and changing seasons,

(ii)

the European Union (EU) has stated that once global temperature increase exceeds 2°C, adverse impacts on ecosystems, food production and water supply are projected to increase significantly, and an unexpected response of the climate becomes more likely, with irreversible catastrophic events like the melting of the Greenland ice sheet increasingly possible, and

(iii)

in 1996 the EU set a goal of limiting the global temperature rise to 2°C compared to pre-industrial levels; and

(b)

calls on the Government to identify what degree of warming it regards as constituting dangerous climate change and the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions necessary to avoid this.

Senator Watson to move on the next day of sitting:

That the Senate—

(a)

deplores that green groups continue to harass customers of Gunns Limited in Japan, and their customers, over Tasmanian forestry issues;

(b)

condemns the misrepresentation of Gunns Limited by the Rainforest Action Network, who in a recent letter to a Japanese customer of Gunns Limited claimed that: ‘Gunns’... logging practices are listed amongst the worst in the developed world according to the World Conservation Union’, whereas this in fact refers to a paper sent to the World Conservation Union (IUCN) by green groups, for which they falsely claim the IUCN’s imprimatur; and

(c)

notes the vital role in the Tasmanian economy played by the forestry industry, and the need to support this industry and the building of a pulp mill in Tasmania.