Bob Carr (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Australia's aid budget for this financial year is a record and proud $5.2 billion—that is, $315 million more than the previous year and $2 billion more than the coalition's aid budget in its last year in office. Our approach meets the OECD's guidelines for the proper use of aid. But if this coalition policy were to be implemented, a huge excision from that aid budget would take place, with the justification of building a medical research facility on Australian soil, which would make no contribution to the acute health problems of some of Australia's poor neighbours. You do not reduce the incidence of malaria in Vanuatu by building a research facility on Australian soil. You disappoint the people of the Solomons who look to Australia to beat malaria and eradicate it from their islands by 2020, as we all do. (Time expired)