Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the beginning of this month, I was fortunate enough to be in Sri Lanka in Colombo for the 27th Asian Forum of Parliamentarians on Population and Development. This particular meeting was focused on the growth of the world population, as we move to the figure of seven billion bodies on our planet. The meeting coincided with the release of the latest 2010 revision of world population prospects, the official United Nations population projections prepared by the population division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, which drew the attention of the world to the growth of our population and future expectations. The projections pointed out clearly that we will this year have a world population of seven billion and they traced the history, showing how long it has taken to reach these levels and showing the acceleration which has occurred during the past centuries.

World population is projected to cross the seven billion mark very soon, the eight billion mark in 2028 and the nine billion mark in 2054. It is expected to stabilise at just over 10 billion after 2200. It has taken just 12 years for the world to add the most recent billion to our population. That is the shortest period in time in world history for a billion people to be added to the population. And the stats—and I am not normally a statistical person—give us some sense of the growth rate.

World population did not reach one billion until 1804. It took 123 years to reach two billion in 1927, 33 years to reach three billion in 1960, 14 years to reach four billion in 1974 and 13 years to reach five billion in 1987. You can see where the projections are going. This is something which we believe the world should think about and acknowledge and we believe we need to look at how we move forward.

The 27th conference was opened by Mr Fukuda, the previous Prime Minister of Japan, who has been a strong supporter of the issues around world population. Mr Fukuda talked about the fact that activity by international parliamentarians in population and development started in Colombo in 1979 with the first international conference of parliamentarians on population and develop­ment. We have a record of that meeting, which shows that the countries across our area, particularly those of the Asia-Pacific and including Australia, gathered at there. The successful outcome of the Colombo conference led to the Asian Conference of Parliamentarians on Population and Development, which took place in Beijing in 1981. It was there that the following really important principle was adopted:

The population issue cannot be forced. The issue cannot be resolved unless members of parliament who represent our people play our roles.

Mr Fukuda then took us to a wider discussion about what we needed to do to take action. He said:

First, we should have a clear vision as to how we can achieve sustainable development—

and that the important aspect is—

... to come to grips with the issues facing us from a long-term and panoramic perspective. We must understand that the issue of population is inseparable from such ... issues as food security, the environment, energy, and water.

That set out the program of the people we met at the conference, the key papers that were presented. They looked at those issues about which we talk so often in this place: sustainability, food security and effective aid development processes where we, as donor countries, can work effectively with people with strong aid and development programs.

It was a wonderful moment when we could talk about the Australian aid program, the recent review and the way that the review of our aid program is looking towards a future where the issues of sustainability, environment and population are indeed key to our future aid development, which is of course linked to the Millennium Develop­ment Goals. The second aim of the conference was the need:

... to reaffirm that without resolving population issues there cannot be sustainable development. To achieve that result, we must bring to mind our Cairo Agreement and achieve universal access to reproductive health services. This is the first step for poor people to realise a decent life as human beings—

and that is in clear compliance with the Millennium Development Goals which the United Nations has confirmed.

The third aspect was to:

... find ways to harmonise economic growth with sustainable development.

That looks at working with countries. We have been most privileged today in this place to have an opportunity to meet the leaders of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank to look at how we can achieve economic development in our region that must be linked to sustainable development and engagement with population.

Achieving the process will not be easy, but members of parliament have a responsibility. Since the Cairo declaration we have agreed that together we can work to make a change and to ensure that the issues of population are clearly on the agenda. Indeed, when we have these meetings there is sometimes a view that it is just a matter of sharing knowledge and having a talk. That is just not true. There has always been a statement of commitment and action coming out of the meetings. The 27th meeting came up with a public declaration, which is available on the internet, to which every parliamentarian from the 15 countries represented made a commitment to adhere. We talked about the issues of the 30th year of activity around the AFPPD and how we now have a body of knowledge which we can look back and learn from and in which we can trace the progress.

Also as parliamentarians we committed to a range of actions. The focus of this meeting is that we are elected representatives without any particular party allegiance who come together to look at the issues around population leading to a range of actions. We strongly advocate among our fellow parlia­mentarians, the media and other stakeholders because our deep concern is that inter­national interest in the impact and consequences of the ever-growing world population has been waning. There is a concern among parliamentary groups that, while there is acknowledgement that issues around sustainable development and economic development are clearly on the agenda, there has been, we believe, some waning of the acknowledgement of the role of population growth in that process. It is our job, as people who feel this is important, to keep this on the agenda and to keep talking about it. In fact, one of the key actions is that we expect parliamentarians who have the great fortune and honour to attend these meetings of the UN and the Asian Forum on Population and Development to go back to our parliaments and continue to talk about these issues, keep them on the agenda. That is why I have made a range of speeches on these issues. I hope to continue to do so.

We also as parliamentarians request international aid agencies to provide parliamentarians with evidence based tools to advocate to the public, both in developed and developing countries, about the impact of growing world population on the earth's future. And we expect that Australia, as a donor nation which has a strong and proud history of the work that we do, will acknowledge the issues of population and work with the countries with which we are engaged on intercountry aid development—that we look at the issues of population in discussions with governments about the development of multilateral trade agreements and in working with NGOs.

We confirmed the importance of advocacy activities in maintaining and augmenting aid budgets in developed countries and requested donor organisations to implement them effectively. Indeed, what we have been doing in the past weeks is looking at the way aid is developed, how we actually work with countries to ensure that we are not imposing ideas from outside, no matter how good they may seem to us, but working with the countries themselves to see that there is a joint commitment and understanding of the issues. When you sit around the table at these international meetings and hear stories from parliamentarians from other countries, you know that they understand the threat to their nations. They understand sustainability. They want to work with us so that we can have an effective, developed process between us.

We must work with international agencies to share with parliamentarians concrete examples of good practice, cost-effectiveness and socioeconomic impact on the community so that we can cooperate in advocacy activities. Most importantly, we reaffirmed the spirit of the 1979 Colombo Declaration on Population and Development and the important role that parliamentarians have to play in population and development issues.