Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate—

(a) notes:

  (i) the Government's deeply disappointing decision to once again cut funding to aid in the 2017-18 Federal Budget by $300.3 million across the forward estimates,

  (ii) Australia's Overseas Development Assistance (ODA) is currently at a record low as a proportion of Gross National Income (GNI), and will now plunge even further to 0.2 per cent of GNI by 2020, and

  (iii) this decision comes as there are 60 million displaced people in the world, famines in parts of Africa and the Middle East, and increasing threats to prosperity as a result of climate change, amongst other global concerns; and

(b) calls on the Government to reverse these cuts, and as soon as possible identify a year by which Australia's ODA will reach the target of 0.7 per cent of GNI, as is our commitment to the United Nations, and as other comparable nations such as the United Kingdom have already achieved.