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

We are focusing our aid effort on our region: the Indian Ocean, Asia-Pacific. It is where we live. It is where we have the most influence. It is where we can make the biggest difference. We are no longer raiding the aid budget to the tune of $740 million to plug a hole in the border protection budget. We are no longer moving $5.7 billion out of the aid budget when no-one is looking, as Labor had done. So we are providing certainty. It is affordable, it is responsible and it is sustainable. It means that the Australian government is still among the top 10 aid donors in the OECD world, in developed countries, and in our own region we are second only to Japan in terms of the amount of our aid budget. We have consulted with our partners and we are putting in place performance benchmarks and mutual accountability. This is the new aid paradigm that other developed countries are doing; Australia likewise is taking a new approach.

But I do have to put this in context, because Labor's debt and deficit means that we have to borrow a billion dollars each and every month to pay the interest on Labor's debt. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition was part of the former cabinet under the former Labor governments and so she ought to know better than anyone the train wreck that we inherited from Labor in terms of debt and deficit. Yet, sure enough, she puts out a press release on 14 May saying that Labor would be putting in an extra $16 billion to the aid budget. Labor commits to this additional $16 billion. Where does Labor think they are going to get that from? Well, they could continue to borrow. They could borrow $16 billion from overseas to send $16 billion back overseas. That is Labor's thinking. Then we would have to borrow money to pay the interest on the $16 billion that they borrowed from overseas to send back overseas. The alternative to borrowing is to cut more programs, so I would like the Deputy Leader of the Opposition to tell us—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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