Alexander Downer (Mayo, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

First of all let me say, so everybody understands this, that the budget includes $164 million, which is over five years, for the Global Initiative on Forests and Climate—and I think that is a very important initiative. I would not necessarily measure the efficacy of these programs by the amount of money you put into them but by what the money buys and what it does. The $32.5 million is in 2007-08, as I explained earlier, and that is for partnerships with international organisations on climate change mitigation and adaptation initiatives. And I announced on World Environment Day, which was 5 June, a $7½ million contribution, which the honourable member for Fraser referred to, to the Least Developed Countries Fund and other smaller initiatives.

I am not sure what the percentage of the total aid budget is, but I am not quite sure what the member’s point is. If the point is that we should cut funding for poverty alleviation and proportionately put more funding into some sort of unspecified climate change initiative, I would not do that. I would not do it. What we need to understand—in fact, I feel pretty passionately about this—is that we are a global community. Politicians need to be a little bit better than one-trick ponies. I know the focus groups and Hawker Britton and so on tell you to talk about climate change the whole time, and I know you did a little deal with AID/WATCH the other day—apparently you were opposed to debt relief for Iraq, or you were in favour of it but not in favour of it, and debt relief is not really aid.

See this speech in context