Chris Bowen (Prospect, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I support this motion. Jeffrey Sachs is one of the world’s foremost experts on development issues. His book The End of Poverty is a powerful case for the need for the world to tackle the scourge of poverty. It is worth quoting Mr Sachs at some length. In that book, he wrote:

Traditional societies tend to be strongly differentiated in gender roles, with women almost always getting the short end of the deal.

In settings where the total fertility rate—the average number of children per woman—is typically at least five, and often much higher, women spend most of their adult lives rearing children. Traditionally home bound, women live lives of back breaking labour on the farm, with endless walking to collect fuel wood and water.

Modern economic growth changes this dynamic. Women can avail themselves of urban based employment, leading them ultimately toward social and political empowerment.

One of the stories from The End of Poverty which has stayed with me since I read it last year is the story of the women of Bangladesh. Professor Sachs recounts the story of very long lines of women walking each day to work in the sweatshops of Dhaka, sewing garments for export to the developed world. He points out that, as poor as these working conditions are, they are an improvement on where they have come from. Again, it is useful to quote Professor Sachs. He writes:

These sweatshop jobs are the target of public protests in developed countries. Those protests have helped improve the safety and quality of working conditions. The rich world protesters should support the increased number of jobs albeit under safer working conditions by protesting trade protectionism in their own countries that keeps out garment exports from countries such as Bangladesh.

Of course, each of the Millennium Development Goals is designed to improve the lives of men and women throughout the world. Two Millennium Development Goals apply to women specifically: to eliminate gender disparity in primary and secondary education, preferably by 2005, and in all levels of public education no later than 2015; and to reduce the maternal mortality rate by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015. Of course, the most high-profile Millennium Development Goals are to halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people whose income is less than $1 a day and to halve between 1990 and 2015 the proportion of people who suffer from hunger.

The principles enunciated in the motion moved by the honourable member for Ryan are laudatory. I would, however, sound two notes of caution. The first one is that, I believe, the motion is perhaps overoptimistic. To read this motion you would perhaps think that the Millennium Development Goals have already been achieved or are well on the way to being achieved. They are not. Progress has been made, but the jury is still very much out on whether the MDGs will be achieved by 2015. It is not too late for them to be achieved but, in my view, if we continue with the current rate of progress they will not be achieved by 2015. This leads to my second criticism of the motion. The MDGs will not be achieved unless both developed and undeveloped countries lift their game. The goals will not be achieved unless developed countries increase their aid budgets.

In 1996 Australia’s rate of foreign aid was 0.32 per cent of gross national income. This was not high enough. But in 2006 it is estimated that our foreign aid will come out at 0.28 per cent of gross national income. We are now rated 13th out of 22 nations in the OECD. It is worth noting that in 1966 Australia’s foreign aid was 0.56 per cent of national income. Over the last 40 years, we have come close to halving our foreign aid as a percentage of our national income.

To achieve the Millennium Development Goals, every developed nation will need to increase its rate of foreign aid. Let me return to Professor Sachs, who is the head of the United Nations Millennium Project. Recently he has had something to say about Australia’s foreign aid level. On 23 September 2005, the Australian Financial Review reported his remarks as follows:

Along with the United States, Professor Sachs suggested ‘the Howard government is not very keen on [the millennium goals] it seems ... I find it regrettable as both governments signed on to them quite clearly.’

He went on to say that Australia is one of the few nations in the world not to have outlined a specific plan about Australia’s contribution to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and increasing our foreign aid budgets. (Time expired)

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