Louise Markus (Greenway, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this motion and I thank the member for Fremantle for moving it. I have a particular connection to Papua New Guinea as my husband was born there. He was a PNG national, but he is now an Australian citizen. From my many times in Papua New Guinea with my tambus, my family, I have developed a commitment to that nation and I thank the member for Fremantle for raising these issues. I rise to speak on the work in relation to the Millennium Development Goals that are yet to be achieved in Papua New Guinea, with particular concern for the goals relating to maternal and child health. I have seen firsthand the results and the impact of the lack of services and the reduction in services that are available to women across that nation over the last 20 years. It has deteriorated year by year and with each visit I am extremely dismayed.

Recently, the United Nations Development Program administrator, Miss Helen Clark, visited PNG to launch their second national MDG progress report. Sadly, as the report highlights, Papua New Guinea is currently not on track to meet the Millennium Development Goals in most areas, specifically in the areas of HIV/AIDS, reducing child and maternal mortality and also promoting gender equality. I speak on behalf of the women in that nation as I rise tonight, as I am sure we all do. They have a desire in their hearts to see themselves, their nation and their children rise to achieve their full potential. That is their greatest desire.

Miss Clarke draws attention to the fact that progress towards achieving MDGs is often lagging the most where the needs and the status of women and girls are accorded low priority. As late as the 1960s the national average life expectancy at birth was only about 40 years and the infant and child mortality rate was 134 per thousand live births in PNG. Infant and child mortality started to come down in the 1970s, but progress has slowed considerably in recent years. Some provinces in PNG continue to have very high infant mortality rates of more than 100 per thousand live births, but there are huge disparities in these numbers.

I know, as a result of the lack of medical services for my own family members, that children have not been born alive because they have not had access to what we take for granted in this nation. Health services, mother and child health care, reproduction health, immunisation, preventable diseases, the security situation and the lack of basic infrastructure in some provinces need to be addressed in order to close the large gaps in child mortality. In view of the already stagnating mortality indicators and the enormous new challenges PNG is facing, especially the threat of HIV/AIDS, it is highly unlikely that the global target of reducing child mortality by two-thirds can be achieved by 2015.

Although accurate numbers are not available and recent statistics, as have been mentioned around this room, have varied even among us, some of the figures I have from 1984 are that the national average maternal mortality ratio was an estimated 370 per 100,000 live births. This is far too high. The proportion of pregnant women giving birth under medical supervision is extremely low and has decreased even further in recent years. These are important determinants of maternal and infant mortality.

The extremely large reduction of 75 per cent in maternal mortality by 2015 envisaged under MDG5 is generally considered unlikely to occur in Papua New Guinea. A far more modest national target may be achievable if some drastic and urgent improvements are made in a number of critical areas especially antenatal care attendance, supervised delivery or, more generally, reproductive health and family planning. These two goals are important and direct action can be taken to achieve improvement in these areas. However, improving other areas will also benefit these two specific goals—improvement in education and gender equality, particularly in providing increasing access to all women to education facilities. This will see significant flow-on effects to the improvement of maternal health and child mortality in Papua New Guinea. Access to education is often a choice families must make. They have to choose between the number of children they have and who they can provide education for. It is often the male who gets first priority. I would like to see everything done to encourage every girl in PNG to have access to education. (Time expired)

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