Mal Washer (Moore, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would also like to commend the member for Bonner for this motion. The seven Millennium Development Goals were established in 2000 through the UN by 189 governments, including Australia. These goals are crucial targets of social and environmental progress to be achieved by 2015. Goal 4 is to reduce by two-thirds between 1990 and 2015 the under-five mortality rate. Goal 5 is to reduce by three-quarters between 1990 and 2015 the maternal mortality ratio, and achieve universal access to reproductive health by 2015. Sadly, these goals have made the slowest progress of all. In the developing world as a whole there were 480 maternal deaths per 100,000 births in 1990 and in 2005 there were 450 deaths per 100,000 births. The government’s increase in total health funding in the foreign aid budget and the increase in spending to maternal newborn and child health is to be commended. However, great effort and cooperation from all developing and developed nations is required if the goals are to be achieved.

In 1950 our global population was two billion. Currently, it is 6.9 billion and by conservative UN estimates it will be 9.15 billion by 2050. We currently have the largest generation ever entering reproductive age. There are currently one billion living in extreme poverty and 75 million children are not educated. In many poor countries in our region one in 50 women die during pregnancy and delivery. Every year around 536,000 women die in pregnancy and childbirth worldwide. Improved access to family planning is critical. Forty per cent of pregnancies are unplanned. In poorer countries in Africa and the Asia-Pacific region, 40 per cent of maternal deaths would be eliminated if contraceptive needs were met. And there would be a 20 per cent reduction of deaths in children under five if women could use contraception to space their births by two years or more.

Countries that have lower fertility rates spend substantially more on the health and education of their children than those with higher fertility. The majority of maternal deaths are due to obstetric complications such as post-partum haemorrhage, infections, eclampsia, prolonged obstructive labour and complications from unsafe abortions. Anaemia, exacerbated by malaria and other conditions such as HIV, increases the risk of death from haemorrhage. Haemorrhage alone causes 34 per cent of maternal deaths in sub-Saharan Africa. Most of these conditions can be prevented or treated with reproductive health services, antenatal care and assistance at birth.

In reaching goal 4, reducing childhood mortality, effective interventions are required such as nurturing newborns and their mothers, infant and young child feeding, vaccines, case management of diarrhoea, antibiotics for pneumonia and sepsis and malaria control. The WHO estimates that the total additional costs for achieving universal coverage of such essential interventions accumulated over 10 years would be $52.4 billion.

There has been progress in this area, with the proportion of undernourished children under five years of age declining from 27 per cent in 1990 to 20 per cent in 2005: some 27 per cent fewer children died before their fifth birthday in 2007 than in 1990. This decrease has been due to a combination of interventions: the use of insecticide-treated mosquito nets for malaria, oral rehydration therapy for diarrhoea, increased access to vaccinations for a number of infectious diseases and improved water and sanitation. However, preventable and treatable conditions such as pneumonia and diarrhoea continue to kill 3.8 million children aged under five every year.

None of the goals are achievable in isolation. We must stabilise populations for there to be environmental sustainability. Poverty cannot be alleviated without empowering women with education and by meeting their contraceptive needs. We are not isolated from these issues: poverty, population growth and the adverse effects of climate change will exert significant pressure upon worldwide migration. Progress towards the goals is now threatened—(Time expired)

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