Brett Mason (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

This afternoon I want to mention three things briefly: firstly, the difference that the major parties in this place have in dealing with poverty and the challenge of poverty; secondly, the lessons we have learned over the last 20 years in fighting poverty; and, finally, what the government has done to meet that challenge.

When I first read the wording of the issue we are discussing today, I thought that the three parties of the Left—the Greens, the Democrats and the Labor Party—were concerned about poverty, as they should be, as we all should be. Parties of the Left tend to believe that welfare is the answer to poverty, that individuals need to be rescued from poverty by government, and that more welfare means less poverty. Liberal and conservative parties do not agree with that. We argue that individuals need a hand up, not a hand-out. We believe that what the vast majority of individuals need is opportunity, and that that is far more important than welfare. Welfare of itself will never break the poverty cycle. Sure, welfare can be used in the short term to alleviate poverty, but it is not the answer.

What have we learned over the last generation about the challenge of poverty? Let me give a few examples from the Third World. Sir Bob Geldof and Bono were serenading the poor in Live Aid and Live 8. That was important, and they raised a lot of money to fight poverty. But that is absolutely nothing compared to the transfer of wealth to the Third World that has come about by the freeing of trade with the Third World. All those awful bureaucrats, diplomats and politicians demanding free trade have done more for the Third World than all the aid ever raised by Bob Geldof or Bono—much, much more. They have given access. The Third World countries have access to First World markets and can sell their products. We never hear about that. The Left never thank the government for freeing up trade and allowing developing countries to trade with the First World and therefore opening up our markets so that people living in the Third World have opportunity. It is not aid but trade that is rescuing the Third World. That is a very important message from our side of politics—a message that somehow seems to get lost in all the sanctimonious concern from the Left.

Just a couple of weeks ago, the new Nobel laureate for peace, Professor Muhammad Yunus, spoke about developing microcredit. That system gives a small amount of money to individuals in Bangladesh to open up businesses—for people to become small business men. It is not welfare. Welfare never rescued people in Bangladesh from poverty. What did is giving people money to create their own opportunities. For that reason, Professor Yunus was recently awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace. The other day a commentator described microcredit as the single most important development in the Third World in the last 100 years—giving individuals the opportunity to make a living for themselves and their families. It is pretty simple stuff: a mixture of capitalism and social responsibility has done far more to deliver people from poverty than all the aid in the world ever has.

Let me give another example—Indigenous Australians. I can remember 20 years ago being denounced as a racist because I thought that perhaps we should restructure welfare to Indigenous Australians. But Noel Pearson told the truth, didn’t he? He said that sit down money, welfare for no work at all, is a drip that is killing Indigenous Australians—that it is the financial equivalent of petrol sniffing. The drip—drug abuse and welfare without work—is killing Indigenous Australians. Again, we had to readjust policy to make connection with Indigenous Australians and to fight poverty. Noel Pearson got it right. You do not fight poverty among Aboriginal communities by giving welfare. Sit down money destroys communities; it does not build them.

And what have we learned among non-Indigenous Australians? We have learned that a job is the best way to alleviate poverty. As Senator Minchin so eloquently said today during question time, a strong economy and job growth have alleviated more poverty for more people in this country than ever before in its history. He said also that real spending on welfare has gone up by 35 per cent. There has been a great growth in private philanthropy, which has doubled in 10 years.

There are those people on the Left who say, ‘The rich are getting richer.’ That might be right, but just because the rich get richer does not mean the poor get poorer. In the last 10 years, wealth has gone up 22 per cent in low-income households and only 14 per cent in high-income households. Over the last 15 years, Australia has gone from 19th to eighth on GDP per capita—enormous growth in the Australian economy over the last 15 years.

Perhaps the most sophisticated assessment of living standards in the world is what the United Nations calls the Human Development Index. This is an index of national wealth, health, education, welfare and lifestyle. Do you know what the United Nations’s Human Development Index says about Australia, Mr Deputy President? There are 177 nations on earth that are assessed according to the United Nations’s Human Development Index. And guess where Australia falls? It is third in the world out of 177 nations.

The economy in this country has more than doubled over the last eight years. More people have more wealth to spend the way they want than ever in our history. Sure, poverty is a problem; there is no question that poverty is a problem in this country. The difference between our party and the Labor Party, between the government and the opposition, is that we believe the way to tackle poverty—except for those people who really, really cannot look after themselves—is by giving people opportunity, not welfare, and by allowing people to build their own businesses, get jobs and get educated. The last thing we want is a return to the 1970s mentality of government as a bottomless pit to pay poor people off. This patronising attitude that somehow all Australians need government welfare, that we should all be on the teat of the government, is wrong. It is patronising and destroys communities.

Finally, poverty, both nationally and globally, is a huge issue—we all acknowledge that. I know other speakers today do not take this issue lightly. Senator Evans is right to say that there are still pockets of shocking poverty in this country, and we should never look beyond that. But the great achievement of this government, of the Howard government, is that more people have been pulled from disadvantage than ever before in history. More people have been pulled out of poverty by freer trade over the last 10 years than ever in the course of human history. Two hundred million Chinese have been pulled out of poverty in the last 10 years by freer trade. Not by welfare, not by government action, but by freer trade. This is the greatest movement of people out of poverty in the history of mankind. Why? Because of freer trade, and that is what separates Liberal conservatives from the Left.