Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take the opportunity to speak to the International Fund for Agricultural Development Amendment Bill 2012. This bill seeks to recommit Australia to the International Fund for Agricultural Development with a financial commitment of $126 million over the next four years. Australia was a founding member of this fund when it was first established in 1977. It was established in response to the 1974 World Food Conference, but then Australia withdrew in 2007 as a result of concerns relating to financial management and the effectiveness of the program. We have heard quite a bit about that from members opposite. I will come to that withdrawal in a moment.

IFAD originally focused on Africa. I understand that today, it still conducts much of its work in Africa. I understand that it has now also spread to other parts of the world. In Africa, where the fund was originally intended to focus, my understanding is that about 70 per cent of the population—around 280 million people—in the areas where this fund is intended to assist live on something like $1.25 a day and most of them rely on agriculture for their existence. I suspect that across the world there are about a billion people that also live on about $1.25 a day and also rely on agriculture for their existence. Investing or providing assistance to those countries to enable them to produce their own food would seem to me to be an important area of international aid.

Members opposite have raised concerns with regard to this bill on what I would suggest are three areas. I have heard members opposite say that, at a time when we are finding it difficult to balance our own budget here in Australia, we should perhaps cut overseas aid funding. I have also heard that, if we are to continue with overseas aid funding, we should perhaps look at different areas of priority. Thirdly, I have heard members raise concerns with regard to the mismanagement and effectiveness of the program.

I will take the last point first. I understand that there were some recent discussions and advice sought in respect of the ongoing concerns. Quite rightly, some of that has been aired in this chamber.

But I do not have the information and advice that obviously the minister does and therefore I am not in a position to make a judgement as to whether we ought to recommit to this fund or not. I rely on the advice of the minister on that and I would expect the minister would not be proposing that these funds be allocated if the minister was not satisfied that the concerns that had previously been raised and that led to the withdrawal of Australia from this fund had been resolved. I suspect also that the minister would not be recommending that these funds be allocated if he was not confident that there are adequate protocols in place to ensure that the funds, once allocated, would reach their intended destination and be used in a manner for which they are intended. So I put that to one side and put my trust in the minister with respect to that.

On the question of us having to balance our own budget and therefore perhaps make cuts to our foreign aid expenditure, I disagree with those who raise that proposition. As I said in my opening remarks, the ability of many people in developing countries to produce their own food is fundamental and essential to their existence. When you consider that the production of food in those countries is under threat from a whole range of things then it is more important than ever before for international aid to be provided for food production in those countries. We are seeing in this country right now the devastation being caused by floods, fires and at other times cyclones and other extreme weather events. Whenever that occurs it totally disrupts our food production capacity and we see the immediate results to us. This is in a country that, in comparison with most of the developing countries, would be considered to be well off, yet we are impacted terribly by those events.

Imagine when those events happen in developing countries where what little food they can grow is essential to their life. The reality is that, as a result of climate change that we are seeing around the world, those developing countries are equally being affected by extreme weather events. We have had reports and presentations to this House to clearly demonstrate how climate change will impact on developing countries most of all. So if we can assist them not only to produce their food better under the current conditions but also to cope with those extreme weather events when they occur, we are going to be doing those people a very valuable service.

The issue of climate change is only one of the matters of concern to me with respect to the importance of this support. As I said just a moment ago, the issue of climate change will affect those developing countries even more so than it does in Australia. There are also other very good reasons it is important that we continue the funding to enable those countries to produce their food. We know that in a world where the population is growing, most of the growth is occurring in those developing countries. Therefore, if they are having trouble already in meeting their food needs, those problems are only going to become worse in the years to come. Again, enabling them to do more with what they have is going to be absolutely vital to their future wellbeing.

There are other critical reasons that investing and assisting developing countries with their food production is very important for the rest of the world. As we know, poor nutrition is linked to health outcomes and health costs for those people. Investing in food production reduces downstream health costs. We also know that some of the food production methods used in developing countries are the cause of some of those poor health outcomes because in many of those countries they continue to use chemicals that we in Australia stopped using a long time ago.

Yet, without the assistance of other countries, those practices will only continue and, again, if we can assist them in changing their practices, in implementing better farming methods, we will be able not only to assist them to produce their food but also to assist them in achieving the better health outcomes that we would all want for them and for ourselves.

I have spoken firsthand with people who have worked in some of these countries and worked in food production in them, and I have heard the stories of some of the chemicals that they continue to use. Those sorts of practices have to stop and, again, will only stop when international aid gives these countries the support that they need so that they can switch to better methods.

There are other concerns which arise in my mind with respect to the support that we provide to developing countries and the benefits that will come from countries being able to provide their own food. I want to turn to one matter, and perhaps I will finish on this: with many countries, one of our greatest concerns is the human rights abuses that occur within those countries. Human rights abuses inevitably arise when people are struggling. When people are struggling, it leads not only to poverty but also to corruption, conflict and violence. In many of these countries, where extreme poverty occurs we then see more exploitation, more refugees, more corruption, more human trafficking and more sexual exploitation—all because people are so desperate that they have to turn to other sources and other ways of making a living.

So this is not just an issue about whether we provide financial aid to developing countries; it is an issue that we take on when trying to take a stand against the violation of human rights in many of those countries. Only late last year I had a briefing from some of the Congolese people in my community in Adelaide, who talked to me and showed me films and recounted real stories of some of the impacts of violation of human rights that occurs when extreme poverty sets in.

For all these reasons, providing financial aid to developing countries to assist them with their food production is a measure that this parliament should embrace and this country should support. I commend the bill to the House.

Debate adjourned.

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