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Oxfam Australia today announced its alternative gift catalogue Unwrapped had raised over $4 million, breaking all previous Christmas sales records.

Campaigners concerned at the 17-year life gap between Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians will show their support for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s decision to place the health of Indigenous people top of the agenda at COAG’s meeting today by forming a welcoming committee outside Melbourne’s Government House.

Bali has for the first time drawn up a roadmap for all countries to tackle climate change. But a handful of powerful countries have relegated the overwhelming scientific evidence to a footnote. The Bush Administration – dragging Canada, Japan and Russia in tow – has thrown away the compass and is trying to force us all to take the journey in a gas-guzzling 4×4, not the solar-powered speedster that the world urgently needs.

Oxfam Australia welcomed today’s announcement by the federal opposition to back the Bali roadmap goal of a 25-40 per cent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. The aid and development agency now urges the Federal Labor Government to follow their lead and back a Bali plan to dramatically cut carbon emissions over the next decade to avoid climate chaos.

Hours after Nobel Peace Price Laureate Al Gore pointed to the obstructionist role of the United States at the UN climate change conference, the US proposed new language that would swap binding emissions cuts for rich countries with a voluntary approach for all countries, according to Oxfam Australia.

The United Nations Bali Climate Change Summit feels akin to climbing Mt Everest in just two weeks. For the last 10 days a myriad of bureaucratic sherpas from around the world have been carrying their loads up the mountain, agreeing what can be agreed and setting aside areas of disagreement to be picked up in a last final push to the summit by Ministers when they arrive today for the final three crucial days of negotiations this week.

Oxfam Australia today (12 December) welcomed many aspects of the new climate change course set for Australia by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in his address to delegates at the opening of today’s UN Climate Change talks in Bali.

Delegates at the climate change negotiations in Bali have reached a key agreement that will set the course for how funds will be made available to poor countries to help them avoid the worst impacts of climate change.

Christmas gift shoppers have six days left to purchase Oxfam Unwrapped gifts so that cards will be sent in time for Christmas.

Sales of Unwrapped gifts are up fifty percent on last year indicating that Australians are increasingly generous.