By Meredith Cully – IIMC & ZONTA Coordinator
The UN has a goal; 0.7% of Australia’s Gross National Income should be directed to foreign aid by 2015. Currently, we spend 0.37%. Barely half.
“So, in fact whoever is prompting 0.5 per cent – it is actually breaking an Australian promise to get to 0.7 per cent by 2015. And if people think that is a lot of money – what, is 99.3 per cent not enough for you all? … It’s tragic.”
Said Bob Geldof, in 2007. It’s 6 years down the track and we’re nowhere closer.
While a review in 2011-2012 of the Governments Aid Spending saw that we’d paid for clean water for 2.5 million, sanitation improvements for 1.6 million and immunisations for more than 2 million children amongst other things, we can still do more. They’re impressive numbers, don’t get me wrong, but that’s with only 0.37%. Imagine the difference with 0.7% dedicated GDP spending of foreign aid. Picture it.
At the 2010 election both the ALP and the Coalition stood to increase aid to 0.5% GDP by 2015-16. In May the ALP postponed it’s deadline and in December 2012 the Labour Government diverted $375 million from foreign aid, to onshore immigration detention. With yet another postponement announced in May this year, 0.5% – that goal (not 0.7% as internationally encouraged) won’t be reached until 2017-18.
The May 2013 budget saw yet another $2.9 billion cut to aid spending.
Broken promises. Where to from here?
With the up and coming election and foreign aid on all our global-health inclined minds, I thought it would be ideal to compare the pair. Or maybe the trio: The Australian Labour Party and our old friend Kevin07, Tony Abbott in his budgie-smugglers and the good ol’ Greens.
Who are you going to entrust your vote to come September 7?
ALP: A commitment to increase foreign aid to 0.5% GNI by 2015. They “acknowledge” that the internationally agreed target is 0.7% and they encourage the ALP to work towards this. In what way? How? Over what time frame? To that we remain puzzled voters. However the ALP did even list projects in Libya, Indonesia and SE Asia as recognised funding targets: brief, but hopeful.
Liberals: I searched the entire “Real Solutions” document by the Australian Liberal Party – their “direction, values and policy priorities of the next Coalition Government”… I even used “ctrl + f” to search “aid”. Nothing, nulla, ziltch. It doesn’t seem the Liberal party values foreign aid at all, at least not be proposed policy for this election. How should we feel about this?
Greens: Of the three major parties in Australia, the Greens are the only to stand to raise foreign aid spending to 0,7% GDP “in line with the Millennium Development Goals”. These people have global health knowledge and appreciation – their second reading speech for their Overseas Aid (Millennium Development Goals) Bill is an impressive read. They’re committed, beyond anything we’ve seen from the ALP and Liberal Party, and they seem to get the gravity of what we’re facing globally.
So maybe you ask, why should we increase our aid contribution?
Because of this: poverty, extreme poverty is a lifecycle of starvation, disease, hopelessness and misery and it isn’t right. You and I know that, right down to our core.
It’s no way for people to live, and it is us, citizens a prosperous nation, that should be leading by example. Our government committed to the Millennium Development Goals. To the 0.7% goal.
Image: ‘My view of politics is slightly different to most people’ by Nathan W available at http://www.flickr.com/photos/ozboi-nz/3726029994/ under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0. Full terms at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/