Wyatt Roy (Longman, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To help members opposite, my question is to the member for Curtin, the Minister for Foreign Affairs. Will the minister advise the House of the steps the government is taking to ensure Australia's aid program is responsible, sustainable and affordable?

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

I thank the member for Longman for his question and I can inform the House that this afternoon, at the National Press Club, I launched the Australian government's new aid policy and our new strategic direction for the $5 billion a year aid program that makes Australia one of the top 10 donors in the OECD. I really want to thank the Deputy of Leader of the Opposition for her full endorsement of our aid program. Her media release referred to 'the Abbott government's fresh new approach on overseas aid'. Thank you very much; I appreciate that.

What we are doing is focusing on our region—90 per cent of our aid budget will be focused on the Indian Ocean-Asia Pacific. We are going to develop innovative ways to engage the private sector to promote economic development, to reduce poverty and to lift standards of living in our region. We will put in place performance benchmarks and mutual obligations with partner countries and we will work for better results. We are going to focus our aid investment on health and education, building capacity in workforces, infrastructure and, importantly, empowering women and girls. It is a fresh new approach. There will be no more raiding of the aid budget to cover Labor's blow-out in onshore—that is right, 'onshore'—processing costs. Seven hundred and forty million dollars was ripped out of the aid budget to cover their blow-outs in the immigration budget.

You would have thought that, having left an interest bill of $1 billion a month on their borrowings, Labor would have developed some sort of responsible approach. But I could not believe it when yesterday the member for Kingsford Smith recommitted Labor to increasing the aid budget by $16 billion. Where is the money coming from? More debt! But you should not expect too much from the member for Kingsford Smith. Back when he was in government, he was telling us that he was eminently qualified to be the Parliamentary Secretary—this is serious—for Pacific Island Affairs because he regularly swims at Sydney beaches! There it is. He is an expert on the Pacific because he goes swimming on Sydney beaches! What next? You are a Pacific expert because you can see Fiji from your electorate?

The Australian government will deliver a responsible, affordable, sustainable aid budget—and I thank the Deputy Leader of the Opposition for her endorsement of our new policy.