Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1)acknowledges that Australia has a significant role in assisting countries to reduce poverty and achieve inclusive prosperity through its international aid;

(2)recognises that:

(a)every year Australian aid improves the lives of millions of people around the globe;

(b)Australia is playing a leading role in international initiatives such as the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance; and

(c)Australia has played an important role in having the G20 Health Ministers commit to action on drug-resistant tuberculosis and the World Health Assembly endorsing action to accelerate access to vaccines;

(3)notes that:

(a)while the global community is making progress towards ending poverty, hunger and the worst epidemics, the world is facing multiple challenges of war, poverty, hunger, displaced people and climate change;

(b)in the Asia-Pacific region, 330 million people live in extreme poverty, 1.5 billion people lack access to safe sanitation, and one in 7 people suffer from malnutrition; and

(c)Australia is one of 194 countries which have endorsed the Agenda for Sustainable Development, which sets out 17 goals to eliminate poverty, improve health and achieve inclusive economic and social development; and

(4)calls on the Government to:

(a)set clear long term goals for the Australian aid program, consistent with our interests in supporting sustainable economic development, health security and poverty reduction for countries throughout our region in the forthcoming Foreign Policy White Paper, which has received more than 9,000 public submissions on a range of issues, including our aid commitments;

(b)commit to consideration of increasing Australian aid in real terms in the next four years, to support achieving these goals;

(c)build understanding within the Australian community of the work that has been achieved through Australian aid, to lift our national pride in our contribution to the world; and

(d)expand opportunities for everyday Australians to contribute in practical ways to regional development, through short work parties to exchange agricultural and practical skills in developing countries.

Together, in the 21st century, I'm sure all MPs can agree that no child should die from a mosquito bite, no child should ever go to bed starving, and no single person should be denied opportunity because of where they are born, the colour of their skin, their gender, their religion or who they love. All people are born equal. In a modern-day society characterised by technological advancement and interconnectedness, in an ever-globalised world, if one person anywhere has their opportunities or dreams diminished, society loses. In this modern world, therefore, it is not acceptable for a country to retreat into itself. For Australia to stay as a strong middle power, we cannot shrink in the face of global challenges, especially in our own backyard.

These are challenging times. We face threats of terrorism, displaced people, climate change, an international order threatened by the sense that globalisation is leaving far too many behind, and expanding inequality—something even Australia is not immune to; something that threatens to entrench global class disadvantage, even where hard-earned progress has been won before. Currently, Australia's aid program is geared towards our region, towards countries like Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, the Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Cambodia. Taxpayer funds go towards supporting important projects: governance, because where governance is poor, development outcomes are also poor; health, like our leading role in the Asia Pacific Leaders Malaria Alliance; and education, the greatest enabler of our world's next generation.

Sadly, the Abbott and now Turnbull government is not leading when it comes to our international aid program. In the Turnbull government's most recent budget—the 2017 budget—we saw the freezing of Australia's aid budget in 2019-20 and 2020-21. These two consecutive freezes represent the fifth and sixth cuts to the foreign aid budget since the coalition came to power. The 2017 budget cut represents $303 million less in real terms, and adds to the $11.3 billion that has already been slashed from the foreign aid budget. Despite 25 years of economic growth, Australia's international aid program has been drastically cut since the coalition took office in September 2013. The internationally agreed aid to gross national income—or GNI—target is 0.7 per cent. I'll come back to this in a moment. I wanted to mention that target to contextualise the next set of numbers I'm going to discuss: Australia's own aid to GNI percentage under the cold-hearted Turnbull government. In the last financial year, Australia's aid dropped to a paltry 0.22 per cent—our lowest ever. Remember, the international target is 0.7 per cent. Mr Deputy Speaker, if you thought that was unacceptable—which it is—the cuts I just mentioned in this year's budget will result in an even greater decline in our aid contributions. By 2021, our international aid contribution will drop to 0.2 per cent of GNI.

