Media Releases

Opinion

05 FEB 2010

Cutting Australia's aid spending would be a tragedy

Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce this week suggested Australia could make cuts to its overseas aid program to pay for services in Australia. Read full release »

24 OCT 2009

Take the pace out of PACER

Trade officials and Ministers have been meeting this week in Brisbane to hammer out a new trade agreement between the Pacific Island Countries, and Australia and New Zealand – PACER-Plus.  Read full release »

16 OCT 2009

Small-holder farmers the key to world food crisis

There is enough food grown in the world for everyone. And yet we remain stuck in a food crisis. Half the world’s food is lost as waste while a billion people – one in every six of us – cannot access enough of the other half and so go hungry every day. Our leaders have another chance to put that right.  Read full release »

22 SEP 2009

G20's increased aid funding must be accompanied by better outcomes

As Treasurer Wayne Swan attends the G20 Finance Ministers meeting in London this weekend, the Australian Government is preparing to follow through on a commitment it made at the last G 20 meeting. Read full release »

18 SEP 2009

Climate change is robbing people of their rights, writes Andrew Hewett

Around the world climate change is becoming a defining human tragedy of this century. In Micronesia, people are facing the prospect of moving from islands that will soon be underwater. Read full release »

10 JUL 2009

Leaders have opportunity to help poor

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said food security will be top of the agenda at the G8 meeting this week (8 - 10 July). It's good to hear. Read full release »

23 JUN 2009

Deep injustice at the heart of climate change

The world is getting close to the time when a global deal to secure a stable climate for future generations has to be struck, writes Oxfam Australia's James Ensor. Read full release »

23 JUN 2009

Moving beyond emergency in the NT

It was amidst horrifying reports of child sexual abuse that the Northern Territory Emergency Response was announced two years ago this week. Read full release »

15 APR 2009

G20 mixed bag gives grounds for scepticism

It is increasingly clear that while the global economic crisis is hitting developed countries like Australia hard, it is crashing through the borders of poor countries with ever-greater severity. Indeed, the World Bank has estimated that an additional two to four hundred thousand infants a year will die as a result of this crisis. Read full release »

20 MAR 2009

Global meltdown hits world's poor hardest

Buried on page ten of a World Bank Background Paper prepared for last weekend's G20 Finance Ministers' meeting was a sober but profoundly distressing statement. Read full release »

18 FEB 2009

End the greatest health divide

Each day that the AusAID Family planning guidelines remain in place, the capacity of Australian agencies to provide comprehensive reproductive health services to women and communities as part of our development assistance programs is impaired. Read full release »

07 JAN 2009

Rudd must reach out to close the indigenous health gap

A national strategy has to be shaped in partnership with Aboriginal groups. Read full release »

16 DEC 2008

Opportunity lost at Poznan

After two weeks spent in frantic negotiations over commas and semi-colons, the climate negotiations at Poznan have taken only the barest shuffle towards Copenhagen, and on some crucial issues - like the targets for developed countries - have actually retreated from Bali. Read full release »

22 OCT 2008

Remember the forgotten victims of the financial crisis

There are some forgotten victims of the Nightmare on Wall Street. Crises like the one we're experiencing tend to hit people living in poverty the hardest and it will be the case this time around. Developing countries will be hit hard, and people living in poverty in those countries the hardest. Read full release »

28 AUG 2008

Independent charity regulator is long overdue

Andrew Hewett calls for Australian Charities Commission - Opinion piece published on ABC Online on 28/08/08 Read full release »

01 AUG 2008

Sturt and Eagles join forces to Close the Gap

This weekend in the SANFL Round 18, Sturt and the Woodville-West Torrens Football Club are joining forces in support of their Aboriginal players and promoting the Close the Gap campaign, which aims to close the 17-year life expectancy gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. Read full release »

25 JUN 2008

Biofuels add millions to the breadline

Unlike many other developed countries, Australia has not set mandatory targets for biofuel production or use. This is encouraging. The Australian Government should not to go down that path. Read full release »

04 JUN 2008

Where Business and Human Rights intersect.

Many Australian corporations are doing great work overseas. They are investing in developing countries, providing job opportunities to local people and working closely with local community organisations. Some Australian companies, however, are also ignoring people's most basic human rights. They are forcibly removing people from their land, dumping cyanide laden waste in waterways that are integral to livelihoods, and, on the whole, facing none of the legal ramifications they would face at home. Read full release »

22 APR 2008

Three words that symbolise decades of neglect and hope for the future

Close the Gap. Three words that symbolise decades of neglect and hope and goodwill for the future. Three words that remind us that the average Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian man does not live to see his 60th birthday. Three words that now represent an agreement between more than 40 organisations, state and federal governments that an unprecedented effort is needed if we are to achieve Indigenous health equality within a generation. Read full release »

12 MAR 2008

Reality for 34 million of the world's refugees

Last week Australia's only refugee camp was dismantled. Called Refugee Realities, the camp occupied Gasworks in Albert Park for four weeks while thousands of school children and members of the public visited. In building the camp, Oxfam's aim was to help people understand that refugees are no different to the rest of us. They just happen to have lived in extraordinary circumstances. Read full release »