Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome everyone in the gallery and I wish you all the best in your endeavours. I think you were here for a dinner last night, and now we will hear from the Prime Minister. I hope that you have had a very worthwhile trip and that you have been made to feel very much welcome.

This is an important bill and it is an important debate that we need to have in this chamber because, at its heart, we are talking about $120 million of taxpayers' money. That is Australians' money that is earned through hard work. That is $120 million that we as lawmakers need to ensure is spent in the best way possible, and that is the debate that we are having in this chamber today.

I congratulate the member for Throsby for bringing up the parable about the help that is given by a stranger to someone who is lying destitute and robbed on a road. I think all of us in this place recognise that there is a place for us as a nation to take steps to make sure that other citizens of the world are given a hand and are helped, especially those in desperate need. Both sides of parliament are committed to ensuring that that happens. It is why we have, on the whole, a very bipartisan approach to our aid budget and how it should be spent. My understanding is that that bipartisan approach went as far as both sides supporting our withdrawing from the International Fund for Agricultural Development in 2004. There were very good reasons we did this; it was not a decision that was taken lightly. Withdrawing from a United Nations fund is not an easy process, but the reasons we did it are as follows: the fund's limited relevance to the Australian aid program's priority countries in South-East Asia and the Pacific, lack of comparative advantage and focus, the fact that other organisations are more strongly involved in rural development in our region, and shortcomings in management and failure to respond to concerns that the Australian government raised with senior management of IFAD—the International Fund for Agricultural Development—regarding how well our money was being spent.

The decision to withdraw was supported by the then Deputy Director General of AusAID in evidence that he gave to the Joint Standing Committee on Treaties.

According to the committee's report, AusAID had had concerns regarding IFAD's performance in relation to the Australian aid program and its priorities for a substantial period of time. A recent review of the International Fund for Agricultural Development and of Australia's engagement with it backed this assessment, stating that in 2004 these were clearly valid and important enough reasons for Australia to take the significant and protracted step of withdrawing from a UN organisation.

If we are to reinvest money with this organisation, having taken the steps that we did, it is beholden on us to ensure that this organisation has reformed its ways and will use the $120 million of taxpayers' money that will be put into this program in a way which will enhance our near region and those priority countries that we want to benefit from our aid budget, and that the money will be spent in the most efficient way to enhance the long-term sustainable development of those countries, particularly in agriculture. On this side of the House, we do not think that the necessary reforms and the necessary steps have been put in place to ensure that that will happen.

This is not a discussion about whether we should help our neighbours or not; this is about whether we are helping them in the right way, whether that $120 million will be used in the most effective and efficient way. It is a significant amount of money. This $120 million will be going back to this UN organisation at a time when the Australian government has cut its research and development budget for our agricultural producers. If we are going to be sending this money we have to ensure that it is used appropriately, because our agricultural producers are suffering cuts to their own research and development budgets. Therefore, at the very minimum, we have to ensure that if we are still going to be generous in the aid we provide to our near neighbours that aid is spent appropriately. Are we certain that this is the case? Sadly, no we are not.

At a public hearing on the bill on 20 October 2012, AusAID officials were unable to assure members of the committee that IFAD has addressed all these issues. I will quote from that hearing so that we have it very clear on the record that there are still doubts about this UN organisation's ability to use this money wisely. To an AusAID official, Ms Bryant, Mr Ruddock said:

Do you believe all of those concerns have now been addressed—

the concerns that led to us withdrawing from this organisation. Ms Bryant said:

I believe that the concerns have been well documented …

Mr Ruddock asked if she could quantify that all the concerns have been met. Ms Bryant said:

No. I am not sure how you would like me to quantify it. In terms of a list and a tick box, no, I cannot do that.

This comes when we have seen evidence of the mismanagement and the auditing issues around how this UN organisation spends money. Questions have been raised since 2004.

Is this the right way for us to be spending taxpayers' money? There are other ways that we can use this $120 million. There is no reason we cannot use direct aid programs to do this job. Australia has expertise in this area. We are world leaders, especially when it comes to dryland farming in agriculture but also when it comes to tropical farming. These skills can be utilised. We do not have to outsource every part of our aid budget to the United Nations. The more distant an organisation is from a country, the greater the chance that you will not see every dollar being utilised as it should be utilised.

