Jim Molan (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the subject of the Official Development Assistance Multilateral Replenishment Obligations (Special Appropriation) Bill 2019. I join with many of the other senators who have spoken before me to support the bill. I particularly welcome the $350 million, which is the average annual amount of money that Australia provides to the multilateral bodies which have been mentioned by a number of speakers. I also point out that this is not all Australia does in many, many countries overseas and through many multilateral organisations.

I note the desire by Rotary and UNICEF to celebrate in 2021 the 100 years of Rotary's presence in Australia and New Zealand by providing a boost to the level of inoculations of nine South Pacific countries. Although people may complain about the level of foreign aid in a country such as Australia and people may focus on certain aspects of foreign aid which they don't believe in, Australia is a generous nation and does an awful lot in helping its neighbours, not just through assisting multilateral organisations but very much through individual community based bodies.

Senator Wong made reference to 'Sky after dark'. I'm a proud member of the association of 'Sky after dark'. If I remember rightly, I was on late last night and it was dark, which is always a lot better than 'Guardian by day and night', I must admit. The ideas I hear on Sky after six o'clock or 5.30 these days are, in my humble view, a lot more substantial than many of the ideas that I read in The Guardian. But that doesn't go, of course, to the purpose of this bill.

The purpose of this bill is to appropriate money from the consolidated revenue fund, to meet Australia's existing and future obligations for the following multinational organisations. It's important to list them, because too easily we can be diverted from understanding where this money goes and the value to the international community that this money has. These are the World Bank's International Development Association; the World bank's debt relief schemes, including the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative; the Asian Development Bank's Asian Development Fund; the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund; and the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol. These bodies are not perfect. We recognise that. To think that they are perfect is to deny the obvious, but, even though they're imperfect, we in this government support them. We support them because these organisations, as Senator Van explained, bring financial resources, policy influence and convening power that complement and enhance Australia's bilateral programs and leverage financial resources, expertise, geographic reach and influence in order to achieve greater development outcomes.

Through its membership in these institutions, Australia is legislatively required to form a commitment and replenish our financial contributions as required according to the membership arrangements for each organisation. The special appropriation is included in a bill, as I am discovering at the moment, when it's desired to provide for an automatic authority to pay funds where an entitlement exists. The Social Security (Administration) Act 1999, for example, contained several special appropriations to make social security payments. The Minister for Finance must be consulted on any bill containing a special appropriation, and a message from the Governor-General is required for bills containing special appropriations.

Why do we need a special appropriation? We need it because historically the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade—and formerly, several years ago, AusAID—was able to retain the full value of the appropriation required from the year that the new replenishment obligation was signed through the section 11 retention administered appropriations process. But, with the repealing of the 2014 annual appropriations acts 1 and 2 and the inclusion of an automatic repeal clause from 2014-15 in the annual appropriations acts, government agencies are no longer able to retain annual appropriations across financial years. The result has been that the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is no longer able to retain the full value of its multi-year commitments and so cannot fund its contributions to the organisations I mentioned before that are covered by this bill.

So let's look at an example. New commitments signed with the International Development Association in 2013-14, for example, for $100 million are to be paid over a nine-year period from 2014-15. The full value of the appropriation would have previously been included in the 2013-14 appropriations acts, retained or held by Foreign Affairs and Trade and then drawn down over the nine-year period. With the new automatic repealing clause, we no longer have access to the funds that were appropriated in 2013-14 from 2016-17. As such, DFAT is unable to meet the commitment for this replenishment without a special appropriation. Consistent with our membership arrangements for these organisations, Australia pledges to replenish our financial contribution every three or four years with payments being made over a three- to 10-year period. On average we are paying out $350 million annually to these commitments. I stress that this is not new or additional money. The funds to meet the commitments authorised by this bill will come from within the agreed Official Development Assistance budget.

The implied question from many of the other speakers was: why do we provide funds to such bodies? Australia joined the Word Bank Group in 1947, for example, and became a member of the World Bank's International Development Association in 1960. The IDA, or International Development Association, operates the largest pool of concessional finance in the world. It provides grants, technical expertise and concessional loans to promote growth and reduce poverty in the world's poorest and most vulnerable countries. The Treasurer, of course, as was pointed out by Senator Van, is on the board of governors. Australia's contribution has supported 1.5 million new labour market programs across the world, including 3,500 young people to complete job-ready training and enter the workforce.

The debt relief schemes managed by the World Bank, which are the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative and the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative, provide debt relief to eligible poor countries. In 2005, the Howard government made a 40-year commitment to support this fund. Between 2001 and 2015, the average decline in crippling debt in eligible countries fell by 1.5 per cent of GDP, freeing up local government spending on health and education and reducing local reliance on foreign aid. Australia joined the Asian Development Bank in 1966 and the Asian Development Fund in 1973. Australia's contribution to the fund, managed by the bank—of which the Treasurer, again, is on the board of governors—provides grants to developing countries that are at moderate to high risk of debt distress to promote poverty reduction and accelerate development in the poorer countries of Asia and the Pacific. Australia's contributions have assisted in lifting 16 million people out of poverty and have improved economic growth in recipient nations.

What about the World Bank's International Development Association? We've been providing support to the Global Environment Facility Trust Fund since its inception in October 1991. Our contributions have assisted the protection of over 350 million hectares of seascapes and ocean life and supported the phase-out of over 29,000 tonnes of ozone and the safe disposal of 200,000 tonnes of chemicals, including in the Pacific. The fund's work has supported a 60 per cent increase in tuna stocks in the Pacific. Australia's contribution to the Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol assists developing countries to phase out ozone-depleting substances. Collective action through this fund has seen over 215,000 tonnes of ozone-depleting substances eliminated since 1991.

Not only by means of this bill but also through community development aid and community actions. such as those I mentioned before, referring to Rotary's 100-year celebration in 2021, in line with UNICEF, we—Australia and the Morrison government—are an active member of the community of nations and proud of it.