Bruce Baird (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade I present the committee’s report entitled Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami.

Ordered that the report be made a parliamentary paper.

The Boxing Day 2004 tsunami is on record as one of the worst natural disasters to occur in modern times. Equally unprecedented in scale has been the response of the international donor community to help the tsunami victims recover.

Australia has been the largest per capita country contributor to tsunami aid and has played a major role in the relief and reconstruction effort, particularly in Indonesia, where the tsunami struck hardest.

Australia’s collective response has involved federal government departments and agencies, state agencies and non-government organisations. In the immediate aftermath of the earthquake, the Australian government committed $68 million. Australian NGO partners received $12 million to provide services, supplies and support to tsunami affected countries, while $23.5 million was donated to the UN to support its activities in coordinating the relief effort. Additional funds, including the $1 billion Australia-Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development, are progressively being committed against longer term reconstruction priorities. Within months of the tsunami, Australian non-government organisations had raised a further $313 million from the wider Australian community.

It was against the backdrop of this initial generosity, and the fact that some 18 months had elapsed since the disaster, that the committee considered it timely to convene a forum where members could meet with Australian NGOs and discuss—together with government departments and agencies—where Australians’ money is being spent and how aid agencies are continuing to deliver assistance to tsunami affected communities.

Subsequently, the committee hosted a public roundtable hearing at Parliament House on 12 May 2006, to which it invited a range of participants, including the five main non-government organisations in Australia—the Red Cross, Oxfam, Caritas, CARE and World Vision—and officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, AusAID, Defence and the Australian Federal Police. At the roundtable, the committee gained an overview of the progress to date, learnt about current operational priorities and focused on emerging lessons that could inform ongoing responses to recovery requirements in the tsunami affected countries.

The committee, in hearing the attendees at the roundtable tell their stories, was affected by the shared experiences of agencies, in particular the perspectives of Australian Defence Force and Australian Federal Police personnel who were involved in the initial clean-up and the disaster victim identification missions. Officers clearly carried out their jobs well, with compassion and dignity under extraordinary circumstances—and this is something that those individuals and indeed all Australians can be proud of.

Witnesses outlined some of the many reasons why the rebuilding process is progressing slowly. Ultimately, the sheer scale and complexity of the disaster must be borne in mind and the reconstruction and development phase be viewed in terms of taking years rather than months to complete. It is also important that sufficient time be taken to consult with local communities and deliver high-quality outcomes to beneficiaries. There are enormous challenges for those involved with the reconstruction—challenges with the supply of materials and labour and, in some instances, the management of corruption issues. However, significant work has still been done. At the hearing, agencies described a wide range of projects which they are working on to achieve this end, from rebuilding houses, reinstalling basic services and restoring infrastructure, to health and counselling services, and training villagers to help with the planning of village reconstruction and direct access assistance.

The committee would like to see greater media coverage—including more positive stories—of the reconstruction effort as it progresses. While the tsunami is clearly no longer front-page news it remains the largest international relief and reconstruction effort staged in recent times, and one to which Australia continues to contribute significant resources. AusAID provided significant evidence about engagement with local media from Australia and Indonesia about their endeavours to obtain positive coverage about what is being achieved.

In an era when natural disasters appear to be increasing and the aid community finds itself being stretched to capacity, the committee acknowledges that government and non-government organisations alike are finding new ways to work together and complement each other’s strengths.

The committee hopes that this roundtable process contributes to and encourages public debate on this still important topic, and showcases some of the excellent work being done by Australian agencies and non-government organisations. In closing, I would like to thank all the roundtable participants. I also thank my colleagues on the Human Rights Subcommittee who undertook the inquiry and the secretariat for their assistance. I commend the report to the House.

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to join with my colleague the member for Cook in speaking on the report by the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade titled Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. Nearly two years on, it is still very hard to comprehend the sheer scale of destruction and human devastation that the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami left in its wake along much of the Indian Ocean coastline. The tsunami literally wiped out thousands of coastal communities across 12 countries, and it remains one of the worst natural disasters in living memory. Indonesia was the hardest hit, with the majority of casualties occurring in the provinces of Aceh and Northern Sumatra. Other countries directly affected by the tsunami included Sri Lanka, India and many others. The tsunami did not spare Australia either, with 26 Australians killed—the majority of them holidaymakers in Indonesia—and scores more injured.

In the days immediately following the tsunami, relief operations faced the challenge of having to provide food, clean water, temporary shelter and health care to literally hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom had lost everything. One of the key priorities for early relief operations was to prevent the spread of disease and malnutrition. As time has gone on, these relief operations have shifted their focus to longer term reconstruction projects.

To Australia’s great credit, Australian aid agencies and NGOs have played a major role in these relief and reconstruction operations. Their efforts have been reinforced by the overwhelming generosity of ordinary Australians who donated money to help fund such operations. This generosity has made Australia the largest contributor per capita to tsunami aid and reflects the very best of this country.

In May this year the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade conducted a roundtable public hearing that examined Australia’s response to the Indian Ocean tsunami. The hearing gave members a chance to discuss with representatives of the Australian aid community where Australian’s money is being spent and how aid agencies are continuing to deliver assistance to tsunami affected communities.

As the report being tabled today will show, the roundtable hearing was particularly informative for both members and aid agency representatives. During the hearing a number of key issues were discussed regarding effective aid delivery. Members and aid representatives also discussed possible lessons that could be learnt from the tsunami relief operations. Among the issues raised by aid representatives were the enormous challenges faced by relief operations; the reconstruction efforts in tsunami affected areas, given the remoteness of some communities; and the devastation that the tsunami had inflicted on basic infrastructure.

One key issue that aid representatives raised was the enormous strain that is placed on the humanitarian system by major disasters occurring in sequence. Aid representatives emphasised that one possible way to counter this is to ensure that sufficient funds are on stand-by to help strengthen the emergency response capacity of aid agencies in the event of future humanitarian disasters and that more importance needs to be given to further developing and extending the interagency collaboration between government and NGOs that began to occur in response to the tsunami.

The issue of accountability and transparency in relation to the way money is spent was also discussed, including concerns over corruption and the misappropriation of funds. Public concerns over accountability and transparency led to a discussion of the role that the media played in determining public perceptions about whether tsunami response funds were being spent appropriately. Aid representatives were generally disappointed by the media emphasis on the very few negative stories rather than the many positive stories about the tsunami aid effort. An overemphasis on negative stories in the media also does little justice to the extraordinary and often life-saving work carried out by tsunami aid workers in what are often near-impossible conditions. These efforts need to be recognised and more readily embraced by our media.

I want to end by highlighting the importance that aid agency representatives gave to community based development programs that empower local communities rather than entrap them in relationships of dependency. Such programs are vital in helping communities to get back on their feet whilst at the same time preserving their dignity by actively including local community members in decisions about where aid would be most effective. They recognise the key role that women play in getting communities back on their feet and the importance of providing women with appropriate support services.

On that note I would like to pay tribute to a very young constituent of mine, Ms Jay Leigh Hook, aged 16, who was on holiday in Thailand at the time the tsunami hit and was caught up in the horror of what took place. I thank her for the money she raised, when she returned to Australia, to assist a school in Thailand. (Time expired)

David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for statements on this report has expired. Does the member for Cook wish to move a motion in connection with the report to enable it to be debated on a future occasion?

I move:

That the House take note of the report.

In accordance with standing order 39, the debate is adjourned. The resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.