Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I am listening but I am not agreeing. If you think that it is important to give students an opportunity to learn a trade at school, why are you cutting a billion dollars from trades training centres? No answer from the minister.

Other speakers have detailed and will continue to detail the cuts to health, education and other services, but I want to talk about the cuts this government is making within the foreign affairs and international development portfolio. In January this year, the foreign minister confirmed that no region in the world would escape the government's $4.5 billion cut to the foreign aid budget. The $4.5 billion cut was announced only days before the election, but it took the government until the new year to detail how those cuts would hit. The foreign minister's January announcement was of the first $650 million in cuts for the 2013-14 financial year—the announcement more than halfway through the financial year in which the $650 million cuts would hit. These cuts will impact on some of the poorest people in the world.

I do not think there is any Australian who would say that the humanitarian need in Africa is not great and that we should not help. But the Abbott government has already cut more than $90 million from the poorest countries in Africa. The government tried to justify these cuts by saying that they were going to reorient Australia's aid spend towards the Asia-Pacific. I would agree that our region should be our greatest priority. Yet over this same period, this financial year, there will be a $250 million cut to our region—Indonesia cut by $59.1 million; PNG cut by $5.3 million; Vanuatu cut by $6.2 million; the Solomon Islands cut by $14.2 million; and Fiji cut by $2.8 million. The member at the table with me, the member for Kingsford Smith was with me on a trip through the Pacific with the foreign minister as she assured the Prime Minister of Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands and Nauru that there were no cuts to their foreign aid budget coming—yet these figures show that that is absolutely not the case.

It is important to remember that these cuts are retrospective. They come in the middle of a financial year, causing enormous difficulty for aid organisations that had worked so constructively with the previous government and that wish to work so constructively with this government. I will give a couple of examples. Julia Newton-Howes, chief executive of that marvellous organisation, Care Australia, said her organisation had lost half a million dollars from their $20 million budget this year. She said:

This is for aid we had already programmed this financial year. We are now going to have to scramble to work out where we can cut.

Oxfam is another magnificent organisation that assists some of the neediest people in the world. Their chief executive Helen Szoke says it will be forced to scale back a number of programs as a result of the cuts. She said:

We, like many other agencies, will have to tell partners and people on the ground that we'll have to scale back programs.

Real needs that were going to be met this year will now not be met. Before the election, then shadow Treasurer, Joe Hockey, and shadow finance spokesman, Andrew Robb, said:

The Coalition will reprioritise foreign aid allocations towards non-government organisations that deliver on-the-ground support for those most in need.

That will also mean putting more money into NGOs who are on the ground and who can deliver aid more efficiently.

Again, I would agree with that sentiment. It is very important that we support our proven and tested NGOs with partners and staff on the ground, experienced people, delivering high-quality aid. Yet, despite these promises, non-government organisations which deliver that on-the-ground support, such as CARE and Oxfam, had their funding cut midyear. The Red Cross will lose $8.5 million, UNICEF's funding will be cut by $4.2 million and the World Health Organization will lose around $3.4 million. I cannot speak highly enough of these organisations. I admire the work they do. I have been a long-time donor to many of these organisations because I respect them. I know that when you give a dollar to these organisations it gets to people in need. Yet these organisations are facing the cruellest of cuts this financial year.

Late last year, the government failed to deliver the $375 million contribution expected of Australia to replenish the Global Fund. The Global Fund does magnificent work to reduce the spread of HIV, tuberculosis and malaria around the world. It does successful work. We have seen that the Abbott government funding has fallen $175 million short on what was expected to be Australia's contribution. Instead of the expected $125 million a year, the government will give only about half of that.

We are a generous country, and we do what we can to offer a helping hand to those most in need. We do it not only because of our ethical and moral values but also because it is in Australia's interest to live in a peaceful and prosperous world. When we can contribute to that aim, we should contribute to that aim. Under the former Labor government, Australia's aid budget increased every year, by nearly $3 billion in total. And, to those opposite who would say that this is a frivolous indulgence, we looked at every dollar of aid spending to make sure that it was well targeted. We undertook an Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness to ensure that our international development policy was actually working to help people overcome poverty. We were determined to ensure our aid program was not just better resourced but of a higher quality too and that more was spent on front-line services like health and education. That is why we made enhancing transparency and accountability key planks to ensure effectiveness, and it is also why we were determined to strengthen Australian government partnerships with accountable and proven NGOs.

The cuts to the aid program were followed by revelations in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade's portfolio additional estimates statement, released a couple of weeks ago. In that statement, the government's lack of commitment to poverty alleviation was revealed. No longer would Australian aid spending carry with it an obligation to assist developing countries reduce poverty. After the former government's Independent Review of Aid Effectiveness, poverty reduction was entrenched as a primary goal of Australia's aid program. This is now gone, and the change of direction is rapidly taking place under this government. Why is poverty reduction important? How can it be called an aid budget or an overseas development assistance budget if we do not have poverty reduction as one of the aims of this budget?

The poor start that the government has made in overseeing Australia's international development policy has disappointingly, unfortunately, been mirrored by its clumsy approach to some of our most critical bilateral relationships. Over the last few months I think many Australians have been looking on and scratching their heads as they have seen the decline in our relationship with Indonesia and the decline in our relationship with China. These countries are important to us in our region, and it pains me to say it but our government is letting us down. Of course issues occasionally blow up with countries—even with our very good friends and even with our best friends—but how we handle those issues as they come up is critical.

Our relationship with Indonesia is vital, and that is why we worked with Indonesia so closely. It is why, under Labor, we secured a comprehensive strategic partnership with Indonesia, including annual face-to-face meetings of leaders and foreign, defence and trade ministers to foster better dialogue and strategic consultation between our two nations. Just recently, the Indonesian Foreign Minister said that just five months ago the relationship between our two countries had been 'very close and very positive'. He also said that the relationship was 'maybe the closest' it had ever been. In that very short time, we have seen a very substantial decline in that relationship. We heard today that our Minister for Foreign Affairs got an incredibly frosty reception when she went to China. It is important that we look after our old friendships, but our new friendships and our friendships in the region will be critical to our success in the future, to our prosperity and to our security. The government lets us down when it does not tend to these relationships.

Under Labor, our bilateral relationship with China also matured into a stronger and more diverse partnership. In the Australia in the Asian century white paper, the then government committed to elevating our relations with China through regular high-level meetings between leaders and senior ministers. We achieved that goal at the historic meeting of leaders in Beijing in April 2013, when then Prime Minister Gillard and the Chinese Premier announced the Australia-China strategic partnership. We have, as I said, good and close relationships with our old friends, but it is irresponsible and short-sighted for Australia to turn its back on our newer friends, because those newer friends will be critical to our national wellbeing in the future. We are capable of good relations with both, and under Labor we had good relations with both.

As I said earlier, we will pass these bills, but we need to remember that, at the heart of them, what we see in black and white is a catalogue of the broken promises of this government—the promises not to cut. We see the cuts here in black and white. We see a broken promise too in the fact that, while Joe Hockey promised to spend sensibly, what we see here is the beginning of debt unlimited.

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