Before anyone argues that Australia's economic situation justifies this slashing of our aid budget, and why we need to spend $100 million or so on a postal survey, I'd like to compare our situation with another country; a country that also entered a deep recession in the aftermath of the GFC: the United Kingdom, led by a conservative government since 2010. The UK does not shy away from the 0.7 per cent international target in the face of global economic problems; it meets the target in spite of them. The former Chancellor George Osborne said this was because it was morally right, it strengthens the UK's global position, and it is compassionate. If only our conservative prime minister, Prime Minister Turnbull, could share some of the compassion of Theresa May, his conservative counterpart.

We all know the important work that our international aid programs carry out. Australia is a prosperous nation. As a good global citizen, particularly in this part of the world, in this connection between Asia and the Pacific, Australia should be playing its part in helping to reduce global poverty and inequality and in assisting the vulnerable children who need our help.

I call on Prime Minister Turnbull to not let fear, ignorance and populism and that crazy right wing of his party dictate what goes on. Do not listen to the economic doomsday theorists who fuel the fires of racism, greed and selfishness. Instead, be a Prime Minister who leads and gives a good demonstration of the compassion of the Australian people. Australia is a strong economy. We have the capacity. We can and must do more to help those in our region and across the world. We were there at the start of the United Nations and we were there as a global leader, a small power leading the world. We can revisit those days.

Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Moreton. Is the motion seconded?

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have pleasure in responding to the member for Moreton on his motion on Australian aid. Official development assistance, or ODA, in the year 2017-18 will be $3.98 billion to AusAID. It's the 13th largest donor in the OECD. This amount will increase from $3.9128 billion to $4.018 billion in the year 2018-19, and this figure will be maintained, at minimum, to at least 2020-21. Overall, the program is set out to reduce poverty in the countries less fortunate than Australia.

We used to give aid to Thailand, but Thailand has really kicked the poverty line, and now they actually give aid to other countries in their region. Overall, our aid is there to reduce poverty and promote sustainable economic growth in those areas, and 90 per cent of our aid is spend in the Indo-Pacific region—Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and the Pacific islands, including the Solomon Islands. We also concentrate with our aid programs on reducing the health threat in countries with tuberculosis, malaria, AIDS and those kinds of things. Tuberculosis is rife throughout New Guinea, in parts of Indonesia and in Vietnam.

I had the honour of visiting Vietnam with The Global Foundation, to which we, Australia, donate quite a considerable sum of money. We donate about $200 million a year to The Global Foundation, which is an offshoot of the United Nations. I looked at the aid we provide and the impacts and results of our aid. I visited villages in Vietnam where tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS were rife. A mosquito net, which costs about $5 in Australian money, can go a long way to reducing malaria. There are different strains of malaria, but a mosquito net will block out all strains of malaria in those areas. We visited a village that had one mosquito net for the whole village. The men who worked in the rubber plantations, in the thick timber, took that one net with them, so five men slept under one mosquito net. That's how desperate those people were. So Australian aid came to the front and supplied a total of two villages in that area—

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was you, Member for Flynn. That was you, Ken O'Dowd; don't be modest.

Ken O'Dowd (Flynn, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes. That's right. Thank you. That was the situation. The member for Leichhardt was with me on that occasion. It was a fact those people were hamstrung in that wet, tropical country. There were mosquitos everywhere. I lived in Bougainville in New Guinea for several years. We used to take quinine tablets every morning. We didn't get malaria—they must have worked.

More recently, I was on an Asian delegation, and we visited places like Myanmar, where we saw a lot of poverty for sure but also facilities looking after the health of the Myanmar people—and we all know the events of the last couple of weeks will not have helped what is going on over there.

There we ran across the former member for Page, Janelle Saffin, in Myanmar. She was doing a tremendous job. Aung San Suu Kyi is now the new leader of Myanmar, and Janelle is doing a fantastic job. I would like to thank her for her support on this issue. Thank you very much.

