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The envy of the world

By Justin Denholm - posted Wednesday, 23 November 2011


"Australia's never had it so good". I hear this again and again, mostly from economists and newspaper columnists who observe that our financial status is the envy of the world.

"We've weathered the GFC," they say, and note that our GDP is high, unemployment low and we have more television sets and mobile phones than people. Australian cities are consistently near the top of lists of the best places on earth to live. Surely, life is good?

Well, it's true that Australia is a rich country, and most of us live very comfortable lives. Something about the continual trumpeting of financial and material statistics about our country makes me uncomfortable, though, and leads me to question the idea that "we've never had it so good."

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While I think there are a few problems with justifying this refrain, it is particularly nauseating that we should choose to showcase our riches while, in global terms, we are surrounded by people overwhelmed with the afflictions of poverty.

As an infectious diseases physician, I'm brought alongside some people for whom life is not so good, both here in Australia and overseas. My work is mainly with people who have tuberculosis.

In Australia, about 7 people in every 100 000 get TB each year, while in neighbouring Papua New Guinea, 200 people in every 100 000 are afflicted. Malaria, filiariasis and severe diarrhoeal diseases all take their toll, too.

Overall, children born in Australia have a life expectancy of around 81 years. Those born in Papua New Guinea, though, have a life expectancy of 57 years, with 7.5% dying before their fifth birthday. These discrepancies between countries actually visible to each other in good light should shock us, but seem mostly to be overwhelmed by the latest Reserve Bank interest rate speculations.

Recently, I met with a group of specialists and public health workers to discuss different aspects of local and global health issues related to tuberculosis. Papua New Guinea was again at the forefront of our concerns. We talked about the rapidly expanding problem of multidrug resistant tuberculosis in the midst of the failing PNG health care system.

We talked, too, about a critically sick mother transferred to an Australian hospital for care, only to be found hoarding her food, intending to save it for her children once she returned home.

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Of everything I heard, though, I was most upset to hear about the threats made by the Australian Immigration Department, including potential charges of 'people smuggling' levelled at Australian doctors providing health care in the border region.

The situation surrounding tuberculosis care in Papua New Guinea parallels current issues in Australia's response to refugees generally. We are faced with people in great need, whether it is due to an infection like tuberculosis or the dangers arising from war, famine and persecution.

Our politicians talk about the need for structural developments overseas; strengthening healthcare systems, streamlining refugee assessment processes, contributing to rebuilding damaged and violent societies. All of these things are good and proper, and we should surely make serious efforts to improve conditions in the countries that sorely need help. None of this, though, changes the fact that suffering people are on our nation's doorstep, struggling in situations that are vastly different to our own.

Australia may well be at historical heights of economic strength and power. Perhaps the pundits are right to say "we've never had it so good. Whether or not this is true, though, belies the vast inequality that exists between us and some of our nearest international neighbours.

However rich we are financially, it is a sign of our moral and spiritual poverty that we are prepared to tolerate this degree of material inequality. Instead of leveraging our economic position for our own benefit, why aren't we doing more to improve the lives of those around us who desperately need it?

While there are many ways we could do this, I'll leave you with just one. Our government has spoken a great deal about the need to ensure that the profits from our mining industry, for example, are distributed more evenly amongst Australian society, and intend to partially redress this through the mining tax on the table as I write.

To me, this is a good idea that doesn't go far enough. Why should Australian citizens be the exclusive beneficiaries of our mineral resources, particularly when our mining companies have also profited from exploitation of gold and copper in Papua New Guinea?

Instead of distributing the profits from this tax to me and other Australians who don't really need it, why don't we use it to benefit people for whom it could actually be a matter of life or death? A major fund of this type could provide a substantial contribution to our ability to engage in humanitarian, disaster response and poverty alleviation programs internationally, and would certainly have a huge potential impact in PNG. It would also go some way towards redressing the massive and systematic inequalities that exist between nations today, and on which much of our financial success has been built.

So, economists think we've never had it so good? Well, hundreds of millions of people living in poverty agree. Australia's financial situation is the envy of the world, and it's time to do something more useful with our riches than buy another plasma TV.

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About the Author

Dr Justin Denholm is the Coordinator of the Centre for Applied Christian Ethics at Ridley Melbourne.

Other articles by this Author

All articles by Justin Denholm

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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