This past week, Australian’s Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, along with Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull, lifted up the role that citizens, people of faith, and governments have in the fight against global poverty at the launch of the new Poverty and Justice Bible, at the Parliament House in Canberra.

Joined by Tim Costello of World Vision Australia as well as representatives of Micah Challenge, Prime Minister Rudd highlighted Australians collective commitment to increased international development assistance, and the role faith groups have in advocating for more and better aid:

Of course, for those of us engaged in national political life, our work on policy is incomplete unless we are working arm-in-arm with the great organisations of the Church and charitable sector.

All of you in this room know full well that there is a limit to what Government can do. All of you know full well that, when it comes to dealing with poverty, at home and abroad, this is often done best when you have a creative and effective partnership between the resources of Government and the compassion of Church and charitable organisations.

…In Australia, what we have sought to do in recent times is to put our shoulder to the wheel by lifting Australia’s contribution to ODA around the developing world…

Problems abroad however, cannot be ignored. Remember, it was [John] Wesley who said ‘the world is my parish’. And so it is for us as well.

Therefore, by lifting what we seek to do around the world, and by also putting our shoulder to the wheels of other countries in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, our objective is to make a real and quantifiable difference.

Video of the speech can be found here.

-Adam Phillips