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Australian aid budget slashed, focus on Indo-Pacific region
View(s):Australia is to focus its aid budget on the Indo-Pacific region, announcing a cut of more than A$100 million but saying its money will be better spent closer to home, where it won’t be supporting a “hand-out culture”.
The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs states total aid to Sri Lanka in the last financial year was A$ 42.6 million and the next is set at A$ 39.7 million — a slight reduction — while heavier cuts are expected for African countries.
Sri Lanka welcomed two significant visits by Australian Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop to this country, once as shadow minister and last year as Minister when she occupied her leader Tony Abbott to the CHOGM conference in Colombo.
Australia has been willing to spend money on Sri Lanka while it supported Canberra’s anti-people smuggling programmes, and this aid is likely to continue.
Explaining the aid programme for Sri Lanka, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs says: “Australia has good relations with Sri lanka, underpinned by trade and investment … education, immigration, strong people-to-people links and development cooperation.” Aid is targeted at development challenges facing Sri Lanka after the civil war.
The aid cuts have caused a furore in Australia and aid groups say needy people in Third World countries will face added misery.
And from Oxfam chief executive Dr Helen Szoke came this criticism: “… we will now go to some of those people we have been supporting and tell them that we can no longer support them, which will be acutely disheartening for them”.
Ms. Bishop yesterday said the Government would earmark A$ 5.042 billion in foreign aid expenditure for the 2013/14 financial year, focusing on the Indo-Pacific.The previous government’s aid programmes were unsustainable, she said.
Ms. Bishop said Australia needed to move away from a “hand-out culture” and ensure its aid programme funding was something of which Australians could take pride.