Here Here.

*It also reduces the likeliness of Australia increasing its presence in the U.N., another Rudd dream.*

Err so what? Rudd clearly forgot that we are just 20 million
people, living at the arse end of the world.

Last time I read anything on how much foreign aid is spent, huge
sums were going to hiring various consultants earning enormous
salaries, so I doubt that the billions already being spent, is
being spent so wisely.

Next question, the elephant in the room remains the extra quarter
of a million people a day being added to the planet. Much of that
happens because women in the third world don't have access to family
planning. Yet AFAIK, virtually none of Australia's foreign aid
is spent on family planning in the third world, for fear of upsetting
religious lobby groups. Just throwing more billions at the third
world, is not their answer. Spending it a bit more wisely would
be a better place to start.

The Author conveniently ignores a number of realities? We simply don't own a bottomless bucket of money, charity begins at home; or, in order to help others, you first must enjoy enough prosperity to be able to afford to do so!
She makes the point that the current refugee policy is costing billions, which she seems to conclude could be better spent on our foreign aid program.
Well that might be possible if our uninvited guests would join the queue. Sure there are places where there is no such queue. Well at least until they make it as far as Thailand or Malaysia? Which have UN sanctioned/administered queues?
My question to her is. Why do so many practising Muslims reject resettlement in relatively prosperous Malaysia, but take terrible risks and expend quite massive amounts of capital to reach a Christian country, which they almost invariably endlessly critique?
Sure an open door Island nation Greece plays host to a temporary one million intending asylum seekers/economic migrants/boat arrivals; but, tiny Greece has a population of just twelve million; and could only support those numbers, with the ongoing endless aid of other EU nations.
Look at the economic position of Greece today; and ask, how much did/does a million uninvited guests play in the economic problems, that a virtually bankrupt Greece wrestles with today?
And or, does she think we should emulate their open door policy and the enormous, if unintended adverse consequences, it seems to have created? Rhrosty.

Rhosty, you say “in order to help others, you first must enjoy enough prosperity to be able to afford to do so!” But it doesn’t get much more prosperous than this. Australia is one of the richest countries in the world, and one of the few developed economies to recover well from the global financial crisis. Our real wages have never been higher, and our per capita GDP is about five times the average level in the developing world.

The UN’s target for developed countries’ aid is less than 1% of GDP, but we have never met it. So much for Australia’s self-image as generous and compassionate.

Interesting issue.

However, i think breaking promises on foreign aid sign of things to come. In this era of free trade, we are supposed to give more, take more asylum seekers, accept more foreign products, let in more foreign workers, and live on less resources.

Dream on about hopes for much higher foreign aid.

Chris
What on earth has free trade got to go with it … except perhaps that it is contributing to the prosperity that makes Australia’s meanness indefensible

Rhian, all i am saying is that govts will find it harder to give away money to foreig aid as they see their own situation suffer whether it be much higher ultilities bills, housing costs, longer hospital waiting lists and so on.

Obvioulsy Labor recongises this too. We are tend tobe more generous when things are going well, although some are more so than others.

Got a good job Rhian? Nice safe government guaranteed income like Jo perhaps. Such things make it pretty easy to be generous with someones taxes.

Try asking someone who can't pay their mortgage & has, or is about to loose their home, or car about sending our hard earned to some corrupt country, or NGO to spend.

I have no difficulty with you folks giving generously of your own money, but leave the rest of us out of it.

God I'm sick of people who want to do good, but only with someone else's money.

What we should be doing is resigning from the UN, & using all the money we give them to waste, at home.

Chris

Free markets don’t squeeze budgets. Total government consumption spending in Australia has been very stable at 17-19% of GDP since the mid 1970s, while social assistance payments have fluctuated between 7.5% and 8.5% of GDP. Capital investment has been squeezed, but that’s another story.

Of course, all governments always face budget pressures because people like receiving benefits and services but don’t like paying taxes. The issue is one of priorities.

Hasbeen
yes, thanks, I do have a good job, which means it's my taxes taken from my hard-earned money that I want the government to spend on aid. I also want government to spend on services and benefits for people in this country who need them. They take enough for both.

i should not have mentioned free/r markets (tricky for me), but i stand by rest of what i said. We tend to be more generous when things are going well, although never too much in the case of foreign aid, and the perception (or reality) is that all is not well in Australia.

We are still a generous country by world standards. Foreign aid is only one aspect.

Yet another consequence of the government's high population growth policies.

Well that's good Rhian, pity they have to take it out of defence to be able to waste it.

While they want to send our defence forces off to dangerous places, without the very best of equipment to give them a reasonable chance of surviving, there sure isn't enough to waste on the UN, foreign aid, or boat people.

Chris
When was the ever a perception that “things are going well” in Australia? Even under “relaxed and comfortable” John Howard, after many years of economic growth and low unemployment, there was a strong negative narrative in public debate – budgets are being squeezed, the poor are getting poorer, global corporations won’t let governments do what citizens want. It was nonsense then and it’s nonsense now.

Given that we rank quite poorly in terms of foreign aid, in what ways do you think we’re “a generous country”?

Hasbeen
I agree the Australian military must be well equipped, but the budget measures don’t threaten that

Well we take a lot of immigrants from poorer nations, they may send part of income back home (1 in 4 doctors here is now a foreinger), and we buy a lot of cheaper goods from other poorer nations.

