Andrew Leigh (Fraser, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Government is about choices and those choices tell us a lot about people's values. A top priority of this government is to give a $4 billion tax cut to mining billionaires. The beneficiaries will be among the world's richest people. At the same time, this government is cutting over $4 billion from aid to the world's poorest people. That cut will affect aid workers, too. We have seen this government forcibly integrate AusAID into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in a botched process with little care for the passionate development workers who have been involved. We saw a terrible initial briefing in which AusAID workers were herded like cattle into the middle of the DFAT auditorium, while those in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade looked down upon them from the atrium and one of the DFAT officials reportedly mimed machine-gunning the AusAID staff.

We have also seen this government breaking its pledge to new graduates who had accepted jobs with AusAID. There was an assurance from Minister Eric Abetz that, despite Public Service cuts, the government would continue to support graduate recruitment but that pledge has been broken. The government has terminated the contracts of about 20 graduates, many of whom had turned down offers from other agencies and had signed contracts with AusAID. Georgia Burns Williamson said:

She had quit her job as a tutor at the University of Melbourne and had passed the security clearance. She also said:

Darwin-born Michael Currie     had accepted a job with AusAID and then rejected offers of graduate programs at t wo other government departments. He said:

Emily Hadgkiss, 27, had resigned as a researcher in public health at a hospital in Melbourne. She said:

She says she was 'aware there'd be changes and cuts' but that those were not supposed to affect the graduate program. As Georgia Burns Williamson put it:

This government has broken its promise to these young Australians and it is going to hurt the world's poorest in order to help some of the world's richest.