Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to call on the Australian government to increase its financial support to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria for the period 2017 to 2019. At each of the previous two occasions of Global Fund replenishment, Australia made a contribution of $200 million. It is now time to increase our pledge so we can continue to work alongside government, civil society, the private sector and people affected by AIDS, TB and malaria to put an end to the world's worst epidemics.

By the end of this year, the Global Fund will have saved more than 22 million lives in more than 100 countries. Recent successes in our region include a near tripling in the number of people on antiretroviral therapy in PNG in the last five years, good progress on TB control in Fiji, and a tenfold increase in the number of insecticide-treated bed nets distributed throughout Bangladesh to protect against malaria. Since 2000, deaths from HIV, TB and malaria have fallen by more than 40 per cent, due in large part to the work of the Global Fund.

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's own figures show that for every dollar Australia committed to the Global Fund over the last period, it returned US$15 in our region alone, culminating in a total of US$2.9 billion. I call on the Turnbull Liberal government to show genuine leadership on this issue. There is no time to waste. (Time expired)