AusAID Family Planning Guidelines

The Hon. PENNY SHARPE (Parliamentary Secretary) [6.42 p.m.]: As members have been
making their way to Parliament House this week they may have noticed the colourful
purple, green and white banners adorning the flag poles in and around the city.
These banners are being displayed across the city in the lead-up to International
Women's Day. I congratulate the Women's Electoral Lobby and the Older Women's
Network on getting this initiative off the ground. Also I thank and pay my respects
to the many women across New South Wales who have volunteered many hours to put on
myriad of events in the days leading up to and following International Women's Day.

International Women's Day is being celebrated across New South Wales with more than
50 local events and strong support from the New South Wales Government. On 8 March
1857 garment workers staged a protest against inhumane working conditions and low
wages. Police attacked the protestors and dispersed them. Two years later these
women formed their first labour union to protect themselves and gain basic rights in
the workplace. On 8 March 1908 this movement had grown and 15,000 women in the
clothing and textile factory industry marched through the streets of New York
demanding shorter working hours, better pay, voting rights and an end to child
labour. The year 2008 is the 100th anniversary of this important protest.

International Women's Day has been celebrated in Australia for 80 years. This
Saturday more than 30 women's organisations, unions and other community
organisations and many thousands of women will march through Sydney streets to
celebrate the achievements of women. The International Women's Day march will also
demand three important things: support for services that support women; real choices
for women at home, at school, at work and in the world; and closing the gap for
indigenous women and children. International Women's Day provides space on our
streets, in our media and amongst us to reflect on how far women have come in our
struggle for equality. On the positive side, worldwide women's access to proper
health care and education has increased, participation in the paid labour force has
grown, and legislation that aims to deliver equal opportunities for women and
guarantee their human rights has been adopted in many, but certainly not all,
countries.

Each year International Women's Day provides an opportunity to speak out about how
far women still have to go to achieve equality. Women are not equal partners in our
society. Women across the world continue to be victims of violence, torture and
rape. Women do not share this planet equally in wealth, land or power. The majority
of the world's 1.3 billion poor people are women. Women receive between 30 per cent
and 40 per cent less pay than men earn for the same work. In war-torn countries it
is the men who are lost to the conflict; it is the women who are forced to flee. The
United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates that 75 per cent of people
displaced due to war are women. This dislocation brings women to poor, insecure
regions where they no longer have access to health care, proper nutrition or
education. Many fall further victim to systemic gender-based terrorism and violence.
This is something that many women who have fled to Australia have managed to escape,
but for the women left behind the situation remains grim.

On the eve of International Women's Day I bring to the attention of the House
something that Australia can do now to assist women in developing countries. It has
been estimated that each year 58,000 women die as a result of unsafe abortions. This
equates to 13 per cent of all maternal deaths. Another five million women are
permanently injured or diseased as a result of unsafe abortions. The All
Parliamentary Group on Population and Development, of which I am a member, reported
that worldwide access to contraception and safe abortions would reduce maternal
deaths by up to 35 per cent and child deaths by 20 per cent. What Australia can and
must do is remove the current restrictions on Australian aid that deny women in
developing countries access to contraception and the ability to access information
about safe abortions.

In 1996, in a deal with Senator Brian Harradine, the Howard Government bargained off
the rights of women in developing countries for Senator Harradine's support for the
Telstra sale. The Howard Government did this by agreeing to introduce the AusAID
Family Planning Guidelines. These guidelines cause a number of problems. In many
respects they mirror the United States global gag, which bans United States aid
money being used for abortion or abortion activities, including information or
education about safe or unsafe abortion. Under the AusAID guidelines no information
about abortion can be given and no service provided, even when it might save the
life of a woman. Even information about what not to do in terms of accessing unsafe
abortion is banned. Only some forms of contraception can be funded with Australian
aid moneys. This limits options in developing countries where other forms of
acceptable contraception may not be available. The ability to control the timing of
children is a basic human right of all women. Tonight on the eve of International
Women's Day I urge the Rudd Government to abolish the AusAID Family Planning
Guidelines and instead adopt the protocols set out by the World Health Organization.
Women are dying as a result of our policies. The time to act is now.