Rowan Ramsey (Grey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The International Fund for Agricultural Development, IFAD, was first established in 1977 and Australia was one of the founding nations. Before we withdrew from IFAD in 2004, we had contributed more than $50 billion. IFAD was founded to help the rural poor overcome poverty. That is a very important role. Indeed, it is impossible for countries of the Third World to pull themselves up into the First World unless, of course, agriculture pays the primary bills in those economies. In poor farming families, the ability to fund children's education is normally generated by whatever agricultural assets the families have. So this role is important and Australia should be involved with agricultural development in nations within our sphere of influence.

After 27 years of involvement, in 2004 Australia pulled out of IFAD primarily for three reasons—the lack of activity in our area of interest, other organisations doing a far better job than IFAD and, most importantly, the culture of sloppy management and wastefulness permeating IFAD. So in Australia the Howard government decided that it was no longer good use of taxpayers' money to be investing in this organisation and that the resources could be better used in other places in our foreign aid budget.

I support foreign aid and I support the aim to increase the quantity of foreign aid that Australia provides. At times you, Mr Deputy Speaker Leigh, would have to field arguments within your electorate from people who believe that charity begins at home and that we should be concentrating on issues in Australia before we concentrate on issues overseas. I argue with this point of view. I think there are very good reasons for Australia to continue to have a strong foreign aid budget. For instance, look at countries in our sphere of influence, like Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation, right on our doorstep, our second closest neighbour, with 160 million people and, most importantly from our point of view, a developing democracy. There are very good reasons to ensure that modern Indonesia is a success, and our role there is important.

It is very important that we continue to involve ourselves with our closest neighbour, Papua New Guinea. We have a long-term moral commitment to PNG. It is in our interests to see a stable democracy continue there and that any altercations which may happen on their shores do not bleed into Australia.

We have also had involvement with a country a little bit further away—Sri Lanka. Along with Indonesia, it is at the moment the biggest source of asylum seekers coming to Australia. So it is in Australia's interests to be involved and spend some dollars in these countries to try to make them better places so people do not wish to leave. Foreign aid is primarily about helping people, but it is also about promoting Australia's interests. Peaceful, prosperous nations in the Asia-Pacific region are definitely in Australia's interests.

Just for the record, of those three countries I mentioned, Indonesia is the biggest recipient of foreign aid at $578 million, PNG receives $491 million, and Sri Lanka—I think, a little surprisingly—receives $47 million, not a huge sum in this context. That makes a total not just in those three countries but in the East Asia-Pacific region, that direct area of influence for Australia, of $2.49 billion, or roughly half of the total foreign aid budget. It brings into question what we are doing with the other half, because I am not a great supporter, for instance, of Australia being heavily involved in Africa. I think there are other nations that have primary responsibility for Africa, particularly in Europe. We do not see the Europeans being heavily involved in the Asia-Pacific region. Africa is on their doorstep, so we should be concentrating on those countries that have a direct influence on us.

I have been fortunate enough in the last year or two to have visited Sri Lanka and a number of aid projects that Australia is involved with there. I saw some schools we have erected, most notably a two- and three-storey brand new school for 1,400 students for $750,000. That would not have gone far in the BER project, I might point out—not far at all. But it was good enough to house—

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