McCully fails to be upfront on poverty at UN Summit

Foreign Affairs Minister Murray McCully should have been upfront in speaking to the United Nations and acknowledged that he has taken the focus of the New Zealand aid programme off the elimination of poverty, says Labour's Associate Foreign Affairs spokesperson Phil Twyford.

The Minister was addressing the General Assembly's High Level Plenary Session on the Millennium Development Goals, which are the internationally agreed targets for the elimination of poverty.

"Mr McCully has switched the focus of New Zealand's aid programme from lifting people out of poverty to direct support to private business.

"The Minister's desire to spend Kiwi aid dollars on airlines, ferries, and tourism might stimulate private sector-led economic growth, but he seems to have given little thought to who will benefit, or whether it is the highest priority,” Phil Twyford said.

"Will the benefits of growth trickle down to the 85% of Pacific Islanders who live from subsistence farming or will they just line the pockets of the elites?

"In Papua New Guinea mothers are dying in childbirth at a rate similar to Afghanistan. That is 80 times more than New Zealand. The Minister had nothing to say about this in his speech to the United Nations in spite of strong cross-party support in Parliament for the findings of an inquiry into maternal deaths in the Pacific.

"The Pacific is one of only two parts of the world falling behind in progress towards the Millenium Development Goals. The other is Sub-Saharan Africa.

"Without investing in health and education, the poor won't be able to take advantage of any opportunities from economic growth. If you don't reform policies and build government capacity to deliver services, then developing countries will never get ahead. Mr McCully is so ideologically blinkered that he thinks training midwives or getting kids into school is supporting 'bloated bureaucracy',” Phil Twyford said.

"If the Minister was genuine in his comments at the United Nations about meeting the Millenium Development Goals he should return the focus of the aid programme to poverty elimination, and get New Zealand back on track towards the internationally agreed target of spending 0.7% of GNI on aid."

ENDS

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