A statement has been issued by Australian Christian leaders across all denominations and ministries urging the nation to pray, especially this Sunday, for the poor.
The statement encouraged churches around the nation to 'reflect' on the importance of effective overseas aid which would be used as a tool to reduce poverty.
Furthermore, the leaders who signed this document wrote the aid was also necessary to meet Australia's commitments to the Millennium Development Goals, with its top priority to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.
Stating this issue of overseas aid should be tackled in a bi-partisan manner, the signatories urged both major parties to commit Australia to meeting its MDG.
The statement release was made in the name of the Triune God, it said, who "upholds the cause of the oppressed and gives food to the hungry… and sustains the fatherless and the widow."
The topic of foreign aid was recently brought to fore in the election campaign when Reverend Tim Costello, the Australian World Vision CEO, praised Federal Labor's election commitment to boost the aid budget to 0.5 percent of Australia's GDP by 2015, describing the Labor Party's foreign aid commitment as 'morally ahead' of the Federal Government since it would save thousands of lives.
The Coalition declined to match Labor's pledge, saying the aid budget was already generous, reported the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Hugh Evans, a campaigner for The Make Poverty History, a coalition consisting of both Christians and non-Christians alike to eliminate extreme poverty in the world, told a Fairfax publication the organisation would launch a 'full-scale' campaign to urge people to support Labor's position.