Opinion piece: Tim Costello on doing right by our region

Hmmmm...generally a good piece, but I'd query some of the assertions..."improve agricultural techniques?" Maybe "improved logging practices" is more to the point! I'm also far from convinced that concert attendances and the wearing of fashion accessories is indicative of an interest in structural change! Finally...while I agree that aid and development assistance can reduce migration, I'm wary of linking aid and development, security, and migration too closely...it entrenches notions of "us vs them", and the idea that refugees are bad and a security threat...

Finally, I realise that there is a place for pragmatism, but I believe that there is also a place for compassion, a place for moral imperatives. While I think this is generally a great piece, and I generally argue in these terms myself, there is also another part of me that is disappointed that Tim - one of the few highly popular religious leaders this country has - would opt for arguments based on pragmatism, arguments based on "our" economic and physical security, over those based on compassion and moral imperatives. In Christian terms, part of me wishes he had be prophetic.

IT IS indisputable that many of the nations of the Pacific confront enormous challenges to overcome poverty, unrest and violence. The magnitude of
these challenges is underscored by World Vision research that shows 22 developing nations in the Pacific and South-East Asia are failing to meet one or many of the global goals set out to combat poverty through the United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.

One critical element in this failure has been the lack of properly targeted aid funding by rich nations, and a lack of predictability in the aid that has been given.

There is a global shortfall in overseas aid, causing United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to this week warn that the broken promises of developed nations were strangling efforts to eradicate poverty. And nowhere is this failure more critical for Australia than in its own neighbourhood, the Pacific and South-East Asia. In many ways Australia has dropped the ball in its handling of the challenges facing the Pacific region.

While we have helped to re-establish law and order in some of our nearest neighbours, like East Timor, the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, if such interventions are to be successful in the long term, this must be the start of our help, not the end.

The next step is to tackle the underlying causes of the unrest — issues such as the lack of economic opportunities, the breakdown in local governance and the increasingly degraded environment. And while it is the right thing for Australia to do, it is also in our own interest. If we fail to assist in resolving these underlying issues, our troops will be back in very quick time.

This is why Australia's overseas aid is an investment in our future, not simply charity.

Well-targeted overseas aid increases people's access to basic health and education, it builds basic infrastructure that increases economic growth and creates jobs. It also builds demand in our nearest neighbours for good governance.

Therefore I welcome Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd's call for a rethink on
Australia's response to the economic and social problems of the Pacific. His commitment to boost overseas aid funding to 0.5 per cent of GNI by 2015 will double the amount of aid we give. While not the 0.7 per cent of GDP that our Government promised to the world's poor in 2000, it is the minimum amount required to achieve the Millennium Development Goals.

In the Pacific and in South-East Asia it has the potential to make a profound impact. If delivered, the extra aid could allow Australia to do all of the following: reduce child deaths by 140,000 each year, cut maternal deaths by 4200, reduce by at least 29,000 deaths from AIDS and by 31,000 deaths from tuberculosis each year. It could also provide access to safe drinking water to almost 37 million people.

Creating jobs for people in their own countries will reduce refugees. Promoting improved agricultural techniques and alternative fuel sources will reduce environmental degradation and climate change. Increasing the incomes of people in our region will create new markets for Australian businesses.

This is one of the reasons that some of Australia's largest corporations are becoming much more interested in reducing poverty in our region. A recent report by Allen Consulting warned that poverty in the Asia Pacific region would directly threaten the prosperity of corporate Australia.

The report prompted business leaders to urge the Federal Government to partner with corporate Australia in fostering more effective investment in emerging Asia Pacific markets.

In Canberra last month the Business for Poverty Relief Alliance — which includes leading companies such as the ANZ Bank, Grey Global Group, IAG and Visy Industries — said the Government had a key role to play through our overseas aid program, which could be better targeted to create an environment that allows successful and socially sustainable investment.

Globally, the importance of foreign aid has not been lost on other world leaders. The new British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, has made the fight against global poverty a key plank of his premiership.

Historically, Australia has traditionally punched above its weight in international affairs. Both sides of the political divide have contributed greatly to international action: to end apartheid in South Africa, to create the International Criminal Court, to aid successful elections in Cambodia and to press for change in Zimbabwe, as well as the critical interventions in East Timor and the Solomon Islands.

Australia's leading role in the Cairns Group, which has pressed for free trade to help poorer nations, is also laudable. Unfortunately, over the past decade we have failed to show international leadership on the critical issue of levels of overseas aid.

Australia is badly lagging other developed nations on the level of overseas aid it gives, ranking equal 15th out of 22 of the world's richest countries. And while there were some welcome initiatives in the latest federal budget, there is a greater capacity to help — at relatively little cost and with the potential to reap benefits of our own.

It is in our own interests to ensure stability and growth in the countries that surround us. It is also in our interests to do what we can to foster environmental sustainabilty and an adherence to human rights in the emerging superpowers of Asia.

No doubt Kevin Rudd's call for a rethink on the Pacific and a pledge to boost aid has been partly inspired by the massive support in Australia for the Make Poverty History campaign.

