Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with a number of members tonight in acknowledging the Micah Challenge campaign Voices for Justice 2011, 'dying for a dunny'. Clean water and sanitation facilities are something we all take for granted, but there are some 900 million people across the world who do not have access to safe water and around 2.6 billion who do not have adequate sanitation facilities—basic services that are essential to the health of a community, basic services that they all have a right to have. Members of the Micah Challenge groups will be here in Canberra over the next couple of days. They have been meeting with members of parliament today and I will be meeting with them tomorrow.

Micah Challenge is the global movement of Christian aid and development agencies, churches, groups and individuals which aims to deepen people's engagement with those living in poverty and to reduce poverty as an integral expression of Christian faith. In Australia approximately 50 church denominations, organisations and development agencies endorse the Micah Challenge and over 114,000 individuals have signed the Micah call, which states that it is time for international and national decision makers to fulfil their public promise to achieve the Millennium Development Goals and so halve absolute global poverty by 2015.

As I mentioned, currently they are holding their sixth annual national gathering—Voices for Justice 2011—which is all about the need for improved sanitation services. The issue is simple and overwhelmingly evident every time you travel to a developing country. Almost 1.4 billion people live in extreme poverty. This means they live on less than US$1.25 a day, which is insufficient to meet their most basic needs. They are hungry, susceptible to disease and lack access to things we all take for granted such as clean water, decent sanitation and health care.

In the year 2000 the millennium declaration catalysed more attention and international support to tackle the problem of global poverty than had ever been seen before. The declaration contained eight Millennium Declaration Goals that together have provided the framework for poverty alleviation efforts over the past 11 years. In light of these goals, the progress for those living in poverty has been extraordinary. On every goal progress has been made. Since 1990 developing countries have seen the proportion of their people living in poverty fall from 46 to 27 per cent, suffering from hunger decline from 30 to 23 per cent, access to clean water increase from 72 to 84 per cent, and living with infectious disease stabilise and in some cases begin to decrease. Despite this progress, there is still more to be done. Despite this progress there are still a number of goals that are in danger of not being met in the times that have been set. They are in particular MDG4, child mortality; MDG5, maternal mortality; and MDG7, environmental health. There is much to be done. Certainly a lot more can be done by nations throughout the world.

Micah Challenge is calling on the Australian government to once again increase efforts towards achieving these goals. The call is on for the Australian government to increase spending on initiatives in relation to water and sanitation to $500 million by 2015, to ensure that at least half of this money is spent on sanitation and hygiene, and to ensure that the bipartisan commitment to increase our aid budget is maintained and developed in the years ahead. The Australian government, of course, has been committed to increasing aid to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015. On current projections this will more than double the aid program relative to 2010-11. But there is more to be done. The Australian government has been making some progress on a number of these issues, and I think it is important to acknowledge that in these circumstances. In PNG Australia helped immunise 900,000 children against measles and other childhood diseases in 2009. From 2003 to 2009 Australia helped reduce infant deaths by one-quarter in East Timor.

In terms of MDG5—maternal health—examples of achievements include the percentage of births attended by skilled health personnel in East Timor, which increased from 35 per cent in 2008 to 47 per cent in 2009. In Cambodia Australia's aid has helped deploy at least one midwife to each health centre in the country. In Bangladesh Australian support has contributed to a 40 per cent decline in maternal mortality over the last decade.

With respect to the expenditure on sanitation, I had the privilege of attending in Zimbabwe a visit to the Bulawayo Water And Sewage Emergency Response program, where Australia has provided some $4.6 million in aid for a two-year World Vision project in Zimbabwe's second largest city. We saw there the excellent work that was being done with that money, the excellent work that was being done to ensure that those communities had proper sanitation and health facilities. I urge all members to get behind this very important program and the Micah Challenge.