Stuart Robert (Fadden, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to lend support and a voice to my local Rotary clubs, especially the clubs at Coomera Valley, Coomera River Midday, Hope Island, Runaway Bay, Parkwood, Southport and Nerang. Rotary clubs and Rotarians themselves do a tremendous job in their communities. A number of weeks ago a Brisbane solicitor looking to defend the notorious outlaw motorcycle gang the Finks said they are just ‘Rotary with tattoos’. The dissimilarity between the Finks and Rotary clubs could not be more stark. Rotary has more than 1.2 million members in 33,000 clubs around the world. It is the largest and most respected service organisation on the planet. With the view of ‘service before self’, Rotary seeks to make a positive and lasting difference in the world. Rotary runs an enormous number of programs—Rotary youth leadership awards, the group study exchanges, ambassadorial scholarships and tens of thousands of other projects.

But I think the thing that stands out most with respect to the value that Rotary has not only for communities but for the world is Polio Plus. It may not have gone unnoticed in the House that polio was the greatest cause of disability in the world. In 1995 there were 350,000 cases of polio in 125 countries, mostly among small children, the desperately poor, who had no hope of escaping this dreadful disease. In that year alone Rotary cast a vision for a different future for the world’s children. So far Rotary has contributed US$800 million to eradicating polio. This included individual Rotarians who joined with communities in India and in a single day vaccinated 100,000 children as part of this incredible program. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has also recently pledged another US$355 million with Rotary putting in a further US$200 million to finish the work, to get the job done. Today there are only four countries left where polio is endemic—24 years ago there were 125. A world without polio is tantalisingly close. We can almost reach out and touch it.

Rotary, in concert with other organisations, is achieving the miracle that the World Health Organisation could not be done. I therefore take great offence at a solicitor saying that the Finks are just ‘Rotary with tattoos’. Rotary seek to build up, not to tear down. They seek to heal and to provide hope, not to hurt and to harm. People would do well to go to a Rotary project, to a school or to a shopping centre, and see the extraordinary difference Rotarians make—and, heaven forbid, make a donation. Sixty cents is all it costs to put the drops in a little child’s eyes so they can have a future and hope.