3 November 2006

Harradine legacy contributes to "appalling tragedy"

The "Harradine legacy" is preventing Australia from playing its part in alleviating disability and premature death due to sexual and reproductive health problems, the CEO of the Australian Reproductive Health Alliance, Christina Richards, said today.

Ms Richards was commenting on the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) report, published in The Lancet, which estimates that half a million women die each year in pregnancy and childbirth while financial support for family planning is falling.

The statistics were described as an "appalling tragedy" by WHO Assistant Director-General Joy Phumaphi.

Ms Richards said there was a desperate unmet need for family planning services in Papua New Guinea, East Timor and most other nations within Australia's region, but Australia had its hands tied because of the regulations introduced to obtain former Senator Harradine's support for the privatisation of Telstra nearly a decade ago.

"The WHO report highlighted the fact that, far from making progress, the world has actually been going backwards since Australia joined 179 other nations in signing the Programme of Action of the UN's International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994," Ms Richards said.

"The Harradine family planning restrictions were introduced with the aim of diverting Australia from the commitments it made at the Cairo conference," Ms Richards said. "They have led directly to ten years of virtually no Australian funding for reproductive health, especially family planning, in our region.

"This is almost criminally cruel, as the huge toll in death and disability could so simply and effectively have been addressed.

"Australia should join with most other nations in adopting the WHO guidelines, rather than having special restrictive guidelines of its own."

Australia has a maternal death rate of 11 deaths per 100,000 births. The rates estimated by UN Population Fund (UNFPA) are 180 in Thailand, 270 in Vietnam, 360 in Indonesia, 660 in Papua New Guinea, 850 in Timor Leste, and 900 in Cambodia. The respective rates of prevalence of modern contraceptives are 72 for Australia,  70 in Thailand, 57 in Vietnam, 57 in Indonesia, 20 in Papua New Guinea, 9 in Timor L'Este and 19 in Cambodia. 

The WHO study shows that an estimated 120 million couples who do not get the contraceptives they would like or need. An estimated 80 million women have unintended or unwanted pregnancies each year, with 45 million ending in abortion, 19 million of them unsafe, leading to 68,000 deaths and millions of injuries and permanent disabilities. Yet between 1995 and 2003, donor support world-wide for family planning fell from $560 million to $460 million.

Further information: Chris Richards  mobile: 0427 884 479

The Australian Reproductive Health Alliance (ARHA)
www.arha.org.au
Our mission is to promote public support for enhanced reproductive and sexual health in Australia and internationally, and promote the advancement of the status of women and girls.