Danby helps ring in the new
WITH Prime Minister Julia Gillard at home to launch her carbon plan, it was left to Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby to represent Australia at independence celebrations for the world’s newest country.
WITH Prime Minister Julia Gillard at home to launch her carbon plan, it was left to Melbourne Ports MP Michael Danby to represent Australia at independence celebrations for the world’s newest country.
Danby, the chair of the Parliamentary Joint Standing Committee for Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, embarked on a whistlestop trip to Juba, the new country’s capital, arriving home on Tuesday morning.
The veteran MP called the day history-making and congratulated the many Australians of South Sudanese heritage on the momentous occasion.
Speaking in Parliament before his departure, Danby said the future of the fledgling state, which was born out of years of conflict, depended on support from the international community.
“We must not let that region slide back into civil war,” he said. “Despite the momentous vote for independence, South Sudan faces enormous obstacles on becoming a new nation.”
According to the Australian MP, only 15 per cent of adults in the new country can read and write, and more than half the population lives in abject poverty, subsisting on less than 75 cents per day. Life expectancy in the world’s youngest country is only 42 years.
There is hope for the country to find its feet though, with South Sudan sitting on top of rich oil fields, but there are continued tensions in the oil field areas.
“As the United States Agency for International Development has characterised the situation in South Sudan, there is no greater post-conflict reconstruction challenge that has been faced anywhere in the world,” Danby told Parliament.
“If Australia can play its small part in lifting the children of South Sudan out of abject poverty, by assisting with the development of universal education and with nation-building, we will surely be on our way to alleviating some of the ills that the South Sudanese people have suffered.”
South Sudan’s independence was declared last Saturday after a referendum on independence from Sudan was held in January. Among those at the declaration was UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and British Foreign Secretary William Hague.
Back home, relations between the local Jewish community and local Sudanese community are strong. There are leadership ties at the top level and at the grassroots, with several Jewish people volunteering their time to help new migrants.
NAOMI LEVIN
A citizen of South Sudan wears his new country’s colours with pride (Photo: UN Photo/Paul Banks)
comments