Sharman Stone (Murray, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we had the annual general meeting of the bipartisan group named the Parliamentary Group on Population and Development. We have been in existence in this parliament for some 20 years and we have had great successes in the past in advancing the causes of particularly women in Australia in relation to their reproductive health rights, their ability to look after themselves and to be in control of their own fertility. In particular, we championed the RU486 debate, which led to the provision of that particular medication which can be used for terminations without surgery. We made sure that was not subject to veto by any particular minister for health.

Also, as a group, we have been championing the support of Pacific Islanders, PNG and Timor-Leste, as our nearest neighbours—our brothers and sisters in the region. Just this weekend, I attended the general assembly in Bangkok of the Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, which comes under the ICPD. I had great pleasure in ensuring that, for example, the representative from Tonga—a member of parliament, of course—Lord Fusitu'a, became the co-chair of the gender committee. Tonga is particularly challenged in bringing women into their parliament, but it is not through the lack of trying of their own members of parliament—people like Lord Fusitu'a, about whom I sometimes joke and say that he probably learned his gender equality principles by being born and bred in Canberra.

The whole business of gender equality is not just a feel-good for women who are feminists. I have to stress that it is not just a human right to ensure that women have the same opportunities for a fulfilled, healthy and happy life as men. In fact, it is a human right that all of our human population is treated as equal, but we have to have some countries understand that it is an imperative for them if they are going to have development of their country beyond a hand-to-mouth existence or one depending on overseas development aid. We know, for example, that, if women's education becomes compulsory and free, girls can attend school; they can be educated; they will be able to have more independence of action if they are able to get a job; they are less likely to be forced into child marriages where they are more likely to have complications in giving birth at a very young age; they are less likely to suffer abuse; and they are less likely to be subject to diseases like HIV or, indeed, other communicable diseases like malaria or TB.

There are so many noncommunicable diseases as well which now affect women in our region. The very high rates of stunting in Timor-Leste come about because they are still not able to have access to family planning, which would help them space their children or perhaps they would have fewer children and their food supplies would not mean that they have a large family of stunted young children. On the other hand, we have obesity in the Pacific that often affects women. There is diabetes and heart disease as women lose their traditional roles, when they were once very active—for example, as the major food providers. It is one of the saddest statistics that, in the Pacific, in one particular country, there is the highest rate of amputation in the world associated with diabetes.

I am very pleased that our government has dedicated 80 per cent of our overseas aid budget specifically for the benefit of women and girls. It will be a filter that all projects are put through to see that they do in fact help to empower women—their economic empowerment in particular—but that of course, as I have just said, is to do with their education opportunities and their better health outcomes. We have led the world in saying that we will make sure that 80 per cent of our aid budget is dedicated to women and girls, but we have also said we will focus more tightly on our own neighbourhood, in the Indo Asia-Pacific region. I think that is a good thing, too, because that is where our climate change impacts are going to be most felt, which also impact on us as a nation, but it is where we want peace and security and where we know we can make a difference with our often greater technical expertise, whether it is in agriculture or in health matters or whether it is to do with our IT specialties. So I am proud to be the chair of the Foreign Affairs and Aid Subcommittee of the Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Committee. We are just now doing an inquiry into agri-business support in the Pacific.