Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I have a series of questions for the minister. I will go through those questions and those you cannot answer we will put on notice. In relation to the department's incoming government brief, the red book, it states:

The department is already badly resourced.

According to the department's calculations, by what percentage is the department underfunded in the wake of the most recent cuts to the operating budget? How much additional funding will be cut in dollar terms? Did the department advise the government against further funding cuts? Which areas of departmental operations will have the largest redundancies and what will be the reduction across the various levels of seniority within the department?

On the issue of expenses, I ask the minister: what will be the impact of further funding cuts to consular services? Are more Australians travelling overseas and by what amount, and is there an increased consular case workload as a result? Is there sufficient capacity within the department to deal with a major crisis involving large numbers of Australians needing consular support overseas? Is that capacity similar to the past or less? Are Austrade officers in posts being seconded to provide consular support? If so, in which posts and what percentage of their time is being taken up by consular support?

Regarding AusAID, I have a number of questions about the independent review of aid effectiveness. Recommendation 39 of the Australian government's Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness says:

The scale–up of the aid program to 0.5 per cent of GNI should be subject to the progressive achievement of predetermined hurdles.

Have these hurdles been determined? If so, are they publicly available? If the hurdles or benchmarks have not been imposed, why not? How will AusAID be measured against these benchmarks and who will undertake the assessment?

In relation to salary supplements, does AusAID recruit nationals of the countries in which it operates? How does AusAID determine salaries for nationals so recruited? Does AusAID supplement or top up salaries for some foreign nationals who work for their governments? Does AusAID supplement or top up salaries of public servants in other countries? If so, what measures does AusAID put in place to prevent a conflict of interest? How many public servants are in receipt of AusAID top-up payments? What is the level of the top-up payments as a percentage of their government salary? Is the government of each country notified of all employees in receipt of top-up payments?

On the question of domestic lobbying in the aid budget, how much of taxpayer funds are diverted to domestic awareness raising or lobbying activities? Are organisations in receipt of AusAID funding allowed to use taxpayer funding to lobby for increased funding from AusAID? How does this ban on lobbying for increases reconcile with the vocal and high-profile campaign for an increase in the aid budget to 0.5 per cent or 0.7 per cent of GNI, depending upon the organisation? How does AusAID prevent development organisations from using taxpayer funding to support this lobbying?

I have a number of questions on the campaigns on sexually transmitted diseases. Has Caritas been successful in winning tenders to promote awareness of STI? In particular, is Caritas actively promoting the use of condoms as part of that campaign? If not, was AusAID aware of the fact that Caritas would not promote the use of condoms and why was it awarded that tender?

What is the acceptable level of cost transfer back to headquarters of organisations involved in delivering the aid program? What percentage of a given program is attributed to offshore costs by World Vision, Oxfam and Save the Children, for example?

Is AusAID aware of reports that its funding of PNG police officers has created a virtual private security force that largely protects Malaysian logging interests? What steps has AusAID taken to ensure that its funding is not being used for such purposes?

How much money has been spent to date on the Australian Civilian Corps? How many people have been deployed? How many people have registered to be part of the Civilian Corps? How many of these are Australian public servants? How many people are involved in managing the program in Canberra? What is the cost of administering the program compared with the cost of deployment?

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