Lisa Singh (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I rise this evening on behalf of the three million men, women and children who are killed each year by AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. I do so by supporting very strongly the determination of RESULTS International, particularly its Tasmanian volunteers with whom I have been engaging very closely on this and other issues related to their organisation's efforts to end poverty. I want to highlight that next week Australia will host the International AIDS Conference in Melbourne between 20 and 25 July. That will be an ideal opportunity for the government to seriously consider providing an additional $125 million to replenish the Global Fund—much needed international development assistance to the Global Fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria.

An extra incentive for Australia to provide additional resources to the Global Fund is that Australia is a voice on the board of the Global Fund for continued investment in the Asia-Pacific region. From 2004 to 2013, Australia contributed $400 million to the Global Fund and in this period the Global Fund invested $4 billion in the Asia-Pacific, emphasising the Global Fund's importance for our region. Pledges to the Global Fund at the pledging conference in December 2013 and contributions that several donors have announced since December have provided the Global Fund with a total of US$12.2 billion for the 2014 to 2016 period. However, these pledges represent a shortfall of US$2.8 billion over three years from the US$15 billion the Global Fund had been seeking to meet its demand.

Results International have advocated strongly that an additional contribution of $125 million to the Global Fund, by the Australian government, which would take Australia's total contribution over three years to $325 million, is much needed. The impact of an additional contribution by Australia to the Global Fund could be multiplied up to 10 times in the Asia-Pacific region. Under Labor, Australia's contribution to official development assistance grew with every budget. In 2006-07 the Australian government invested $2.9 billion and by 2013-14 that amount had almost doubled to $5.7 billion. The Global Fund is working to eventually eradicate deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Therefore, an increased investment in the period 2014 to 2016 is crucial to accelerate progress in reducing the death toll from these diseases.

Part of the Howard government's pledge to the Millennium Development Goals was its commitment to a time line for Australia to contribute 0.5 per cent of its gross national income to overseas aid. Labor honoured that commitment. However, two days before the September election, the then Abbott opposition announced it would dishonour that commitment. The following examples show the impact of the scale-up in detection and treatment of AIDS, TB and Malaria by the Global Fund and other donors: between 2002 and 2012, the number of people on antiretroviral therapy, ART, to treat HIV and AIDS had increased from 200,000 to almost 10 million; the number of deaths from TB has declined by 40 per cent since 2000, due to advances in both detection and treatment of TB; since 2000, the proportion of African households which have an insecticide treated bed net to protect them from mosquitoes carrying malaria has increased from three per cent to 53 per cent and the number of deaths from malaria has fallen by 33 per cent.

In the Asia-Pacific region, the Global Fund has supported the following outcomes:    38 million people treated and

counselled for HIV and AIDS; 5.1 million people tested and treated for tuberculosis; 29 million insecticide treated bed nets distributed to combat malaria; and    7.4 million health and community workers trained. Nevertheless, the three diseases continue to have a significant impact in the Asia-Pacific region, as the most recent figures from 2009 demonstrate. The 35 countries in the Global Fund's Asia region were home to five million people living with HIV; the Asia region accounted for 8.5 million cases of TB, 60 per cent of the estimated global total; the region also includes half of the 22 high-TB-burden countries; there were 131 million suspected malaria cases in the 35 countries of the Asia region, more than half of the global total.

The Abbott government's $7.6 billion cut in foreign aid will not provide 1.5 billion lifesaving malaria treatments. It cannot deliver antiretroviral treatments for 10 million people with HIV and AIDS. HIV and AIDS is still a disease with no cure and remains a global epidemic, often forgotten in the western world. As Australians, we must work towards an international dialogue on the prevention of HIVAIDS. That is why this international AIDS conference, which is being held in Melbourne next week, is so important.

The International AIDS Conference is a fantastic opportunity for Australia to develop prevention policies and engage with experts in policy and science. That is exactly what we need to do as members of parliament as well. I take the opportunity to thank Senator Dean Smith, who I recently joined in becoming co-chair of the parliamentary group for HIV and AIDS, for his knowledge and input into issues around HIV and AIDS to do with the upcoming conference, which we both hope to attend.

It is particularly important that we update Australia's HIV policy within our aid program to include TB-HIV integration as recommended by the World Health Organisation. This is because TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV, causing one in five HIV-related deaths. TB is the most common presenting illness among people living with HIV, including those who are taking antiretroviral treatment. At least one-third of the 34 million people living with HIV are infected with latent TB. As the host of the International AIDS Conference 2014 and in the light of the international community's consideration of setting goals looking to end the death toll from AIDS, TB and Malaria, Australia has an opportunity to display strong leadership by announcing a supplementary pledge to the Global Fund.

Achieving these goals will undoubtedly require an increased investment now, to make prevention and treatment available to all people who need it, and to improve the present screening methods and medication, especially for TB. The government has the chance at this international AIDS conference to earn back some of its global respect that it has lost—of course, the respect that it has lost not only in this policy area but also in other policy areas, such as climate change that we were debating earlier in this place. The government has this opportunity to earn back that respect by making a clear commitment to the international community that it recognises a great need, and it wants to help. I am pleased that Australia is hosting this international AIDS conference in Melbourne next week. It will be an opportunity for Australia to highlight its efforts towards HIV and AIDS. It will also be an opportunity for us to make a pledge that we can do more and should do more, as we did under Labor and as has not, unfortunately, been honoured under this government. This is an opportunity for them to reverse that. Let us hope they do this at this HIV-AIDS international conference in Melbourne.