I want to point to the IFAD 2011 annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities. Twenty-five allegations were made against external parties. Of these:

… 13 related to IFAD staff members, and three involved both staff members and external parties … The staff misconduct cases involved harassment, breach of confidentiality, recruitment irregularities and conflicts of interest, while the external cases involved collusion in procurement activities and other fraud on the part of companies and project staff.

The part that really concerns me is that the external cases involved collusion in procurement activities and other fraud on the part of companies and project staff. These are serious allegations, especially when it comes to collusion in procurement activities, because that is one of the fundamental roles of any aid organisation in making sure that the money it has and is putting towards aid projects is spent appropriately. So, if there is collusion in procurement activities, we should not be giving over $120 million to this organisation.

Let us just put that $120 million in perspective. The US government last year provided $80 million to IFAD. On a per-head-of-population basis, on a GDP basis or whichever way you want to look at it, we are giving a substantial sum of money to this organisation. These issues were raised once again when this legislation went before the committee. Mr Ruddock asked, 'Have there been any allegations of corruption within the fund?' The AusAID official replied:

Not that we are aware of. We understand that there are reporting mechanisms for corruption, but we are not aware of any making it to the executive council discussions. I think the report that we have commissioned, the 2011 report, looked at that issue and also did not identify any allegations of corruption. I am using the word 'allegations' here; there were certainly no cases.

That might have been before the IFAD 2011 annual report on investigation and anticorruption activities was released because, quite clearly, as the organisation's own report shows, 25 allegations were made, of which 13 related to IFAD, and they are significant allegations.

So I call on the government to re-examine its approach to IFAD and its approach to how it will spend this $120 million of taxpayers' money.

The cost of repairing all of the dodgy pink batts that were put into people's roofs was $120 million—a significant sum of money. We have already seen waste occur due to government incompetence and mismanagement of this amount of money and, sadly, even greater amounts in the last five years. But we do not want to continue to see it continue to happen. We have to ensure that we learn the lessons of the past and that the taxpayers' money is spent correctly, appropriately and in the most efficient way possible. That is as important for the aid budget as it is for any other part of government spending.

In conclusion, this debate is not about the allocation of money to our aid budget. This debate is ensuring that the taxpayers' money is well spent, and in this case it is $120 million of taxpayers' money—a significant amount. We should not be giving this money to this UN organisation until it gets its act in order or until it realises that we withdrew our funding from it in 2004 for very serious reasons. It was not a decision that was taken lightly. Therefore, we will not commit money back to this organisation until we are absolutely, 100 per cent guaranteed that that money will be used as it should be to benefit those countries that those dollars are going to.

Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to speak to the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012. This bill seeks to recommit Australia to the International Fund for Agricultural Development with a financial commitment of $126 million over the next four years. Australia was a founding member of this fund when it was first established in 1977. It was established in response to the 1974 World Food Conference, but then Australia withdrew in 2007 as a result of concerns relating to financial management and the effectiveness of the program. We have heard quite a bit about that from members opposite. I will come to that withdrawal in a moment.

IFAD originally focused on Africa. I understand that today, it still conducts much of its work in Africa. I understand that it has now also spread to other parts of the world. In Africa, where the fund was originally intended to focus, my understanding is that about 70 per cent of the population—around 280 million people—in the areas where this fund is intended to assist live on something like $1.25 a day and most of them rely on agriculture for their existence. I suspect that across the world there are about a billion people that also live on about $1.25 a day and also rely on agriculture for their existence. Investing or providing assistance to those countries to enable them to produce their own food would seem to me to be an important area of international aid.

Members opposite have raised concerns with regard to this bill on what I would suggest are three areas. I have heard members opposite say that, at a time when we are finding it difficult to balance our own budget here in Australia, we should perhaps cut overseas aid funding. I have also heard that, if we are to continue with overseas aid funding, we should perhaps look at different areas of priority. Thirdly, I have heard members raise concerns with regard to the mismanagement and effectiveness of the program.

