Melissa Parke (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am sure there are some members who can recall the impact polio had on Australia. This debilitating disease swept through Australian communities during the 1930s to 1960s, causing widespread fear and panic. Schools were shut down, public spaces closed and families barricaded themselves in their homes to protect children against the rapid spread of this potentially fatal disease. Hospital wards filled with iron lungs and manufacturers struggled to keep up with demand for crutches as previously healthy children lost their mobility and were paralysed, all as a result of this incurable disease. I am told that there were as many as 40,000 cases of paralytic polio recorded in Australia during the epidemics, although the real numbers for polio infection could have been much higher. Now, thanks to decades of investment in vaccination programs, Australia and many other countries are polio free.

There have been many coordinated efforts against this disease over the years and I want to draw members' attention to another important collaboration happening in New York next week, one the government is proud to support. It is a demonstration of the incredible things which are possible when citizens in the global community work together. Next week, the Prime Minister will address fellow leaders at a special event convened by the UN Secretary-General to spark renewed commitment to ending polio within the international community. This is yet another instance of Australians showing leadership on this issue.

In fact, the movement to eradicate polio from the world began with an Australian Rotarian, Sir Clem Renouf. The first seeds of the idea came to Sir Clem in 1979 while reading an article about how the World Health Organization had successfully eradicated smallpox. Rotary's initial successes against polio in Asia and South America soon convinced the rest of the world that polio eradication was possible. In 1988, health ministers from around the world agreed to work together to combat polio and the Global Polio Eradication Initiative was formed. This global partnership, involving Rotary International, the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and UNICEF, has successfully reduced polio cases worldwide by 99 per cent—from an estimated 350,000 cases a year in 1988 to just 650 in 2011.

This year has seen further progress, with India achieving more than 18 months now without polio and with global case numbers dropping to their lowest ever level. Last month produced another success story when Angola, a previously polio-free country which had been struggling with the disease since it was reintroduced in 2005, also passed a year without a single case.

Despite this success, polio eradication stands at a tipping point. The Global Polio Eradication Initiative faces a funding gap of US$949 million, a shortfall which has caused vaccination campaigns in 33 countries to be scaled back or cancelled. Each cancelled campaign means thousands, sometimes even millions, of children miss out on the vaccine, creating the potential for mass outbreaks. While success would mean every child everywhere having a polio-free future, failure at this very last stage would mean potentially explosive polio outbreaks in polio-free areas. Recent outbreaks in polio-free countries, such as China, the Congo and Tajikistan, have seen large numbers of adult cases and fatality rates of up to 50 per cent.

Public support for polio eradication is strong, with Rotarians and supporters of the Global Poverty Project's End of Polio campaign being particularly vocal advocates in Australia. In May, I met with the campaign's director, Michael Sheldrick, as well as with Samah Hadid, the incoming Australian director of the Global Poverty Project. They told me about the impact of this campaign. Since July 2011, the End of Polio campaign has shown Australians not only the incredible progress being made against a potentially fatal disease but also the incredible opportunity we have as a country and as a government to contribute to one of the greatest human achievements of our time—only the second ever eradication of a human disease in history.

In just over a year, the End of Polio campaign has grown to include almost 30,000 ordinary people, as well as the likes of international superstar John Legend, Australian Living Treasure Sir Gustav Nossal, movie star Hugh Jackman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, former Australian of the Year Simon McKeon and WA Governor Malcolm McCusker. I am delighted to hear that the Pratt Foundation has also recently added its support to this important campaign.

Meanwhile, Rotary, a service organisation with over 1.2 million members worldwide, has raised more than $1 billion in support of global polio eradication efforts. Together, Rotary International and the Global Poverty Project have brought together Australians from all walks of life in support of the vision of a polio-free world. Australian Rotarians and other members of the community have given both financial and non-financial support, joining citizens in many other countries of the world. This month, Prime Minister Gillard will join other world leaders in New York in town for the UN General Assembly to discuss the importance of supporting global efforts to end polio and to demonstrate that polio eradication is an issue that transcends the health sector to be a win for all of our societies.

Australia is a leader in polio eradication in the Southern Hemisphere. Our aid program helped eradicate polio in the Western Pacific during the 1990s. Last year at the Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting held in Perth, the Prime Minister pledged an additional $50 million in support of eradication efforts. That is why the Prime Minister has been invited to speak at this event in New York, alongside Ban Ki-moon, Bill Gates and the presidents of the only three remaining countries with polio—Nigeria, Afghanistan and Pakistan. This is a rare opportunity for the entire global community to rally behind a cause that will improve the lives of children for all future generations.

While world leaders are in New York for the General Assembly, another important advocacy event led by Australians will shine a spotlight on ending polio and extreme poverty, the Global Citizen Festival. This event will bring 60,000 change makers to Central Park for a concert designed to showcase the movement to end extreme poverty and to demonstrate the public support for the cause. The event has drawn audience members from the group taking action on extreme poverty and will shine a light on their passion for change and call on world leaders to do more, including supporting efforts to end polio. This is a powerful reminder of the amount of public support for action on extreme poverty issues and the key role Australia can play in the global community.

Australia's investments are having a life-saving impact. They have eliminated polio in the Pacific, invested in critical infrastructure, provided assistance in emergencies and helped educate a new generation. Funding programs like the global polio eradication initiative ensures that children can grow up healthy and strong, contributing to their economies and the wellbeing of their families. Research published in The Lancet has shown the financial benefits of ending polio to be between US$40 billion to US$50 billion by 2035.

It is important to remember that people in developing countries are working hard to improve their own lives. India's and Angola's recent success against polio would not have been possible without the efforts of the millions of local health workers and volunteers who travel from house to house, round after round, vaccinating children while calmly addressing the fears of concerned parents. Our aid ensures that these polio heroes have the resources needed to reach every last child with the polio vaccine. In the process we are helping to strengthen health systems more broadly because the tools and tactics being developed to reach children with the polio vaccine are enabling health workers to reach children with other life-saving health measures. The success of polio eradication efforts is a demonstration of what our foreign aid dollars can achieve.

I thank the government for its commitment to polio eradication and emphasise the importance of continuing to invest in polio eradication efforts and other foreign aid projects that assist the world's most vulnerable communities. W also think members of the opposition for lending their support to this important cause. Our leadership on this issue will help encourage every country that has benefited from becoming polio free to contribute even nominal amounts to this historic global effort. Ultimately, all countries share the responsibility for and the benefits of polio eradication.

Today I had a visit from a number of brilliant young people from the Micah challenge who were talking to me about making poverty history. This evening, the Parliamentary Association for UNICEF hosted the annual Robert Nesta event with guest speaker Dr Karen Allen, UNICEF's deputy representative in Pakistan. Another thing is, Dr Allen talked about the great efforts under way in that country in that country to end polio. The End of Polio campaign is an incredible effort by a great many people, organisations and countries. In closing, I want to pay particular tribute to the campaign director Michael Sheldrick, a young man from Perth with an unmatched passion, drive and single-minded focus to see the end of polio. His actions have triggered important processes of change. As Nelson Mandela said:

What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what a difference we have made to the lives of others that will determine the significance of the life we lead.

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