Jane Prentice (Ryan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak on these appropriation bills noting that many of the measures outlined in these bills come as a result of Labor's poor and reckless financial management during their term of government. The coalition government has been saddled with the task of responsibly getting the budget and the economy back on track. At the last election Australians saw the need to return to proper, responsible and prudent government, to put the nation's books back in order. Australian voters saw a need for less grandstanding and more integrity. In short, they saw the need for a coalition government. Now the challenge on this side of the House is to determine how best to repair the damage of Labor's wilful neglect of the fundamentals of economic management. Our coalition government promotes efficient policies—policies where government is able to deliver more services for less money. Removing unnecessary red tape and bureaucracy will see taxpayers' money actually improve frontline services rather than being wasted on backroom paperwork.

Against that background I want to raise the important question of our foreign aid system. It is time that we redefine how we measure the impact of Australia's foreign aid. Instead of foreign aid being judged by merely the number of dollars spent, the key indicator of a project's success should be what is actually achieved on the ground. Let me be very clear: I am a strong supporter of foreign aid in our region. But success should not be measured merely by dollars spent. It must be evaluated by actual success on the ground, where it counts. Equally, I do not claim to have all the answers to this challenge. Many of the world's best minds have turned their attention to how to better achieve the goals of aid delivery. But my discussions with aid recipients, donors, workers and governments continue to disclose that we appear to be just as far from a solution as ever.

In discussions on defence there has been this popular but succinct reference to the 'teeth-to-tail ratio'—a consideration of the funds and resources that go to the support services for our military as opposed to the actual fighting component. The aid debate confronts similar challenges. The cost of delivery of aid on occasions appears to outweigh the aid itself and in quite properly trying to protect the integrity of our aid system we burden ourselves with the bureaucracy and inflexibility that can overwhelm the good intentions. The capacity to respond quickly to issues, apart from an ambassador's discretionary fund, is under real challenge. For this reason, I believe that it is time to look at our aid delivery mix. While I was in Papua New Guinea with the Australian Defence Force I was inspired to some extent by a discussion that I had with Sir Peter Barter and Father Jan Czuba, the president of Divine Word University, about the benefits of institution-to-institution support as an effective method of aid delivery. It raised real questions in my mind as to how we can move forward in this field.

Importantly, it also raises questions as to how we might explore more effective partnership relationships to improve aid delivery. These alternatives range from public-private partnerships through to the whole question of social entrepreneurship. Often private companies already operating in country are in a better position to provide aid more efficiently and more effectively, where it is needed most, directly to the people who need it most, rather than duplication by often complex organisational structures with support staff. At least 80 per cent of today's assistance comes from non-public sources, up 30 per cent from 40 years ago, according to the US Agency for International Development's assistant administrator for global health. Private providers' foundations, non-government, faith based and community organisations as well as corporations and educational institutions bring the bulk of humanitarian funds to the world's needy nations, according to a 2008 press release from USAID. They have estimated that from an initial investment of $2.1 billion in public funds USAID was able to leverage an additional $5.8 billion in private funds and contributions. That is almost three private sector dollars for every dollar of public taxpayer funds. Yet financing from grants and foundations is not as readily available as in the past and the number of non-governmental organisations has increased significantly, thus increasing demands on public funds.

Social entrepreneurship has become a topic of significant study in the past decade, as non-profit organisations, which were the primary providers of service for the social good, began struggling to remain solvent. Social entrepreneurship includes businesses with primarily social objectives that reinvest the bulk of their profits either back into the enterprise itself or into the community. The world has witnessed a variety of experiments in government based efforts to tackle poverty. Such efforts lead to many notable successes, such as increased access to education and health care. In our region the success of microfinance schemes speaks volumes. Limits to government programs, however, have also been noted, with critiques that such programs are excessively bureaucratic, ineffective, wasteful, political and the antithesis to innovation. The risk of fraud, waste and abuse of power necessitated the dominant organising method of government agencies to be a bureaucracy. As a consequence, government agencies often lack the freedom to explore a wide range of alternatives, largely because they are hampered by bureaucratic rules, legislative mandates, political considerations and a fixed budget. In summary, government is a tool that is effective for some kinds of social interventions but not as effective for others.

Many academics agree that foreign aid began with the four-point program of Harry S Truman in 1949. Part of the motivation behind aid was the race for developed nations to provide aid to Third World countries so they would not fall under the influence of communists or communist nations. As the concept of foreign aid evolved, some internationally recognised economists such as Jeffrey Sachs postulated that the key to ending extreme poverty was to help the poorest nations get their foot on the ladder of development. He indicated that, with foreign aid in the amount promised by developed nations, poor nations would be able to get enough of a boost to get on the first rung, from which they would be able to continue the climb independently.

