Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Let me put it in context as well, by saying that it seems that this budget is yet another cut to Australia's overseas development assistance, having already cut this budget by $11 billion under this foreign minister's watch over the last four or five years with cuts to outlays in the next four years of $140 million. This year's budget delivers the weakest levels of Australian development assistance in history, now spending just 22c in every $100 of our national income on foreign aid in 2018-19. On the current trajectory, by the end of the forward estimates this will be just 19c in every $100. The aid budget has now been cut in every single budget since this government came to power.

Australia has a deep interest in contributing to global poverty alleviation, and our international development program supports security and stability in our region. The minister's own DFAT white paper that was released late last year said that Australia's overseas aid program aims to:

… assist developing countries reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development in line with Australia's national interest.

However, in London a few months ago, the Minister for International Development, Senator Fierravanti-Wells, cited opinion polls to justify Australia's poor aid budget. She said:

In Australia we had some research done where it showed that about 80 per cent of Australians believe that we should not be spending more on foreign aid or that what we spend is about right.

So it seems that the government thinks an opinion poll is the best way to determine how much we should spend on overseas development assistance.

Unlike the Turnbull government, the New Zealand government gets it. They've described their decision to boost aid funding in this year's budget as a clear demonstration to the international community that New Zealand is serious about addressing global and regional challenges, and their decision to lift overseas development assistance to 0.28 per cent of gross national income over the next four years is a demonstration of that.

A Shorten Labor government will contribute more to international development assistance than this current government. We've repeatedly urged the Turnbull government to return to a proper bipartisan approach to international development assistance, so I was heartened to hear the foreign minister last week say that she believes that foreign development assistance should absolutely be increased. My question to the minister is: at a time when Australia's influence in the region is under stress and you yourself believe that we should be spending more, why haven't you been able to prevent $11 billion worth of aid cuts in the Australian budget?

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