Kirsten Livermore (Capricornia, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Last week an editorial in Rockhampton's newspaper, the Morning Bulletin, took aim at the flood levy introduced temporarily by the government to help meet the cost of rebuilding Queensland's infrastructure after the summer's damaging floods. The editorial missed the mark on a number of points, most of them easily corrected in a letter to the editor. What I want to talk about tonight, though, is the editorial resorting to a cheap shot at Australia's foreign aid program.

Members will be familiar with the arguments that came straight off the One Nation website. Most of us received a chain email doing the rounds during the floods making false claims about the government's flood relief response and calling for cuts to Australia's aid budget. On this side of the House we were disgusted but not all that surprised when the proposal was adopted as coalition policy by the opposition leader. The opposition leader took the One Nation bait and advocated cutting funding to Indonesian schools, funding that was introduced by the Howard government and that is widely praised for its role in combating terrorism by giving Indonesian children an alternative to the radical Islamic schools by instead providing them with a mainstream education. I do not know whether the editorial writer, like the opposition leader before him, was inspired by that email, but his comments certainly used the same populist language and could only have been designed to stir up a mean and insular attitude to foreign aid. Regardless of the editorial writer's motiv­ations, I want to put on record my objection to such low rent button pushing and my strong support for the government's commitment to fighting poverty and building security through our overseas development program.

This government came to office with a pledge to honour the obligations Australia accepted in 2000 when we joined 188 other nations in signing up to the Millennium Development Goals. Those goals call on developed countries like ours to lift our overseas aid with the aim, by 2015, of halving world poverty and tackling related issues of child and maternal mortality, lack of education and the rates of infectious disease. The task is enormous. There are one billion people today living in extreme poverty. Eight million children every year—that is, 24,000 a day—die before their fifth birthday. These are shocking and over­whelming facts. The question is: what should we do in the face of such hardship? Australians cannot opt out of the global community. For better or worse this is our world. Should we wait for someone else to come along and fix these problems? If so, who might that be? Are we waiting for a better time to address these injustices? If so, when might that be? The truth is that these are huge problems that require global solutions and global solutions rely on the countries of the world and the citizens of the world to each do their part.

In the last few weeks the government has continued its progress towards those Millennium Development Goals. The budget took Australia's spending on foreign aid to 0.35 per cent of our national income—an increase of $530 million from last year. That is on track to reach 0.5 per cent of national income by 2015, which meets our Millennium Development Goals comm­itment. Of course, our aid spending does much more than just meet a target. Australia's foreign aid programs make a real difference to the lives of thousands of people, many of them in our immediate region where 18 of our 20 closest neighbours are among the poorest nations in the world. Our aid dollars immunise and educate children, develop better crops, provide clean water and deliver health care.

We take a large share of responsibility for helping our neighbours in the Pacific and South-East Asian region, but Australia is by no means alone in pledging its citizens' support for far-reaching international initiatives. A great example is the govern­ment's support, along with that of many other nations, for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation. Last week the Minister for Foreign Affairs joined leaders from around the world in boosting the money our countries will donate to GAVI to continue its life-saving work of vaccinating children against preventable diseases. Australia has lifted its contribution by $140 million to a total of $200 million to the year 2013. This international support for GAVI will fund over seven million vaccinations between now and 2013, saving an estimated four million lives.

Put simply, Australia's aid program serves our national interest, our national security, our national economic interests and our international humanitarian interests. We all benefit from living in a secure and stable region where people can live free from disease, fear, poverty and hopelessness. Better lives for people wherever they live and whatever their circumstances means a better and safer world. (Time expired)

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