Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will now finish my contribution, and if the minister had not interrupted me she would have had the opportunity to respond to some of the points that I make. But I do wish to finish my contribution by saying that the changes in DFAT's budget, the staff cuts that are being undertaken, have affected morale. We know that. There was a leaked survey from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade which indicates that only 33 per cent of the former AusAID staff feel part of the team compared to 70 per cent of their colleagues who have always been at DFAT. The great shame about this is that with $7.6 billion cut from this budget in overseas development aid and the $400 million cut from the departmental budget: did the minister object in cabinet and the ERC to these changes?

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