The issue of asylum seekers is, without a doubt, a complicated one. International law and emotive political rhetoric make it so. There are no hard and fast answers but there are, dare I say it, ways to truly move forward on the issue. Read full release »
Prime Minister Julia Gillard won’t be attending a meeting of Pacific island leaders this week (Tuesday 3 and Wednesday 4 August) – despite the fact that she is currently at the helm of the Pacific Islands Forum. Read full release »
It's true that people in poor countries on our doorstep won't be voting for either Julia Gillard or Tony Abbott later this month. But Australians who care about doing the right thing will be. So it's no reason for either of the leaders to abandon all mention, during this election campaign, of meeting Australia's international obligations on climate change, or for not putting up policies that will genuinely reduce Australia's emissions to the degree that is required. Read full release »
No one likes to think of themselves as a fair-weather friend. Being flaky in a crisis is not, after all, an attractive quality. But much as they might try to hide it when they meet in Canada this week, the world’s richest nations are proving themselves to be just that to the world’s poorest people: unreliable at a time when they are reeling from the economic crisis, climate change and food shortages. Read full release »
The G20 is meeting this weekend at a crucial moment. Weighing on the minds of G20 leaders will be the European sovereign debt crisis, the continuing depth of the US recession and the lack of public financing following gigantic bail-outs to prop up the global finance sector. Read full release »
One good news story to come out of Tuesday night’s Federal Budget was the increase to $4.3billion for Australia’s international aid program. You might not have realised this was a good news story because it was yet another example of the Rudd Government’s failure to communicate its achievements to the Australian public. Read full release »
Whether you believe them or not, threats by the mining sector of a mass exodus overseas as a result of the resource rent tax expose a glaring gap in how Australian companies conduct business around the world. Read full release »
The statues of Haiti’s heroes who led the slave revolt centuries ago are no longer visible. The square overlooking the now destroyed Presidential Palace has become a mass of makeshift shelters where families of earthquake victims try to put their lives together. The new shanty town which has sprung up obscures those national symbols of tumultuous change and great hope. Read full release »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
A national strategy has to be shaped in partnership with Aboriginal groups. Read full release »