Ross Hart (Bass, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the motion moved by the member for Moreton and I thank him for bringing to the attention of the House the important issue of Australia's role in assisting countries to reduce poverty and achieve inclusive prosperity through international aid.

We are living in a world of ever-increasing global inequality, and in fact inequality is worse today than at any time since the 19th century. We know that the richest one per cent of the world's population has more wealth than the rest of the world's population combined. In our region of the Asia Pacific, there are more than 330 million people living in extreme poverty, 1.5 billion without access to safe sanitation and one in seven suffering from malnutrition.

Certainly, Australia has a decent record when it comes to the provision of international aid and assistance to developing nations. The highest ratio of aid-to-gross income—that is, GNI—was 0.48 per cent during the 1967-68 financial year under successive Prime Minsters Holt, McEwen and Gorton. The $5.1 billion spent in 2012 to 2013 represented the peak of Australia's aid in dollar terms—although, in terms of the ratio of aid to GNI, it was well below the levels of the 1960s and the 1970s.

Unfortunately, we've recently seen a weakening of Australia's overseas aid spending with the 2017-18 budget, cutting an additional $303 million over the forward estimates. This brings Australia to its lowest spending on overseas aid as a proportion of gross national income since records were first kept to 0.22 per cent. Nevertheless, Australia is one of 194 countries to have endorsed the agenda for sustainable development, which sets out 17 goals to eliminate poverty, improve health and achieve inclusive economic and social development.

The sustainable development goals—the SDGs—are:

… are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and ensure that all people enjoy peace and prosperity.

They address a range of issues such as poverty, education, gender inequality, health, food security and climate change among several others.

The SDGs call for action by all countries, recognising that ending poverty must be achieved within the context of economic growth and addressing social needs. Adopted at a UN summit in 2014, the SDGs came into force on 1 January 2016, although they are not legally binding on signatory nations. Rather, the expectation is that governments will take ownership and establish national frameworks for the achievement of the 17 goals. This seems reasonable to me. In fact, this is more than reasonable—it seems to me that charting a pathway to the achievement of the SDGs is an obligation which is imposed upon us as a privileged and advanced economy within the community of nations.

Where we have around 766 million people, 380 million of them children, living on less than $2 a day, development assistance is even more important than before. Why shouldn't we, a nation as prosperous as we are, freely commit to the global agenda of tackling inequality? We know that there is significant community support for an increased overseas aid budget and greater assistance to developing nations, with approximately 1.6 million individual Australians donating $1 billion to international aid organisations annually.

Just this last Saturday, I attended a fundraiser for a Tasmanian NGO, the Peter Hewitt Care for Africa Foundation, a small aid organisation based in my electorate, delivering education, health care, clean water and sanitation in the Tarime district in Tanzania. The CEO Diana Butler AM and her dedicated team of volunteers raise tens of thousands of dollars annually to fulfil the organisation's aims of delivering vital aid on the ground in rural Tanzania.

But our contribution shouldn't be primarily charitable from private organisations. We know that our long-term interest as a nation is served by supporting, mentoring and investing in the sustainable development of nations burdened by poverty and disadvantage. There have been over 9,000 public submissions received with regard to the forthcoming foreign policy white paper. This is an overwhelming response that clearly indicates that the great level of community concern with Australia's foreign policy interests, international engagement and commitment to overseas aid. It is in this context of community engagement and concern that I echo the sentiments put forward by the member for Moreton in his motion. I call on the Turnbull government to consider increasing Australia's aid in real terms in the next four years in support of achieving the sustainable development goals.