I will take the last point first. I understand that there were some recent discussions and advice sought in respect of the ongoing concerns. Quite rightly, some of that has been aired in this chamber.

But I do not have the information and advice that obviously the minister does and therefore I am not in a position to make a judgement as to whether we ought to recommit to this fund or not. I rely on the advice of the minister on that and I would expect the minister would not be proposing that these funds be allocated if the minister was not satisfied that the concerns that had previously been raised and that led to the withdrawal of Australia from this fund had been resolved. I suspect also that the minister would not be recommending that these funds be allocated if he was not confident that there are adequate protocols in place to ensure that the funds, once allocated, would reach their intended destination and be used in a manner for which they are intended. So I put that to one side and put my trust in the minister with respect to that.

On the question of us having to balance our own budget and therefore perhaps make cuts to our foreign aid expenditure, I disagree with those who raise that proposition. As I said in my opening remarks, the ability of many people in developing countries to produce their own food is fundamental and essential to their existence. When you consider that the production of food in those countries is under threat from a whole range of things then it is more important than ever before for international aid to be provided for food production in those countries. We are seeing in this country right now the devastation being caused by floods, fires and at other times cyclones and other extreme weather events. Whenever that occurs it totally disrupts our food production capacity and we see the immediate results to us. This is in a country that, in comparison with most of the developing countries, would be considered to be well off, yet we are impacted terribly by those events.

Imagine when those events happen in developing countries where what little food they can grow is essential to their life. The reality is that, as a result of climate change that we are seeing around the world, those developing countries are equally being affected by extreme weather events. We have had reports and presentations to this House to clearly demonstrate how climate change will impact on developing countries most of all. So if we can assist them not only to produce their food better under the current conditions but also to cope with those extreme weather events when they occur, we are going to be doing those people a very valuable service.

The issue of climate change is only one of the matters of concern to me with respect to the importance of this support. As I said just a moment ago, the issue of climate change will affect those developing countries even more so than it does in Australia. There are also other very good reasons it is important that we continue the funding to enable those countries to produce their food. We know that in a world where the population is growing, most of the growth is occurring in those developing countries. Therefore, if they are having trouble already in meeting their food needs, those problems are only going to become worse in the years to come. Again, enabling them to do more with what they have is going to be absolutely vital to their future wellbeing.

There are other critical reasons that investing and assisting developing countries with their food production is very important for the rest of the world. As we know, poor nutrition is linked to health outcomes and health costs for those people. Investing in food production reduces downstream health costs. We also know that some of the food production methods used in developing countries are the cause of some of those poor health outcomes because in many of those countries they continue to use chemicals that we in Australia stopped using a long time ago.

Yet, without the assistance of other countries, those practices will only continue and, again, if we can assist them in changing their practices, in implementing better farming methods, we will be able not only to assist them to produce their food but also to assist them in achieving the better health outcomes that we would all want for them and for ourselves.

I have spoken firsthand with people who have worked in some of these countries and worked in food production in them, and I have heard the stories of some of the chemicals that they continue to use. Those sorts of practices have to stop and, again, will only stop when international aid gives these countries the support that they need so that they can switch to better methods.

There are other concerns which arise in my mind with respect to the support that we provide to developing countries and the benefits that will come from countries being able to provide their own food. I want to turn to one matter, and perhaps I will finish on this: with many countries, one of our greatest concerns is the human rights abuses that occur within those countries. Human rights abuses inevitably arise when people are struggling. When people are struggling, it leads not only to poverty but also to corruption, conflict and violence. In many of these countries, where extreme poverty occurs we then see more exploitation, more refugees, more corruption, more human trafficking and more sexual exploitation—all because people are so desperate that they have to turn to other sources and other ways of making a living.

So this is not just an issue about whether we provide financial aid to developing countries; it is an issue that we take on when trying to take a stand against the violation of human rights in many of those countries. Only late last year I had a briefing from some of the Congolese people in my community in Adelaide, who talked to me and showed me films and recounted real stories of some of the impacts of violation of human rights that occurs when extreme poverty sets in.

For all these reasons, providing financial aid to developing countries to assist them with their food production is a measure that this parliament should embrace and this country should support. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.