Last year, 15,000 people attended the Make Poverty History concert in Melbourne, while almost 100,000 Australians joined more than 23 million people worldwide to stand up for poverty, and more than 800,000 Australians bought white wristbands to show their support for the cause.

This is an issue Australians understand, an issue people care about. It is my hope that it will now be an issue that increasingly captures the attention of our political leaders.

Tim Costello is chief executive of World Vision Australia.

Praise the Lord, and DON'T pass the ammunition

Rudd vows lift in Pacific island aid
July 05, 2007

FEDERAL Labor leader Kevin Rudd has promised a big increase in Australian aid to Pacific island nations to end instability in the region.

Mr Rudd last onight said a “radical rethink” of the nation's role in the Pacific would focus on economic improvement to avoid costly military interventions and a flow of refugees to Australia.

He said a Labor government in its first term would undertake auditing and planning with each Pacific neighbour and, if re-elected, it would commit to a “significant” investment program over time.

Labor would seek to reach an overall overseas aid target of 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2015-16 - about twice current levels.

The Opposition Leader will detail what he's calling a Pacific partnership for development and security in a speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney this morning.

“What I'm proposing is a radical rethink about Australia's engagement with the states which form part of our arc of instability,” Mr Rudd told ABC TV.

“If we don't act to change now, what I fear most is in the future we're going to have more costly military interventions.

“What we'll have is states fail in the region, or more of them fail ... you'll then have the risk of significant refugee outflow from the island states of the region into Australia.”

In the past decade Australia has twice sent troops to East Timor and continues to lead a Solomon Islands peacekeeping mission.

Mr Rudd said the change in policy would prioritise economic development so security problems would be come more manageable.

“Right now we're simply dealing with the military or security symptom of an underlying economic development challenge.”

In addition to one-off military interventions and refugees, Mr Rudd said he was concerned about the threat to public health in Australia.

“When you talk about the collapse of public health in Papua New Guinea, you're looking at HIV-AIDS infection rates of something about two per cent of the population and the exposure of our communities in the Torres Strait and in north Queensland.”

Mr Rudd agreed he was also concerned about other nations supplanting Australia as the principal power in the region.

“If we fail to act effectively then I think we're going to see a long-term drift in Australia's strategic standing right across this region as well.”

The Circuit: the social, cultural and political significance of great TV

I was chatting with friends the other night about the state of TV. We recalled some of the great Australian tv shows of our childhood and teenage years (Janus, Mercury, Brides of Christ, Wild Side, Seachange, MDA...) and bemoaned the way that reality tv seems to have taken over the world.

Now I'm excited about an Aussie drama for the first time in a long time. I've been watching the advertisements on SBS and thinking that The Circuit looks like it could be a cracker. The Age has a write-up today which has whet my appetite further. It not only looks like some great TV, but its production raises questions about the role and status of indigenous people in broader Australian society and culture, and the extent to which the arts can be utilised for capacity-building and empowerment:

"With a cast, crew and writing and production team comprising about 95 per cent Aboriginal people, the stories of The Circuit are bound to resonate with many of them. The non-Aboriginal actors and producers say that working on this Aboriginal driven drama, a first for Australian television, has opened their eyes.

Co-producer Ross Hutchens, whose wife is Aboriginal, says: "Just seeing this baggage that indigenous people carry for their whole community . . . There's the amount of death that the indigenous cast and crew have dealt with . . . there's been an actor friend in Melbourne who passed away; it's just constant. I'll be dealing with some on-set issue and the director's helping me and at the same time they're texting a kid in Melbourne who's chroming. You've got all these people with different backgrounds, you're part-producer, you're part-social worker. At the end of it, I can go home, whereas for some of my indigenous directors and writers, this is their life."

Most (but not all) of my friends who are indigenous are also highly educated professionals (most attended university or TAFE). They're lawyers, ministers of religion, linguists, musicians, writers, film-makers, and people working in the community-development sector and the charitable sections of big corporates. At least one has said that he thinks that indigenous men who wear suits are perhaps the most marginalised of all indigenous people:

Although magistrate Peter Lockhart (Gary Sweet) and Aboriginal Legal Services lawyer Drew Ellis (Aaron Pedersen) essentially represent those two worlds, the complexity of their characters removes any chance of cliche.

Drew, a "flash city lawyer" from Perth who never knew his Aboriginal father, is more connected to the white way of life than that of the people he hopes to help. His earnest Western demeanour prompts the locals to call him a "coconut" - brown on the outside, white on the inside. And Peter is acutely aware of having to lord white man's law over black lore, forever pushing the limits of the legal system in a despairingly fruitless effort to accommodate both.

Ahhh...the question of the extent to which "white man's law" and "traditional law" can be reconciled. It could hardly be avoided, could it?!

In the wake of Howard's announcement about a tough new approach to problems in indigenous communities, it's also nice to be reminded of reasons to be positive and hopeful about the future:

If there is one theme that runs concurrently through The Circuit and the making of the drama, it is the combination of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal storytellers weaving a story for everyone.

And finally, a reminder that so-called "indigenous issues" or "indigenous dramas" aren't just for indigenous people:

"It's great to see scripts that are quite real, especially for Broome and Aboriginal people. It's nothing like Home and Away, it's something that we can relate to. And not just us, the whole of Australia."