Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise tonight to highlight the work of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation and to implore the new government to continue to appropriately finance its important work. The mission of GAVI is to save children's lives and protect people's health by increasing access to immunisation in the world's poorest countries. Since 2000, GAVI has supported over 240 million additional children who might not otherwise have had access to vaccines and has prevented over four million future deaths.

Australia has played an important role in supporting the critical work of GAVI and saving lives, by significantly scaling up its contribution to the fund in recent years. The Australian government, under Labor, contributed $200 million in direct funding to GAVI over the 2011-13 period. The current 2014 contribution is $5 million, which is a part of the 20-year $250 million committed to the International Finance Facility for Immunisation by the former government. The previous Australian government had committed to grow Australia's assistance to more than $100 million a year by 2015-16. However, the new government has so far made no announcement about Australia's direct funding contribution to GAVI for the 2014-15 financial year and beyond.

Given the announcement on election eve that the coalition would reduce Australia's development assistance by $4½ billion, there is much less in the pot for future pledges. This is money to fund the vaccinations of the poorest children in the world, many in our Asian region. Late last year, the new government announced a reduction in funds to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Last year, the Australian contribution to the global fund was at the historic high of $100 million. Instead of increasing our contribution to the expected $125 million per year, the new government reduced it to half that—around $67 million per year. The cut is despite countries on our doorstep continuing to battle against the three pandemics. This approach should not be taken in the case of GAVI. The government should shield this vital organisation from its cuts. GAVI is consistently one of the most top-performing development organisations in the world. In July 2013 the UK government ranked GAVI as the best value for money for UK aid, while in March 2012 the Australian government ranked GAVI as the strongest performing multilateral aid organisation.

In 2012, I travelled to Myanmar with GAVI and saw firsthand the organisation's tremendous work for mothers and their children. In Nay Pyi Taw, I attended the GAVI and Myanmar Ministry of Health launch ceremony for the pentavalent and measles second dose vaccines. With one injection, the pentavalent vaccine protects children against five deadly but preventable diseases: diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, hepatitis B and meningitis. The second dose measles campaign is to target those children who missed out during the first vaccination program earlier this year.

The Ministry of Health and GAVI use public launches to highlight the benefits of vaccinations and gain significant promotion across the country. It was heartening at this launch to meet parents and their children who had travelled from the regions surrounding Nay Pyi Taw to get their children vaccinated. I found a six-month-old set of twins waiting for their vaccinations with their mother. She knew from the information provided by GAVI and the Myanmar Ministry of Health about the effectiveness of vaccinations. No doubt, she would have known people who had suffered illness and mortality from the diseases being vaccinated against that day. She was taking her young children to receive their vaccines. Yes, she was lining up in the middle of a paddock, and the vaccines were being administered in a poorly resourced facility. But she knew that, with this vaccination, the chance of her young children contracting measles, whooping cough or one of the other preventable diseases was almost totally removed, and that vaccinating her children would reduce the prevalence of these diseases in her community, not only protecting her children but hopefully preventing other children from contracting a disease.

This story highlights the need for Australia to continue to invest, through our overseas development assistance program, in health system strengthening across the developing world. It highlights the need for Australia to properly finance GAVI. The poorest of the poor in our region depend on its work for a chance to beat diseases unheard of in our country for decades. I implore the new government to continue to increase Australia's contributions to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation this year and each year into the future.