Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join the chorus of support for this motion and I commend the member for La Trobe and the other speakers for their support of it. Global poverty is the true moral crisis of our age. We have the resources to fix it. The question is: will we? We must deal with the gap in world aid funding and live up to our commitment to the Millennium Development Goals to deliver 0.7 per cent of our gross national income by 2015. I note the comments by the member for Braddon and I agree that we need to do a lot more, but I commend the government for that one item in the budget.

We must continue our program for the relief of developing world debt. We must definitely take major strides towards overcoming the crippling impact of corruption that is stealing the future of developing countries. This must have a far higher priority than it currently does in global institutions. We must understand that making poverty history is not just about turning up to rock concerts, wearing armbands and complaining about our governments. We must accept personal responsibility for the more than one billion people who live on less than $1 a day. We can all give.

We must provide those in developing countries with the tools to take ownership of their future. That is where microcredit has such a significant role to play, as we have heard. As the former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan said:

With access to microfinance … people can take real strides towards breaking the vicious cycle of poverty and vulnerability.

The Asia-Pacific Regional Microcredit Summit in Bali is part of the Microcredit Summit Campaign that is working to ensure some valuable goals in this area. This is a worthy initiative that deserves our support through participation.

Australia has a proud history in the development of microcredit and of microenterprise development more broadly. In 1974, following Cyclone Tracy, David Bussau took a volunteer construction team to Darwin to help rebuild the city. In 1976 David was called upon again to help a small rural village in Indonesia devastated by an earthquake. David took his family to live with the villagers and help rebuild their lives. As he applied traditional solutions—re-establishing water supplies, repairing bridges and roads and rebuilding schools—he gradually realised that sustainable development needed more than just infrastructure. This traditional approach still left poor families trapped in poverty. David’s solution was microfinance and enterprise development.

A struggling Indonesian farmer received the first loan from David. That loan of $50 enabled him to buy a sewing machine and start his own tailoring business. Today he runs an import-export business and owns a fleet of taxis, providing a wide range of employment for his local community. David provided finance to a further 20 people, achieving dramatic results. These flourishing small businesses not only provided for the basic needs of poor families; they also gave the entrepreneurs confidence, dignity and self-respect. David was inspired. He sold his businesses and established the Maranatha Trust to provide small amounts of capital to poor people so they could become entrepreneurs in their own environment.

In 1979 David Bussau joined forces with the late Al Whittaker, who had been piloting the Trust Bank group lending methodology in South America. In 1992 they began to test the Trust Bank program in the Philippines. In 1998 they linked together with partners to form the Opportunity International network. With more than 200,000 clients in 2000, Opportunity International began to establish formal financial institutions which take the form of commercial banks, development banks or credit unions. David Bussau is Australia’s Senior Australian of the Year this year.

Today, the Opportunity International network has support partners in five countries and 44 implementing partners in 27 developing countries. Opportunity International has over a million active clients globally and a loan portfolio of $539 million with an average loan value of just $245. Women account for 84 per cent of its clients, and there is an average repayment rate of 97 per cent. At present, the key focus of Opportunity International in Australia is in India, the Philippines and West Timor in Indonesia.

At this time I would also like to acknowledge the work of the recently retired CEO of Opportunity International in Australia, Paul Peters. During his 4½ years as CEO, Paul built a strong team, expanded the group’s strategic partnerships and raised over $60 million. Paul demonstrated a real heart for the poor and took the organisation to yet another high level.

Yet microcredit does just not present opportunities we have already heard about in overseas countries; we can apply these models right here in Australia and there has been plenty of work done on that project. I would like to draw attention to the work of Leigh Coleman, who, as one of David Bussau’s early pioneer directors and field leaders for Opportunity International, is now working in micro-enterprise development in Aboriginal communities with the support of Mission Australia. David Bussau’s work, Leigh Coleman’s work, the work of Opportunity International, displays a proud heritage for microcredit in this country and, as a result, I think together we have a lot to contribute to that conference in Bali. Together with the previous speakers, I commend the motion.

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