Speech by Ian Wishart at the Make Poverty History Trade Justice Walk on 9 December 2005 in Melbourne.

Today we gather once again as we did earlier in the year at Federation Square, and at Parliament House, to MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY.

People all over Australia, ordinary citizens, have come in behind the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign with more than 400,000 people now wearing the white armbands.

People do want a fairer world and MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY has provided them with a coherent policy ask of their leaders and a rallying beacon for their voices.

Today we have gathered in particular to focus on the inequities of the current global trade system and to call for change. World powers like the US and the EU duplicitously speak the rhetoric of free trade but in reality, do not play fair, and protect themselves from more cost effective agricultural producers – many of whom come from developing countries.

Andrew Hewitt of OXFAM is going to come in just a moment to outline the specifics of what we are asking for on Trade and why we are asking it.

I am here to remind us that the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign calls for three things to happen simultaneously

More and better aid, Debt relief, Fairer trade rules.

Over the last year as the effectiveness of MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY has grown we have seen various political leaders come out and try to preach alternative messages. The answer alone is trade they say. We say No it is not. Trade without aid leaves the poor excluded. The answer is debt relief alone they say. We say No it is not. Debt Relief without aid is incomplete. The consensus of the best development thinkers and practitioners is, it must be all three.

We have seen that the alternative singular prescriptions are usually spruiked in an effort to divert the pressure away from being more generous.

At the Millennium Summit in 2000, world leaders – including John Howard - committed to pursuing the Millennium Development Goals and working to halve extreme poverty by 2015. This must remain a pivotal commitment.

Some leaders would rather this was just an idle commitment, that made them sound caring, but with no real traction. For the world’s poor though, the Millennium Development Goals represent a life and death opportunity.

Our MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign on behalf of the poor, includes the three planks of the campaign (aid, trade and debt relief) and is designed to hold world leaders accountable to their commitments to working towards the MDGs and improving the lives of the world’s poor.

Fortunately we have seen some real progress on AID.  After pressure from the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign and the example set by lead countries like the UK, Prime Minister John Howard attended the recent September UN summit in New York where he announced a large increase in Australia’s aid budget.

This is in contrast to the Prime Minister of 12 months ago who weighed in from the APEC in Chile and told us that its time for non-government organisations to stop complaining about aid levels because the answer is trade.

So after an initial reluctance to increase aid and to attend the summit, Mr Howard said that by 2010 Australia’s yearly aid budget would increase to $4 billion.

It was a fantastic result, almost doubling Australia’s official aid levels.

Can we claim all the credit. No Did we have some influence. I think we can confidently say we did.

The increase in aid will have a tremendous impact on the lives of children living in poverty in our region.

The increase will take Australian aid to about 0.36% of our country’s wealth by 2010.

Is it enough? No! Is it all we asked for? No! There is more to be done because even after this increase we will still be ranked a lowly 18th out of 22 donors, and well behind the need for aid to be increased to 0.7%.

Nevertheless it is a step forward and we know that many thousands of children’s lives in South-East Asia will be saved as a result.

It’s also about how this aid is spent, and we press on to holding our government accountable to making sure it comes through with the money, and that the money makes it to the places it is most needed, and that this is through the most effective means.

While more and better aid is great, it needs the right environment in which to work. There’s no point in giving more aid if the recipients are burdened by huge debts.

Last year the Australian Government fulfilled its promise to cancel the debts of Ethiopia and Nicaragua. The Government also cancelled 80% of Iraq’s debt.

Definite progress but just like aid, there is still much more that can be done. For example we still hold Indonesia and the Philippines in debt over loans taken out by previously undemocratically elected Dictators. Dictator Debts! Why should the innocent poor pay for this?

And we have evidence that the forgiveness of debt delivers tangible benefits for the poor.

• In Tanzania, debt relief enabled the government to abolish primary school fees, leading to a 66% increase in attendance.
• After Mozambique was granted debt relief, it was able to offer all children free immunisation.
• In Uganda, debt relief led to 2.2 million people gaining access to clean wate

There is clearly much more that needs to be done. With the World Trade Organisation meeting tomorrow in Hong Kong, our focus today is on global trade. But we must never forget that we must hold our leaders accountable to all three elements of the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY movement - More and better aid, debt relief and fair trade.