If I were the Federal Treasurer…

| May 2, 2016

On the weekend Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie announced that she’d like to see foreign aid slashed in this year’s federal budget as pensioners are doing it tough and need the money we’re spending on overseas aid. International development specialist Belinda Lucas begs to differ.

I was dismayed when Campaign for Australian Aid popped this into my inbox: Jacqui Lambie on Sunrise.

If I were the Treasurer, I would blink twice at Jacqui Lambie and any other mad politician who suggests that we should cut the aid program in this year’s budget, take a deep breath and calmly explain that out of every $100 the government spends, we only spend 90 cents on Australian aid –  not some $13 that a recent poll shows Australians mistakenly believe we give to foreign aid.

That’s right – just 90 cents in every $100. We don’t need to muck around with knocking 90 cents down any further. It’s already such a small piece of the pie.

If Jacqui Lambie argued that pensioners are doing it tough and need the money that we spend on overseas aid, I would remind Jacqui that out of every $100 the government spends, we already give $9.79 to our seniors in income support alone – that’s more than 10 times what we spend on Australian aid. I would raise an eyebrow to check that this information had settled.

I would then explain that our 90 cents for Australian aid is far below our international commitment, and in fact we really need to think about how we can increase our allocation in next year’s budget. Our aid program is an important foreign policy tool that helps promote regional security, fosters a trading playground for Australia and makes our world a fairer, more equitable place.

Jacqui Lambie might get stroppy at this point and throw away lines that our aid is ineffective and a waste of money. At this point, I would get firm. I would let Jacqui know that for less than 1% of the total federal budget, Australian aid achieves extraordinary things. In 2014 alone, we vaccinated more than 2.3 million children, supplied 2.9 million people with access to drinking water, and responded to emergencies in 24 countries. We are also investing in the private sector and we are growing economic opportunities so that countries around us prosper and grow.

I would also let her know that we have some outstanding Australian NGOs that help to deliver our aid program – organisations like ChildFund, Caritas, CBM, PLAN, and Oxfam. I would tell her that I can guarantee that they have people on the ground to make sure that programs are well managed, and that they continuously monitor, evaluate and report on their results. We have a rigorous accreditation system where our Australian NGO delivery partners are continuously assessed and reviewed so that we can be confident we are spending our 90 cents well.

If I were Treasurer, I would know that the capacity for Australia to make a real and meaningful difference to making the world a fairer place was easily within my grasp and I wouldn’t touch that 90 cents – in fact, I might just bump it up to $1.

See also the editorial in The Sydney Morning Herald “The budget must begin to repair Australia’s foreign aid program”.

This article first appeared here and is republished with the permission of the author.

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0 Comments

  1. Russell

    June 13, 2016 at 12:29 am

    90cents v 36.5 billion dollars in aid
    please, 90cents equates to 36.5billion dollars or there abouts, for once Lambie has made some “centsdont you think that maybe instead of screwing down the pension we could increase it, after all that was the promise I started work under was that we would be looked after by our government when we got old, now because they have spent everything including the kitchen sink we all have to suffer, why? Belinda, look around your community and tell me they aren’t doing it tough.