Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I do thank the member for Wannon for his question. And that is quite a career enhancing move, I must say. I appreciate his words of support. This government will deliver an aid program that the nation can responsibly afford in the context of Labor's legacy of record debt and deficit. We have stabilised the aid budget at $5 billion a year. It is projected to increase according to the consumer price index from 2016. This means that Australia remains one of the top 10 aid donors in the OECD world. In fact, we are second only to Japan in our region. Shortly, I will be announcing a new approach to the way we deliver aid. This new framework will comprise performance benchmarks and mutual obligation partnerships so that the Australian taxpayer can be confident that under this government aid will be delivered effectively and efficiently, and results driven with real outcomes.

Gone will be the days when Labor would make a big announcement about an increase in the aid budget and then, when no-one was watching, they would rip money out to plug holes in their blow-outs elsewhere. In the last 15 months of Labor, $5.7 billion was ripped out of the aid budget. They were misleading people into believing that they were going to meet a target of 0.5 per cent of gross national income. That was a deliberate deceit. They were never going to do it. Gone are the days when the Labor government—

Mr Dreyfus interjecting—

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