Mrs PRENTICE (Ryan) (21:38): We all know that extreme, absolute poverty is occurring around the world. At least 900 million people do not have access to safe water and 2.6 billion do not have adequate sanitation facilities. It is a life that is difficult for an Australian to imagine. With the constant media attention on the many disasters around the world we can often be overwhelmed by the extent of need in our society. Charity is needed both at home and abroad and it is often difficult to know where to start. That is why I am speaking today to support the Micah Challenge and their 2011 Voices for Justice campaign. This year, as part of their aim to encourage world leaders to meet their commitments to the Millennium Development Goals, the Micah Challenge is focusing on safe water and sanitation. This campaign is particularly important, for whilst we have seen vast improvements in relation to some of the eight Millennium Development Goals, insufficient progress has been made on health goals. These include goal 4 focusing on child mortality and goal 5 focusing on maternal mortality. I am pleased that the Micah Challenge is drawing attention to these issues as, unlike natural disasters or war, these tragedies often do not make the headlines. It is difficult to imagine Australian children dying from diarrhoea as a result of not having access to clean water and it is now very rare in Australia for a mother to die during childbirth, yet around the world 8.1 million children die from basic illnesses brought on by a lack of sanitation, and 1,000 women die every day from complications during pregnancy or childbirth. The common theme in these causes of death is, in most cases, a lack of access to health care. Even in Port Moresby, our nearest neighbour, five mothers die in childbirth every day. And I would like to take this opportunity to commend the ongoing work by Dame Carol Kidu in this area. I also believe there is a great opportunity for corporations and governments to work together to achieve better outcomes, and I look at the excellent work being done by Oil Search in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea, where they are working with and supporting local communities to deliver better health services for their people. The Micah Challenge has recently released a report that states that access to water, basic sanitation and hygiene—included in Millennium Development Goal 7 regarding environmental sustainability—could hold the key to unlocking huge progress in development goals 4 and 5. The World Health Organisation has estimated that, by addressing this issue, 28 per cent of all children's deaths could be avoided—that we could save the lives of two million children a year. It could also save scores of mothers who die from infection and lack of nutrition. The benefits are astounding, and could clearly make a huge improvement to standards of living. Additionally, the World Health Organisation believes that these improvements can be made at relatively low cost. They are the most cost-effective public health interventions available. Indeed, for every one dollar invested in water, basic sanitation and hygiene, an estimated eight dollars is paid back into a nation's economy. Huge improvements to poverty have already occurred under the Millennium Development Goals. Since 1990, developing countries have seen the proportion of their people living in poverty fall from 46 per cent to 27 per cent. They have seen suffering from hunger decline from 30 per cent to 23 per cent. They have seen access to clean water increase from 72 per cent to 84 per cent, and they have seen the number living with infectious disease stabilise and in some cases begin to decrease. We should celebrate the achievements that have been made and the lives that have been saved. However, it is not enough. We all know that it is not enough. It is vitally important that we achieve the Millennium Development Goals, if for no other reason than that no-one deserves to be born into absolute poverty. No-one deserves to live their life or raise their children in such terrible and difficult circumstances—circumstances undeserved and beyond their control. The Micah Challenge is calling on the Australian government to increase efforts towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals in response to the 900 million people who do not have access to clean drinking water and the 2.6 billion who are without basic sanitation. It is also important that we recommit to our aid commitments as a nation. Both sides of this parliament have pledged to raise foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015, and I know that the coalition continue to be committed to that goal. I commend the Micah Challenge initiative in bringing these issues to the fore. A global commitment to water, basic sanitation and hygiene offers increased economic, social, and human development, improving the health and wellbeing of children, families, and communities around the world. The Micah Challenge says, 'Reducing needless preventable child and maternal deaths is both developmentally expedient and, perhaps even more importantly, a moral and human imperative.'