Harry Jenkins (Scullin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is appropriate, during Anti-Poverty Week from 16 to 22 October and the day before the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, that we should be discussing a motion such as the one moved by the Chief Government Whip, the honourable member for Macquarie. Of course we do express our concern at the high incidence of poverty throughout the world and, as citizens of a developing country, a lucky country, we should see an opportunity for us to be involved in the campaign to rid the world of poverty.

One of the things that has really heartened me is that this is being led at a community level. Other members in this debate have made mention of those campaigns, broadly under the umbrella of the Make Poverty History campaign, but, like the member for Deakin, I have had the opportunity to meet with representatives of the Oaktree Foundation, and the week before last I had representatives of local churches come to me under the banner of the Micah Challenge. They presented me with letters and petitions from a couple of hundred of the constituents of my electorate of Scullin in the northern suburbs of Melbourne and I believe that this was a great expression of the concern that abounds in the community. The parishioners were from Epping, St Johns Anglican, South Morang Assembly of God, Plenty Valley Salvation Army, Plenty Valley Uniting Church, Greensborough Calvary Lutheran, Greensborough Uniting and Greensborough Church of Christ—a broad representation of the electorate. This follows my ability earlier in the year to present that large, 13-metre banner with 1,400 signatures from the whole community of Parade College in Bundoora. So certainly this is an issue where the people of Australia are saying to government, saying to their members of parliament, ‘This is a campaign that we should be involved in.’ And they are starting to really understand the thread that runs through the eight millennium goals and the challenge that has been thrown down to achieve those outcomes by the year 2015.

This is not a debate for some sort of partisan point-scoring. And I acknowledge that, in this motion, we acknowledge and recognise the increased effort that has been made. But, simply put, if we look at our nation in a ladder of nations, in the OECD we rank 18th of 22, even in the projection to 2010. And if we look at the goal we require to aim at—and people talk about a benchmark of 0.7 per cent of GNI—we see that it is only the Benelux countries and the Scandinavian countries that will have achieved that goal by 2010. So when we look at these levels we have to ask, ‘What is required to reach those levels?’ The Micah Challenge set a goal of 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2010. Even at the annual increase for this year of 15 per cent—if, each year through to 2010, we had a 15 per cent increase—we would only reach 0.49 per cent.

I do not want to fall into the trap of saying that resources are the only thing. I do not want to fall into the trap of saying that the size of the bucket of money is important. There is one thing that the member for Deakin said that I applaud him for expressing in this debate, and that is that when we look at countries like—I agree—PNG, one has to say that this goes beyond the amount of resources; this has to go to the way in which we engage with countries.

If we look at this Make Poverty History document, a response to the white paper on aid and a submission on the budget to the Australian government of September 2006, and look at table No. 1, which looks at our neighbours in South-East Asia and the Pacific, it is really chilling. If we look at Papua New Guinea, it is off-track on every indicator. The Philippines is off-track on five of the millennium goals. The Solomons is off-track on four of the goals. Timor Leste is off-track on two of only three on which there is information. So there has to be a better way in which to engage. We cannot be seen to be patronising in our engagement with these countries, but we have to bring them forward. We have to bring them forward as trading partners and we have to bring them forward by showing example. (Time expired)

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