Celebrating 30 Years of Impact: Still Advocating for Rights, Equity and Access
In 2025, the Australian Parliamentary Friends of Population and Development (APGPD) proudly marked its 30th anniversary. To commemorate this significant milestone, we produced a special booklet highlighting the group’s key advocacy achievements over the past three decades.
We’re delighted to share this reflection on APGPD’s enduring commitment to gender equality, reproductive rights, and inclusive development.
The APGPD is arguably one of Australia’s most effective parliamentary friendship groups. Over the years, it has proven to be an important forum for Members of Parliament and Senators to come together across party lines to discuss and act on issues of both domestic and international importance with respect to sexual and reproductive health and rights. In 2012, the group was recognised with a Sir Ron Wilson Human Rights Award.
One of its most notable successes was in 2006, when a group of four women Senators from four different parties co-sponsored a bill to facilitate access to RU486, the ‘abortion drug’, which was not available in Australia at the time. The four Senators involved were Claire Moore (Labor), Lyn Allison (Australian Democrats), Judith Troeth (Liberals) and Fiona Nash (Nationals); only Senator Nash was not a member of the APGPD. This coming together was unprecedented in 105-years of the Australian parliament, given cross-party sponsorship of legislation is very rare. As Marian Sawer writes, “for all the Senators involved in the RU486 Bill… it was the networking and trust created through the Parliamentary Group that paved the way for further cross-party work.”
In 2007, the APGPD “was also instrumental in lifting the ban on certain contraceptives and abortion in Australia’s aid program”, as Sarah Dowse writes. Australia’s restrictions on aid at the time had echoes of the United States’ infamous ‘Global Gag Rule’, which has been instituted by successive Republican presidents since 1984 and rescinded by Democrats when they have come into power. Specifically, the group wrote a report which critiqued the conservative stance of our overseas aid:
Comprehensive sexual and reproductive health programming should be pursued in the aid program… However, Australia places restrictions on the use of aid funds in this area…these restrictions deny women the same access to reproductive health choices, education and services we give ourselves.
In 2012, the APGPD was recognised with the Sir Ron Wilson Human Rights Award from ACFID for its leadership, an “acknowledgement of the dedication of the time and energy” the group had put in to work in the international arena since its establishment after the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo. The award is presented annually to an individual or organisation that has made an outstanding contribution to advancing human rights.