William Easterly, a professor of economics at NYU, referred to the rich developed nations as 'the West' and the poorer or undeveloped nations as 'the rest'. On the other hand, Easterly believed that it was important for the West to recognise that development happens mainly through home-grown efforts and that, rather than imposing Western ideals of utopia on developing nations, we should instead concentrate on more modest, doable steps to make people's lives better. Easterly believed that the developed nations provide foreign aid and development programs through the lens of Western culture, with a focus on significant bureaucracy and planned approaches that do not involve the people the services aim to benefit. Easterly advocates resource use at a grassroots level rather than 'large international bureaucracies giving aid to large national government bureaucracies'.

The debate between Sachs and Easterly reflects the challenges of aid delivery and the reality that there is no magic pill, or should I say nanopatch, to resolve this debate. But there is cause for optimism. During my visits to Papua New Guinea, most recently through the Australian Defence Force Parliamentary Program, I was able to observe the positive force for good that some privately funded programs are delivering to communities in PNG.

The PNG LNG Project is an example. This joint venture between ExxonMobil and Oil Search has developed an efficient community health impact management program as part of their project constructing the LNG pipeline. Oil Search's community relationship work is highly regarded in PNG. Publications from the PNG LNG Project outline how they are working in partnership with the Papua New Guinea Institute of Medical Research and Population Services International, and have developed a community health impact program to function across all project areas. PNGIMR is using an integrated health demographic surveillance system, or IHDSS, to monitor the impact of the PNG LNG Project on the health of communities, while providing the evidence base for curative and preventive interventions targeting key health problems. The IHDSS is used at key project locations and matched control sites to systematically collect objective health and population data. It also provides a timely response to disease outbreaks that could potentially disrupt project operations, through the placement of clinicians at selected key health facilities. These activities will ultimately enhance local healthcare delivery.

The PNGIMR Partnership in Health Project has been validated by the lenders group's review team and independent science advisory panel composed of internationally recognised tropical disease and demographic experts. Significant improvements in facilities' healthcare delivery have occurred in the PNG LNG Project villages, and invaluable health information has been collected. This will enable provincial and national health authorities to effectively plan and implement health services.

The Enhanced Community Health Project incorporates community education, awareness and training to address health and wellness initiatives and encourage disease prevention, reproductive health behaviours and awareness of non-communicable disease issues. The following activities have been promoted through the Enhanced Community Health Project: marital relationship training to help reduce episodes of gender based violence and alcohol consumption and to reinforce positive health behaviours; water and sanitation hygiene activities; scholarships for in-service healthcare workers and preservice students from project areas to pursue health subjects at the Divine Word University in Madang; and STI and HIV/AIDS prevention along the Highlands Highway to help improve self-protection.

The PNG LNG Project also has a workforce development program. This aims to create local jobs for local people and train them in the technical and professional skills that are needed during the construction phase of the project, and, importantly, provide future employment opportunities either with the production phase of the project or elsewhere. Workforce development encompasses so much of what will contribute to the success of the PNG LNG Project. The project boasts that, at the end of August 2013, almost 7,700 Papua New Guinea citizens were employed on project activities. Building the skills of PNG workers through training is part of the project's National Content Plan and an opportunity to leave a lasting, positive legacy for PNG. As of August 2013, more than 10,000 Papua New Guinea citizens have been trained for construction and operation roles across all project sites, and more than 1.9 million training hours have been delivered through more than 4,160 courses.

Also of note is the operation of Site Skills Training, who have joined with the Ipatas Foundation in Enga Province to train 120 locals in areas of heavy diesel maintenance, construction and fabrication as well as camp services, cookery and logistics at the site's facility at Clark in the Philippines. The six months training will also include community skills, cultural and religious tolerance, and gender awareness. On successful completion, the participants, men and women, are guaranteed employment through Orion Project Services. As Vern Wills, the Managing Director of Site Skills Training, said at the launch last year, they 'provide a path of certainty for PNG nationals to gain the necessary skills to participate in the construction and operation of PNG projects.'

I have also recently met with a number of representatives from Abt JTA, which is a specialist international health and social sector consulting company that provides services to public and private sector clients. Our discussions included their involvement with private sector aid and development occurring in PNG. We discussed how effective it was, and how positive the results have been thus far. I have also spoken to representatives from faith based charity organisations and been briefed on the Churches of Christ medical centre in Vanuatu which far exceeds the capabilities of the government supported hospitals on the islands.

The success of these organisations provides real hope for the future of our aid delivery. Of course, nothing is simple in this field, and I appreciate the challenges in the area of capacity building. I am also acutely aware of the frustration of recipient governments and communities, who do want aid that acknowledges local needs and expectations.

This government is about providing a hand up, not a handout, about providing more for less. This government is about providing aid more efficiently and more effectively. Those words are not mere rhetoric. In short, the success of our aid program must be measured by results on the ground, not by the dollar value of our aid budget. The more effective we are in delivering our aid, the more we can do to reduce the costs of delivery and increase the proportion actually spent on the ground. The more we do to achieve these goals, the happier will be the aid recipients, recipient governments and, of course, the taxpayers of Australia.

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