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.
Latest Opinion
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.