David Fawcett (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Back, I present the report of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade Legislation Committee on the International Aid (Promoting Gender Equality) Bill 2015, together with the Hansard record of proceedings and documents presented to the committee.

Ordered that the report be printed.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the report.

Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just wish to speak briefly to this report of the inquiry into the International Aid (Promoting Gender Equality) Bill 2015. I certainly thank the secretariat for preparing a comprehensive and very useful report on this important issue. While the Labor Party cannot support the bill, for the reasons explained in the report, I do acknowledge Senator Rhiannon for bringing the bill to the parliament, which has given the Senate another opportunity to look in detail at the actual implementation of the government's aid framework, which includes, as one of its priorities, investment in gender equality and empowering women and girls.

The bill proposes new legislation similar to that implemented in 2014 in United Kingdom. However, as was pointed out by most submissions, the UK's gender equality act was additional to an already well-established legislative framework that governs overseas development aid. We do not have that overarching legislative framework in Australia, although the inquiry raised the issue of whether or not that is something that Australia should contemplate. I note that most of the submissions to the inquiry supported a legislative approach to ODA, although a number of submitters pointed out some problems with the bill that have been traversed in the report, as I said.

There was no disagreement between committee members about a bipartisan commitment to focusing on gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in Australia's overseas development aid program. The importance of addressing gender equality as a development goal, in and of itself, is well known—as is the fact that gender equality is a precursor to eliminating poverty. And those facts were well supported once again by the evidence given to this inquiry and to many other inquiries undertaken by this parliament into the effectiveness of aid. I note that the role of gender and development has been covered extensively in an inquiry into the human rights of women and girls in the Asia-Pacific region currently being undertaken by the Human Rights Subcommittee of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade.

There is agreement within Australia's parliament and within government, and there is agreement by international organisations, economists, civil society and other stakeholders that women suffer disproportionately from poverty and that aid programs should therefore disproportionately support women. The Millennium Development Goals and the new Sustainable Development Goals will include similar commitments to gender equality.

The Senate committee examining the bill spent some time attempting to find out from DFAT officials how the government's commitments are actually being rolled out. I think it would be fair to say that while the commitment to gender equality and aid is often articulated and repeated, the various reporting and accountability methods that DFAT uses to report on the effectiveness of its programs need to be enhanced if we are to actually discover whether the commitment is being delivered on the ground and is effective. This was highlighted by a number of submitters. For example, Plan Australia noted that DFAT's reporting on gender impacts of Australian aid focused largely on headline figures, such as the number of girls in schools, but only gives a limited picture of the effectiveness of Australian aid in addressing gender inequality. The IWDA noted that the department does not track enough information to actually be able to realise the commitment to gender-equality implementation. DFAT itself struggled to respond when asked how it can substantiate the government's claim that over 50 per cent of Australia's aid budget is spent on initiatives that promote gender equality.

A number of submitters noted that reporting to parliament was inadequate. For example, it was noted that the coalition government no longer prepares a specific aid budget statement as part of the annual budget process. Of course, AusAID is no longer a stand-alone organisation and the aid budget is within DFAT. Submitters suggested that there should be an annual report to the parliament by the minister that can be scrutinised by the public and by the parliament. It was noted that many of DFAT's current reporting mechanisms are not subject to parliamentary and public oversight. For example, AQCs and partner performance assessments are kept confidential, although the cumulative results of those are included in aid program performance reports that can be scrutinised by Senate estimates.

Whilst Senate estimates allows examination of some aspects of the aid budget, many submitters sought more information that would specifically go to aid effectiveness in delivering the goal of gender equality. While the potential cost of that additional reporting was traversed by the inquiry, the committee report and the committee members recognised that the benefits of identifying gender-specific expenditure would outweigh the cost. The committee also said that more publicly available reporting on gender-specific expenditure would assist in better promoting the achievement of Australia's aid programs.

As I said, there are specific matters raised in the report about the technicalities of the bill that makes it problematic, including a lack of definition of gender equality, the threshold amounts for reporting requirements and the lack of overarching legislative frameworks. While the Labor Party does not support the bill, we do of course support the ongoing focus on gender equality in our aid program and we will work to ensure that the focus is translated into real, effective, transparent and accountable outcomes.

Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The inquiry into the Greens' International Aid (Promoting Gender Equality) Bill 2015 was very useful. Some excellent information was presented to us. There were 14 submissions from non-government organisations, as well as from the department. It certainly did highlight the need for legislative change. There was a range of suggestions of how this could be taken forward.

An important aspect of the bill we were looking into is that it requires the minister to report on how funds were spent and how these funds helped to promote gender equality. The need to recalibrate the aid program did come through very strongly. It is recognised internationally that women need to be central to any aid program to help ensure that aid does reach the people that the public expects that it will assist in poverty alleviation.

The Greens put in a dissenting report, because the bulk of the evidence did show that legislative change is needed. I thank all of those organisations that put in their submissions, including ACFID, Plan Australia, IWDA, the Fred Hollows Association, Family Planning, Oxfam, ActionAid and many others. The submissions acknowledged that DFAT already does collect data on gender. However, it is clear that the level of transparency and publicly available information needs to be improved. There was some very interesting evidence about this issue of data, because at the moment it is collected as aggregate data. Aggregate data does not provide the detail required to track gender-equality outcomes and to signpost where greater effort or adjustment is needed. That again underlines why this legislation is needed. That is essentially why we put in the dissenting report.

Some of the recommendations from the submissions were useful. For example, Oxfam put forward that a Commonwealth aid official who proposes to make a decision relating to the provision of humanitarian assistance must, in making that decision, recognise gender differences, inequalities and capacities of those affected by a disaster or emergency and respond to them. ActionAid suggested that measurement is applied consistently to all projects, regardless of organisational partners' own mechanisms and capacities. This was emphasised time and time again—the need to break away from aggregate data and for there to be consistency in the data itself. While we need to improve on how that data is collected, that is not something that should just be left to the department.

The need for these measures to be put into legislation came through time and time again in the submissions. There was a very interesting experience in Britain, where the model for much of this legislation has come from. We will certainly look at how we take this forward, becoming all the more important as the Sustainable Development Goals are brought down. I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted, debate adjourned.