Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The refusal of the government to have a vote on this important motion should be noted because of the words that have been used here again—the weasel words that we are hearing more and more when it comes to foreign aid. We have seen foreign aid treated as an ATM, with huge amounts of money taken out of it. In the two years that this government has been in power, $11 billion has been taken out of the budget for poverty alleviation. Now we are seeing attempts to change the definition. There is a weakness in how the OECD definition is set out, but we know there is proposal coming from the government to include military logistical support as a form of foreign aid and to be able to define it in that way, which would then allow the government to make out that its aid budget is bigger than it is. This is misrepresenting the aid budget at a time when they are actually ripping millions out of it. (Time expired)