Teresa Gambaro (Brisbane, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Citizenship and Settlement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaking after the member for Makin, I also record my support for his very generous remarks on the 150th anniversary of the unification of Italy. Tonight I want to speak about the aid budget. The government announced in its budget that Australia would increase its 2010-11 allocation of $4.3 billion worth of official development assistance to over 0.5 per cent of gross national income by 2015-16. The effective doubling our country's overseas aid and development budget will see it reach an estimated $8 billion to $9 billion in five years time. This decision means that this budget will be this country's fifth largest expenditure portfolio.

Australians are generous but, understandably, they have an expectation that the responsible government agencies are accountable and that these funds are managed efficiently and as effectively as possible. Now that the independent review on foreign aid has been completed, I urge the government and the Minister for Foreign Affairs to release the findings to public scrutiny as an urgent priority. It is expected that the review will detail recommendations to rectify any insufficient reporting and independent auditing shortfalls, ensuring that funds are managed by a robust and transparent process. Every day that this report is delayed we run the risk that valuable aid money will be wasted by inefficient processes and poor oversight.

Internationally, Australia is recognised for its leading role in the region, particularly in Papua New Guinea and near Pacific nations. Our aid is ever more important given that two-thirds of the world's poor—some 800 million people—live in the Asia Pacific, yet they receive less than one-third of global aid. From recent newspaper reports and then in Senate estimates on 2 June, AusAID officials confirmed that TB and cholera were major problems in PNG. PNG nationals have for some time been crossing our border in the Torres Strait to access TB and other chronic diseases treatment centres. Yet Queensland Health has closed its TB services in the Torres Strait and the Gillard government now has to act urgently to ensure the biological security of our borders. AusAID has been funding health initiatives, particularly infrastructure in PNG, yet the health services in the Western Province continue to fail.

There was no excuse for abandoning surveillance of extreme drug resistant TB. The patients whose lives depend on the Torres Strait clinics find themselves in the precarious situation of having no clinical care. I am aware that clinicians on the front line are doing all they can to transfer skills to PNG providers but the enormous complexity and microbiological requirements of treating TB make domestic control by Port Moresby close to impossible. Professor Wronski of James Cook University said in the Australian on 2 June:

TB is a highly infectious disease that is spreading worldwide and we are not immune.

Axing a program without any evidence that there is a replacement that will be up and running in four weeks represents a significant biosecurity risk. Untreated cases can infect family members leading to massive treatment costs. This is another example of Labor short-changing on services to fund the massive Gillard and Bligh government debts.

The release of the review into foreign aid cannot come soon enough. We have been hearing for some time about shortcomings in the aid program but now we have more reason for the review to be made public urgently. A recent ANAO report on the role of tertiary scholarships by AusAID, published on 26 May, noted that there were $362 million allocated in the 2011-12 budget additionally for these scholarships. The report noted:

Historically, AusAID has found it difficult to maintain up-to-date country strategies. Until recently, nine of the top 20 recipients of country program aid did not have approved country strategies.

We need to make sure that we have secure operations of Australia's aid program. We can make Australian taxpayers' dollars and productivity count to pursue our goals to reduce poverty through improved medical care, education, economic opportunity and governance. We certainly need to ensure that the minister responds to the independent review into foreign aid as soon as possible so that these factors can be improved.