Population debacle
p. 39 · Read in the full issue
THE secret negotiations which
finally allowed the Australian budget to pass through the hostile upper house ended damaging
speculation about economic instability
but, at the same time, plunged the Labour government into a new mael strom of criticism.
At the centre of the storm is its decision to put its SI3O million new
population and family planning aid
program on hold while it re-invents the wheel with an investigation into whether there really is a link between over-population and poverty in the developing world. The figure behind this hair brain scheme is Tasmanian Senator Brian Harradine, a Roman Catholic moral’s campaigner whose life’s work has been to wage war on any form of artificial contraceptives. Sena tor Harradine, was the last crucial number to fall into place.
In a deal which secured the budget, the government agreed to freeze that portion of its family planning aid which had not yet been specifically committed until the end of April when the outcome of the investigation will be known.
Harradine a self-styled Human Rights activists, claims no link can be made between poverty and over-population. He opposes population control programs because he says they are often coercive and don’t ‘trust parents to make responsible decisions governing their intimate relationships and the size of their families’.
While there is no question coercion played a big part in population control programs in the 1970’5, and still takes place in some areas in China and Indonesia, there has nevertheless been a major change in the thinking behind these programs which Senator Harradine refuses to acknowledge.
Most, including the Australian government’s new program, are now targeted at women for whom safe contraception and reproductive health care is not available. In the South Pacific, one of the main beneficiaries of the now-frozen program, forced contraception has not been a problem.
Maternal death, which can be directly linked to lack of good health care for women including advice about family planning and family spacing, has been. In Papua New Guinea for instance, the maternal death rate is 170 times that in Australia.
Around the world tens of thousands of women die each year having children they would rather not have conceived in the first place.
While the government has done its best to keep the amount subject to the freeze to a minimum (it claims just 53.25 million) that has done nothing to stem allegations that it is prepared to sacrifice its principles and the interests the poorest in the weakest in society in shabby backroom deals.
In New Delhi the World Summit of National Academies of Science rebuffed Harradine’s claims that the link between poverty and over-population is spurious unanimously resolv ing that the Australian government’s action was counter to scientific opinion and would deny reproductive health care to women living in developing countries.
Australia’s peak non-government aid organisation the
Australian Council for Overseas Aid (ACFOA) put it more bluntly.
Executive Director Russell Rollason says women’s lives are at risk.
“500,000 women die each year in childbirth and 40,000 children die each day in developing countries.
Improved reproductive health care in developing countries could do much to prevent these unnecessary deaths,” Rollason said. “It is appal ling that the Government has al lowed an international aid commit ment to become a bargaining chip in negotiations to get the Budget legislation through the Senate.”
“There is no need to conduct an inquiry to check if there is a link between population and poverty,” he said. “Its like proposing an inquiry into the link between smok ing and lung cancer.”
Even the usually conservative and measured Australian Medical Association was moved to strong words. The Chair of its Federal Council and president-elect of the World Medical Association Professor Priscillar Kincaid-Smith branded the decision to freeze the population aid program “an appalling signal to the international community”.
Professor Kincaid-Smith said putting the aid on hold while a review was carried out was particularly unfortunate at a time when significant progress is being made to get the global community to put more effort into curbing population growth. “Unsustainable population growth is the most pressing problem facing the world today,” she said.
The unavailability of contraception in parts of the developing world is not only fuelling the world’s population explosion, but is also causing untold misery for millions of women. Only by using the review to dramatically increase our contribution to overseas fertility programs will we avoid continued international embarrassment professor Kincaid- Smith said.
Back in Canberra, the senior ministers responsible for bowing to Senator Harradine’s demands have been ducking for cover. With Labour back-benchers complaining bitterly about the decision Foreign Minister Senator Gareth Evans referred journalists inquiries to his junior Minister Gordon Bilney, a man who has made the population program a personal crusade and was not party to the decision to freeze it.
Days later Bilney was to be seen at the back of the auditorium at the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Population enthusiastically applauding a resolution which expressed deep concern about his Government’s action.
While Bilney and his colleagues are confident their population program will emerge from the review unscathed Senator Harradine’s influence over its direction should not be underestimated.
He continues to hold the balance of power in the Senate and as a result has enormous sway over the government’s
legislative program.
Not only that, but under the terms of its budget deal, the government agreed the international expert appointed to conduct this aid funded review, would be one who had Mr Harradine’s endorsement. □