Warren Entsch (Leichhardt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

  In speaking to this motion I'd like to focus on tuberculosis, which is very much a disease of poverty. As a director of the Global TB Caucus and the Australian convenor for the Global HIV, Malaria and Tuberculosis Caucus, I'm also the co-chair of the Asia Pacific TB Caucus and Australian TB Caucus. Australia's TB Caucus, a cross-party group of 20 parliamentarians, is focused on securing support and expertise to help end tuberculosis as a global epidemic. I would like to acknowledge my Australian caucus co-chair, the Hon. Matt Thistlethwaite.

Tuberculosis is the world's deadliest communicable disease, killing 1.8 million people every year and making another 10.4 million people sick. TB may be under control in Australia, but the situation remains very grim in neighbouring countries. The Asia-Pacific region bears more than 60 per cent of the global burden of tuberculosis. Our nearest neighbour, Papua New Guinea, has one of the highest rates of tuberculosis infection in the world, with 30,000 people newly infected every year, and the island of Daru in the Western Province, which is not far from Cape York in my electorate, has one of the highest rates of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis in the world. There were 19,000 new cases of MDR-TB diagnosed in PNG in 2015. Over the next 35 years, it's predicted that MDR-TB could claim an extra 75 million lives globally, at an economic cost of US$16.7 trillion. These figures are alarming, and the impact on Australia would be absolutely devastating.

Tuberculosis is a very real national security threat to our country, and Australia continues to work with PNG to create better tuberculosis identification and treatment. It also helps to reduce the number of Papua New Guineans travelling to Australia for treatment. There are 30,000 to 50,000 border crossings per year between PNG and the Torres Strait, and there have been a series of contagious disease outbreaks, including MDR-TB. Communities at greatest risk are of course in the Torres Strait, Cape York and further south to my home town of Cairns.

The Cairns based Reef and Rainforest Research Centre, with the support of the Australian government, is continuing to work on the ground in the treaty villages of Western Province to bolster local support for sustainable TB control infrastructure. The RRRC manages the Building Resilience in Treaty Villages project, which aims to establish a platform that will deliver appropriate health services to all PNG communities and give ownership of the tuberculosis solution to locals.    The project involves the recruitment and training of multiskilled community rangers to work in construction, sanitation, first aid and leadership.

Australia's initial investment of $1.8 million in 2014 saw 52 community rangers, including 12 women, trained up in four treaty villages. This resulted in the rangers using their skills to install storage for more than 1.5 million litres of clean fresh water, to build eight new reinforced capped and sealed groundwater wells, to provide emergency medical assistance on more than 100 occasions, including lifesaving first aid, transportation and childbirth support, and to complete a top-down refurbishment of Mabaduan village's hospital outpost. In 2016-17 the project was extended, with an extra $400,000 from the Australian government. Subject to successful completion, we will support its phasing up to reach all 13 treaty villages by 2019-20 and induct another 58 rangers, of whom 18 will be women, giving us a total of 122 rangers.

In a few days I will be travelling to New York to represent Australia as part of the 193 member state General Assembly of the United Nations. While there I will continue to lobby on behalf of the Global Tuberculosis Caucus for a reprioritisation of TB within the global fund and seek a commitment for a significant increase in funding for research into a TB vaccine. I will also be highlighting the work of the national Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine at James Cook University in Cairns, where Professor Louis Schofield, Professor Emma McBryde and Dr Andreas Kupz have recently secured funding to conduct work on developing a TB vaccine and health security in the western Pacific. Thanks to Australian and international investments in research and development, we've come a long way in developing simpler diagnostics and we are well progressed in trialling shorter oral treatments, but there is still much work to be done in developing a new vaccine.

