Anne McEwen (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tonight I would like to speak about overseas development aid, but I would like to start off by congratulating two women on some excellent appointments that have been recently made. I would like to acknowledge that former Prime Minister Julia Gillard has been made the chair of the Global Partnership for Education. It is a fine institution, which focuses on getting girls—particularly in developing nations—into education. I could not think of a more fitting person to chair that organisation.

I would also like to congratulate former senator Natasha Stott Despoja, who has been appointed Australia's Ambassador for Women and Girls. Former senator Stott Despoja's commitment to women, to equality and to women's advancement, particularly in developing nations, is without question. I am very pleased that the federal government maintained that position but also that they appointed former Senator Stott Despoja to the position.

Twenty-two out of 24 of Australia's closest neighbours are developing nations. I have had a chance to visit some of those nations and in the ones I have visited I have always taken time to have a look at the outcome of Australia's overseas development aid. I like to see it at work and I have witnessed, first hand, the benefits that it brings to developing nations in our region.

It was with great sadness that I read the 18 January 2014 media release of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, in which she outlined in detail the cuts that the Abbott government is making to Australia's overseas aid budget—and not minor cuts, I might add. This government has taken a very, very big knife to Australia's international assistance and has cut some $656 million from our aid program in this current financial year. In other words, in 2014 Australia will spend $107 million less on overseas aid than they did last year, and that leaves some of our closest neighbours, who happen to be amongst the world's poorest nations, struggling even more. Of the $656 million in cuts, $250 million will be ripped directly from our neighbours. That includes the $61 million cut in the Pacific region; $116 million in East Asia, including $59 million from Indonesia; and $71 million from South and West Asia, including Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Further afield, the government's actions will see $113 million taken from Africa and the Middle East and $5.3 million from Latin America and the Caribbean.

Despite the minister's assurances that Australia will renew its aid focus on our region, the minister has gone ahead and withdrawn the money from where it is needed most, right under our noses. The minister has cleverly structured her media release so that it looks as though the government are simply taking a more streamlined approach to our development aid. In fact, she says the funding will be refocused and tied to rigorous benchmarks, and she is clearly anticipating that ordinary Australians may think this is a positive development in the aid space, while in fact it is cover for simply cutting funds to nations that we can and should be supporting.

Fortunately, many Australians, particularly many young Australians, can see past the foreign minister's attempt to pull the wool over our eyes with regard to overseas development aid and Australia's commitment to it. We know that many programs not only will have funding cut but will cease completely in the very near future, leaving aid delivery organisations and recipients of overseas development aid in a very precarious position as to the future of the very programs that need to be rolled out to assist these people.

There is a lot of debate about the role of overseas development aid, and the current government tends to frame it in the context that it is a handout to countries, whereas we full-well know—and there is plenty of research to show it—that overseas development aid in the way that it is delivered by Australia is in fact a leg-up, not a handout, and that, without the leg-up that Australia's overseas development aid provides to our near neighbours, those neighbours will never become economically stable and secure countries. Australia needs to have economically stable, secure, growing countries in our region for many reasons, not just for the ethical reason that we should do whatever we can to assist people who need our assistance but because it is better for us in Australia if our near neighbours are viable developing countries, countries that are moving out of the developing status into being able to sustain themselves.

The realities of the cuts of the Abbott government in the overseas development aid sphere are that the poorest people in our region are going to suffer. Australia has always contributed to aid and tried to help our neighbours and, as I said, that is what we should do because it benefits us as well as the people who are recipients of the aid. Unfortunately, though, the Abbott government has approached this as it has many other spheres of government—that is, to simply cut funding without paying attention to the impact of those cuts. We saw this uncaring and mean attitude towards people who need assistance just last week here in our own country, where the government refused to commit $25 million which would have assisted SPC Ardmona and the thousands of people whose jobs depend on that factory. The government refused that relatively small amount of money to assist industry. They are mean in their own country, so you can only expect that they are going to be mean in other people's countries as well. As examples of the amounts of money that are lost to some of our near neighbours, the Solomon Islands will suffer a $14.2 million cut in overseas development aid; Cambodia a $7.9 million cut; Timor-Leste—a country near and dear to many Australians—an $8 million cut and Fiji a $2.8 million cut.

I would like to contrast the attitude of the Abbott government to overseas development aid with what we were able to do when Labor was in government. Under the Labor government Australia's commitment to overseas development aid grew with every aid budget. Some of us would have liked it to have grown more, but it did grow with every budget. In 2006-07 the Australian government invested just $2.9 billion, but by 2013-14 that figure had grown to $5.7 billion. Labor was very proud of that record of increasing the amount of overseas development aid. It is in Labor's heart and soul to use what advantages we have in this country to support those poorer nations.

It is disturbing to see Australia's grand reputation as a nation that cares for its poorest neighbours being undone by a very mean and uncaring federal government. It is shameful, indeed, that such a wealthy nation is now turning its back on our developing neighbours when they need it most. The Labor Party is still committed to increasing the percentage of gross national income that goes to overseas development aid. Currently, the commitment is to 0.5 per cent but we were always aspirational for 0.7 per cent. Now, however, the percentage of Australia's gross national income that goes to overseas development aid is just over 0.3 per cent. That is a shameful statistic, and it is very difficult to look at our friends in the developing nations—some of them have been in this place today—and know that we are a wealthy nation with a great future but unable to find it in our hearts to put a bit more money on the table to ensure that our nearest neighbours can aspire to become a nation like us.