Australian economic policies are connected with the rest of the world through global financial and trade markets but Christians believe that there is an even deeper moral and spiritual connection between people in Australia and people in other countries which derives from the fact that God is Creator and Lord of all. God loves all people and therefore the Christian’s moral responsibility does not stop or change at national boundaries. Just as individual Christians are not to live for themselves alone so too a nation is not called to live only for itself but also for others. Australian economic policies should not be determined or conducted with only Australian interests at heart.

One of the most important achievements of the second half of the twentieth century was the lifting of millions of people out of poverty and the world’s poorest countries entered the third millennium with encouraging GDP growth and export performance. Yet their social well-being lags far behind. The Least Developed Nations Report (2004) of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (available at http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=3073&lang=1)

indicates that there is still ‘persistent mass poverty’ in the fifty least developed countries. Despite the hope of many, trade liberalization has not been the key solution and it has actually worsened the trade balance in these countries. The Report argues that it is an illusion to think that mass poverty can be reduced through global integration and trade expansion alone. The report concludes that three strategies of

• aid
• debt relief and
• trade

must work hand-in-hand for poverty reduction. If voters enquire of candidates the attitude of their party to these matters and indicate their intention to take the needs of developing countries into account when voting in Australian elections then parliamentarians will be much more likely to support legislation which benefits those in poverty in the least developed countries.

The Evangelical Alliance, with its associated aid and development organisation Tear Australia and the Micah Challenge (a program of an international group of aid agencies) and Jubilee Australia (a coalition of Christian/Church overseas development agencies, churches, aid agencies and community groups) asks Christians to support the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals for 2015, which aim to

1. eradicate poverty and hunger
2. achieve universal primary education
3. promote gender equality
4. reduce child mortality
5. improve maternal health
6. combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7. ensure environmental sustainability
8. develop a global partnership for development.

The level of indebtedness of developing countries to developed countries is a key obstacle to the achievement of these goals. There is a need for the Australian government to:

1. Cancel the unpayable component of debts to Indonesia, Philippines, East Timor, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands ;
2. Develop debt sensitive guidelines for Australian agencies
3. Use its membership of international organisations to support the cancellation of the unpayable component of debts in Africa, developing Asia and Latin America.
4. Support the creation of an international bankruptcy body to determine the necessary level of debt cancellation and place safeguards on how the money freed by debt cancellation is used.

• What are the moral and spiritual issues associated with debt relief for developing countries?
• What relevance does Micah 6:8 have for government policy?
• Also see the discussion questions on Christian Values and Economic Policies

For further reading why not contact the Zadok Institute (www.zadok.org.au or Zadok Institute
postal: PO Box 2182, Fitzroy 3065, Australia, phone +61 500 594 500, fax +61 500 594 501 ) and obtain a copy of reading guide S98 ‘Christian Theology and Economics’ b y Paul Oslington
There is no lack of discussion of economic issues in newspapers and magazines. What is not so readily available is a competent and specifically Christian discussion. This reading guide has been prepared with two groups in mind: firstly, students of economics seeking to relate their Christian faith to their studies and, second, for the non-economist Christian concerned about economic issues such as poverty, youth unemployment in Australia or the impact of economic activity on the environment. The contemporary student of economics will rarely encounter any discussion of relationships between economic and theological issues in university courses, and when theological or ethical issues do arise, exploration of them is considered illegitimate.

Paul Oslington has been lecturer in economics at Deakin University Geelong since January 1998, after completing a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Sydney on the relationship between trade and unemployment, and a Bachelor of Divinity from Melbourne College of Divinity