In the time I have left I would like to put on the record my appreciation of the work of the member for Flynn. He mentioned Australian aid. When he was in Vietnam he secured mosquito insecticide nets for a village. He actually put his hand in his pocket, wrote a cheque and bought a net for every single villager during that visit. That made a huge difference to that entire village, and I have got no doubt at all that it will save a lot of lives. I want to publicly acknowledge the member for Flynn for his amazing generosity and compassion.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Bruce.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Hello, Mr Speaker. You wandered in. I thought maybe you didn't trust the member for McEwen to supervise me. It's good to see you here.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't think anyone has ever been thrown out before question time on a Monday. Anyway, you're obviously giving it a try.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to strongly support the motion of the member for Moreton, which acknowledges Australia's role in reducing poverty and increasing prosperity through international aid and development assistance, and recognises that Australian aid improves the lives of millions of people every year. We have seen enormous progress through the benefits of our aid in reducing poverty, hunger and epidemics. We also see in our region the immense and emerging challenges of war and climate change and the increasing challenge of displaced people. Across the Asia-Pacific 330 million people still live in extreme poverty, 1½ billion people lack safe sanitation and one in seven still suffer malnutrition.

Australia has had a very proud history of generous and effective aid. Despite our status as one of the richest countries in the world, it is a matter of great concern to many Australians that our international aid appears to have fallen. Indeed, on many metrics it's reported to be at the lowest level in our history. We are now down at around 20c in every $100 because of the sustained cuts, budget after budget, by this government. We have fallen, shamefully, to 17th out of 29, and trending down, in the OECD. I saw that on the weekend the latest contribution to public policy of the Western Australian Young Liberals—bless them—was to cut foreign aid by half again.

All members in this place would hear widely different views in the community, ranging from the enormous concern—the moral position, if you like—that we should do more to the pragmatic concern that Australia's international standing in the region and the global community and our influence as a middle power does matter. I have also heard from people in my electorate the transactional concerns that we should continue but we should focus only on our direct national, security and economic interests—and I appreciate that. Also there is the view that charity begins at home and that we should cut all or most of our foreign aid. That ranges, to be fair, from a genuine concern or focus on how we have to prioritise our domestic needs to, as I've also heard in my community, some quite mean-spirited views—that we're just pandering to the United Nations.

My view is that international aid must remain a core part of Australia's foreign policy. But there is, indeed, a moral case in a world of increasing inequality—it's not just domestically but around the globe. Who knew: trickle-down economics doesn't just fail here; it fails globally! Humans are literally starving and drowning in our region. Yes, we have enormous needs at home but it cannot be either/or. We can walk and chew gum at the same time, and we should and must continue to do our part to address extreme poverty.

The global standing of Australia also does matter, in my view. We're part of a community of nations. We must maintain and enhance our influence and standing. It does count in international forums. You do have more influence when you're seen to actually care about your neighbours and do your bit. Labor, of course, has always believed in good international citizenship and believes our generosity in times of need—perhaps, most recently, in a very stark way, the Indonesian tsunami—is noticed and remembered. Yes, economic opportunities can arise from our aid. Our education and skills build credibility and trust for future business.

I'd also point out that we have enormous direct national interest in a stable and peaceful region. Prosperity and development does matter. The security of our neighbours is enhanced through economic development. Also, in a very mercenary way, frankly, it's cheaper to invest in aid and development than to deal with failed states in our region—vastly cheaper, as any Treasury official would quietly admit to you. We've heard of terrorism growing in the region. It is undeniably a fact that failed states and states experiencing gross inequality and poverty are the primary breeding grounds for terrorism.

In closing, I mention that, in June, I was a guest of The Global Fund in Thailand and Myanmar. I travelled with a number of members of the House and was privileged to witness firsthand Australia's contribution and the work on the ground in addressing tuberculosis, malaria and HIV prevention in the region. As well as the moral case, the health case, we have enormous national interest in helping to address the rise of drug-resistant tuberculosis and drug-resistant malaria in our region. This stuff sitting in PNG can come directly into Australia through our northern border. In that context, it was devastating to hear, particularly from our friends in Myanmar, of the impact of 40 to 50 per cent cuts in the last couple of budgets to such small programs that affect public health. Indeed, the phrase 'was aid' was bandied around quite commonly in the meetings we had. I endorse the member for Moreton's motion.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.