Sue Boyce (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

World Water Week will be celebrated this year from 17 to 21 March, culminating in World Water Day on 21 March. It will be used by WaterAid Australia for its major fundraiser for the year, Walk 4 Water. Walk 4 Water involves participants, including me, committing to walking 10,000 steps a day for five days. Ten thousand steps, I am reliably told, is eight kilometres. I would rather someone had not worked that out for me, because 10,000 steps sounds okay, but eight kilometres a day sounds a lot more. Members may be interested to know that it is not a difficult thing to do if you are in parliament while it is happening. We often walk that many steps in a day. So perhaps we should all start wearing pedometers!

Ten thousand steps a day has been chosen as the figure that people involved in this fundraising campaign will walk because it is the average distance that is covered by people in the developing world to reach water daily. According to the latest estimates from WHO and UNICEF, who have a joint monitoring program for water supply and sanitation, 36 per cent of the world's population—that is, 2½ billion people—are without decent sanitation facilities, and 768 million people still use unsafe drinking-water sources.

I particularly focus on the water and sanitation needs of the developing world in International Women's Week because, whilst in Australia we simply take fresh, drinkable water and decent sanitation for granted, that is not the case in many developing countries—and, in the majority of cases, it is the duty of the women and girls to obtain drinking water every day for their families. That role puts them in danger, and it also causes them disadvantage. When you think about having to walk eight kilometres a day in rough terrain and often in isolated places, getting the water deprives the women and girls of the time to earn a living or the time to get an education. It also exposes them to the risk of physical attacks, including rape and, in some cases, murder. As well, on average women in Africa and Asia carry an average of about 20 kilograms of water daily—the same weight, roughly, as a car tyre. It is interesting when you look at the situation in Australia, where workplace health and safety regulations say that even a well-nourished male worker must assess the risks in lifting any weight at all, let alone allowing a child to lift 20 kilograms daily.

One of the cases mentioned on the Walk 4 Water website—which I would certainly recommend to everyone—is that of an 11-year-old girl called Lala in Madagascar. She is the eldest of seven children, and it has been her job since she was four to go and get the water for her family twice a day. She talks about how it would be good—and how she cannot imagine what it must be like—to be able to turn on a tap and see water and have what she calls 'a clean of teeth, a shower and a wash of clothes'. But she has the job of walking every day, twice a day, to get the water. The water she collects comes from muddy potholes. At the age of 11 she walks four miles through the searing heat to get dirty water, and four miles back. Consequently, she does not go to school, and her dreams of a better life are much reduced by that.

As I mentioned earlier, Lala is one of the 768 million people throughout the world who are still without a safe water supply. UNICEF's latest progress report against the Millennium Development Goals on sanitation and drinking water are a mixed bag. Drinking-water coverage remains at 89 per cent, which is at least one per cent above the Millennium Development Goal for safe drinking water, but sanitation coverage is 64 per cent, which is well below next year's Millennium Development Goal of 75 per cent.

One of the big risks posed by poor sanitation is that in some places defecation occurs near the drinking water and this contaminates supplies. So, even though you might have an apparently safe source of drinking water, the fact that the sanitation has not been fixed causes contamination of that water. Through the WASH program—'WASH' stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene—about 106 million people gained access to improved sanitation in 2012. That is the highest number they have achieved. This is coming about through a new program called Community Approaches to Total Sanitation. The program is building toilets and encouraging households to purchase their own toilets. Often there are long-held cultural habits that need to be broken. People need to know the dangers of poor sanitation. The sorts of toilets that are being built are often simple earth closets. I imagine that the vast majority of people in the developing world do not realise that, with our flush toilets, we throw potable water, quite literally, down the sewer. They would be shocked at the way we waste good water. They would be amazed.

WASH operates in 27 countries in Africa, Asia, Central America and the Pacific. Since 1981, WaterAid has provided 19.2 million people with safe water. Unfortunately, the numbers for sanitation are good but not as high as the numbers for safe water. Since 2004, 15.1 million people have received improved sanitation. I am particularly keen to support the work of WaterAid because it is a very realistic program that meets real needs. It works with local partners, who understand local issues, and it works to build skills and support for people in the areas where it works.

I think it is fantastic that we have programs to improve people's health through medication, vaccinations and immunisation. But it does not matter how much money we spend in those areas if we do not ensure that people have safe drinking water and reliable, decent sanitation. So I am very keen to be involved in something that I think is a very practical way of reducing poverty and improving lives, particularly the lives of women and children who no longer have to go those long distances. Those women and children can now realistically look at going to school, setting up their own small businesses at home or having some other source of income. So I am encouraging everyone here, and, hopefully, everyone listening, to sign up for Walk 4 Water. So far, 527 Australians have done so. You simply go to the web site www.walk4water.com.au and sign up. You get a pedometer and then you set out to walk 10,000 steps a day. I first did this last year and found myself at 11 o'clock on the night of 21 March sauntering up and down my verandah trying to make sure I did my last lot of 10,000 steps. I will be better organised this year and make sure that I fit them in right through the day. You can do it by walking to walk, taking the stairs instead of the lift, or by getting together with some friends and making life easier by walking the 10,000 steps together. There is the other health benefit of walking 10,000 steps a day. Mr President is looking very keen on that idea!

I note that 78c of every dollar that WaterAid raises through this program goes directly to the international projects to improve the sanitation and water availability in the developing world. So, whilst I will be setting out to do 10,000 steps, I would like to encourage as many other people as possible to do 10,000 steps or donate to others, such as me, who are setting out to do so.

Senate adjourned at 19:20