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

I rise tonight to share my recent visit to India where, with my colleagues Chris Bowen, Penny Wong and Gai Brodtmann, I attended the inaugural Australia India Leadership Dialogue in New Delhi as part of a high-level delegation which included cabinet ministers, bureaucrats, members of parliament and people from business, industry, education and media to discuss future prospects for the Australia-India relationship and how it can be further strengthened. Whilst the dialogue's discussions covered a host of issues, members of parliament from both countries, including Ministers Robb and Brandis, as well as Minister Sinha, the Minister of State for Finance in Prime Minister Modi's government, agreed there is strong bipartisan support for stronger Australia-India relations into the future.

My experience at the dialogue confirmed that there are many shared interests between Australia and India in the Indo-Pacific and strong and enduring people-to-people links. There is also a wealth of opportunity in the Indian government's commitment to tackling climate change and increasing renewable energy, and enormous potential for our relationship to strengthen in renewable technologies and other climate projects. I want to thank the Australia India Institute, particularly its honorary director, Amitabh Mattoo, and director, Craig Jeffrey, for all their work in delivering such an interesting and informative dialogue.

I was also fortunate to visit Mumbai and extend my work on behalf of the Asia Pacific TB Caucus. The caucus, formed recently in August in Sydney, is a gathering of regional parliamentarians who have vowed to take action both collectively and individually to drive progress against tuberculosis by working with national parliaments, as well as regional and global organisations, to build support for necessary policies and to mobilise resources to more effectively tackle this disease.

Target 6.C of the Millennium Development Goals aims to halt and begin to reverse the incidence of TB by the end of this year. There have been some remarkable achievements over the past decade. Since 2000, TB treatment has saved nearly 37 million lives, and the UN is backing up target 6.C with its Sustainable Development Goal 3.3 to end the epidemic of TB by 2030. But prevalence and mortality rates are falling very slowly. At current rates the TB epidemic will be controlled by 2180 at the earliest. India has an estimated two million cases of TB annually—the highest in the world—with 300,000 people dying each year, according to the World Health Organization.

Whilst in Mumbai I visited Dharavi, reputedly the world's largest slum with an estimated population between 700,000 and one million people, with hardworking representatives from the Society for Nutrition, Education and Health Action, or SNEHA. SNEHA is a secular NGO dedicated to investing in women's health as an essential element to building liveable urban communities by targeting four large public health areas: maternal and newborn health, child health and nutrition, sexual and reproductive health, and prevention of violence against women and children. I also was able to visit the Shivaji Nagar slum communities around the Deonar dumping ground, Mumbai's oldest and largest rubbish disposal area, alongside the dedicated employees from Apnalaya, another NGO founded some 42 years ago by former Australian Consul General Tom Holland. I visited a childcare centre there that has been formed to provide learning services to children living at Rafi Nagar in Govandi. The work of Apnalaya is supported through a direct aid program from the Australian Consulate-General in Mumbai. I inspected a water shop there that provides clean drinking water thanks to the efforts of Apnalaya, Rotary International and the Eureka Forbes International Institute of Environment.

Wherever I went, I saw life and a community doing their best to survive and provide for one another. During discussions with SNEHA about disease prevention and vaccinations, it was clear that there are still suspicions for some communities on cultural, religious or tribal grounds that still have to be overcome. However, those suspicions may be satisfied with the assistance of Indian film icon Mr Amitabh Bachchan, whom I had the incredible good fortune to be introduced to by the Australian Consul-General, Mark Pierce, at Mr Bachchan's home residence in Mumbai—an incredible highlight of my trip. During my discussions with him I outlined the plans by parliamentarians to mobilise support for the eradication of TB and drew attention to programs against TB in the Asia-Pacific, as well as to the work of the Global Fund to fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Mr Bachchan knows too well the detrimental effect of contracting TB as he himself is a TB survivor, having endured eight months of treatment for TB at the base of his spine.

There is a common assumption made that TB is a disease largely confined to poorer areas. That is simply not the case, and Mr Bachchan's survivor testimony is especially important in focusing the attention to a wider audience on the threats posed by TB. His own experience has driven him to get involved in antiTB campaigns being extended from the state of Maharashtra to cover the entire country through messages on posters and in television commercials and, with the assistance of the US embassy, generating support and funding from the Indian business community. Mr Bachchan noted how critical it is to ensure full public backing from international organisations. UNICEF had been especially important in this respect to the successful antipolio campaign that Mr Bachchan supported as a UNICEF ambassador and that has led to the eradication of polio in India—an incredible feat. Towards the end of our discussion, Mr Bachchan very kindly offered his support for antiTB campaigns in our Asia-Pacific region, saying he was more than ready to bring his two big assets to bear in a campaign: his face and his voice. It is likely we will need his help because TB is a clear and present danger to population health in our closest regional neighbours of Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.

According to the Global tuberculosis report 2015, recently released by the World Health Organization, revised estimates for Indonesia of one million new cases a year—double the previous estimate—have caused a severe upward spike to the WHO's global estimates of incident cases compared with those published in 2014. Indonesia now unhappily claims the ownership of 10 per cent of the global total of TB cases.

On behalf of aid and development focused NGOs, like RESULTS Australia, the Global Poverty Project, Micah Challenge and the Oaktree Foundation, I will keep raising the importance of the Australian government fully committing to aid and development funding in this area. Such a commitment will enable diseases in our region, like TB, to be reduced and will allow research on a vaccine to continue so that Sustainable Development Goal No. 3.3 can be achieved and TB, like polio, can be eradicated. That is why the work of the Global Fund in fighting TB in developing countries, including some of Australia's nearest neighbours, is so important. That is why the Australian government's replenishment commitments are so important and why I will continue to urge the government commit to funding the Global Fund.

I look forward to continuing to work with organisations such as UNICEF Australia and RESULTS Australia as part of the Asia Pacific TB Caucus in the vanguard of the regional fight against tuberculosis. There is indeed still so much work to do. Finally, on the eve of Diwali, or Deepavali, the Festival of Lights, I wish all who celebrate the Festival of Lights—good over evil; light over darkness—a Shubh Diwali and happiness into the future.