The Hon Julie Bishop MP
Minister for Foreign Affairs

Polio is the "crippling disease" and most of those paralysed or killed by the poliovirus are children under the age of five.  After several decades of tireless effort by Rotary, the WHO and many others, the number of children paralysed worldwide has been reduced from 1,000 per DAY to less than 100 per YEAR.  It's quite possible we'll see the last case of polio within a matter of months.  And once we can confirm the poliovirus is gone, we'll know the disease will be gone FOREVER.

Last year in Sydney, I was one of almost 20,000 Rotarians from scores of countries around the world to witness then-Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, make a promise to the children of the world.  He said that the Australian Government would contribute $100 million to help finish the eradication effort.  A very proud moment for Australia!

Now, barely a year later, we read in the paper that the Australian Government is getting ready to renege on that promise and divert $36 million of the funding away from the Polio Eradication and Endgame Strategy — and that's on top of an $8 million cut in May.

Apart from the breach of promise, this is not clever policy.

Despite simply outstanding recent progress, unless governments and others from around the world maintain the effort, the disease WILL come back as strong as before. The studies show that if that happens, the economic cost will be multiple tens of BILLIONS — and that doesn't even take into account the inestimable human suffering of the children killed and paralysed.

The last time Australia broke with its proud tradition of supporting polio eradication was in the early 2000's when Tony Abbott was Health Minister.  Again, this was at the exact time when we were getting VERY close to eradicating the disease.  One impact of that decision was that other countries followed Australia's lead and cut funding.  The result?  Polio took off again for more than a decade, killing and paralysing countless children.

In November 2011, when I was finishing a bicycle ride from NSW to Cairns to raise funds to fight polio, Tony Abbott kindly rode his bicycle into Cairns with me for a civic reception.  When I asked him why the Australian Government had cut funding back in 2003,  he said, "Yes, I was Health Minister then wasn't I," to which I nodded.  He went on, "Well Rob, we thought polio had already been eradicated and I didn't see much point continuing the funding".

Julie Bishop, this time, let's make our decisions based on a full awareness of the facts and let's learn from history!  It is critical that the government of which you are Deputy honour its promise to the world's children and play its part in ending this disease.

Robert Byrne
Rotarian
Turramurra, NSW.