We may also offer a high level of donations from the non-govt sector, although I would have to look this up.

What Rhain and Jo do not take into account is that the budget allowed for about $1 billion to be spent on rescueing, assessing and settling illegal entry foreigners. That has to be added to the foreign aid committment.

Just a short time ago the government generously committed $7 billion to the IMF to help prop up those European countries that are in financial difficulties. Don't like our chances of getting that money back. That is genuine foreign aid.

But Jo and Rhain are only talking about the cash handouts we give to NGOs so they can squander it and pay their own executive high salaries.

I consider we are more than generous and our generousity is being taken advantage of. Need to tighten further.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/more-news/aus-aid-foreign-programs-plagued-by-fraud/story-e6frf7l6-1226027646347

Perhaps before we throw even more billions at foreign aid, Rhian,
we should make sure that what we do spend is spent wisely. That does
not seem to be the case.

That is the problem with all these programmes and programmes
associated with the UN etc. It becomes a lavish feast for
bureaucrats, who are up to their eyeballs in taxpayer funded cream.

I took note when Straus Khan was charged, of the quoted figure for
his IMF funded hotel room. 3 Grand a night. We pay for all this.

When Rudd was flying around the world, how much did he spend on
a hotel room? Was he flying first class?

You may be on a great salary but many Australians are not and it is
plenty of hardworking and poorly paid Australians who are paying for
all this lavish living, renamed foreign aid

Great article Jo - well said. I don't have the details but I hope family planning hasn't been cut. If you want to see something that really works, direct aid money to organisations like Marie Stopes International that provides reproductive health services including contraception. Stablising population through health services for women is critically important.

*direct aid money to organisations like Marie Stopes International that provides reproductive health services including contraception*

Gawd, the Catholic lobbyists would have a fit, if we did that
and Harradine made sure that it would not happen. You seem to be
confused, as to how our so called development aid is spent.

popnperish,
Are you aware of what Iran did in relation to lowering birth rates?

Their birth rate went from 6.5 per woman to about 1.7 per woman.

All by education on family planning and the provission of the means.

This illustrates it can be achieved without draconian means.

Just Google Iran family planning

Banjo
I said I had a good job, not a high executive salary. And why on earth should money spent incarcerating refugees by classed as “aid”?

Yabby
The IMF is not funded by aid money. Nor was Rudd’s salary. Both are paid for by our taxes, though, and I accept that the international bureaucracy can become a gravy train and that some of the money could be better spent.

I also agree that fraud is a problem and that not all aid spending is effective. These are reasons to improve governance on aid programs and research the most effective ways of providing aid, not to completely abandon attempts to help people in developing countries.

Chris
You’re right, migrants often send significant remittances to their countries of origin. That means that migrants to Australia are generous, not necessarily that Australians are generous.

I’ve had a quick look at the data on private charitable giving. Sources are mixed, but it seems that Australians do relatively well in terms of the percentage of people who give money to charity, but Americans give by far the most to charity as a percentage of income (though their official aid is even lower than ours)

Rhian,
You said,"And why on earth should money spent incarcerating refugees by classed as “aid”?

Because that is exactly what it is. We rescue them, house them, feed them, give medical treatment, transport them and settle them in Aus, with generous social security benefits.

They are foreigners, so it is foreign aid

That is only for the illegals

For the other genuine refugees that we fly here, the full costs are, of course, foreign aid. Applies untill they gain citizenship.

*not to completely abandon attempts to help people in developing countries *

Rhian, I was not aware that this was being suggested. Just that
the 4 billion plus which we already spend, is hardly spent wisely
and there is heaps of potential to see that less of it is wasted
and land up corrupted. Throw more billions at it and the first thing
that you will achieve is an ever bigger gravy train.

Now what about some family planning money for the third world.

We are increasing funding to third world countries by introduction of the carbon tax. This will make their practices more profitable as we will not be able to compete on cost. Your job may be their gift to them with an INCREASED environmental cost.
The poor however are unlikely to benefit much in the third world, as it will be wealthy investors/owners who will reap lions share.

In modern society even the third world has a better standard of living than the average person living in developed nations two centuries ago. While we may look upon them in (relative) pity, they usually have greater opportunities than their forefathers did. They are still developing and prospering within their own paradigm (is that the right word?).

Politicians realise this and don't really care how much they develop as long as they are not going backwards, which unless threatened by war or famine (or political corruption) will not happen. In the case of political corruption this will be tolerated to a certain extent as it is in developed nations (as long as it is not widely visable in the general population).

After all, it is not in a countries best interest to give so much foreign aid to another nation which may inable them to outperform them as a competitor in the future.

If famine is a continual problem there is no amount of aid which will overcome the people's wish to live beyond their means. In this case they will ALWAYS be in need of aid.

War requires aid but only as long as the conflict is ongoing, which may explain why many wars continue unnecessarily (Iraq).

Foreign aid is another political tool to explain why they are taxing you so much and you are always struggling, but in truth it is YOUR government who is corrupt.

phooey,

Some wars are started unnecessarily (Iraq)

You might like to do a little research into those bastions of Western influence, the World Bank and the IMF. These institutions excel in ingratiating themselves with third world governments, enriching the ruling elite at the expense of the general population and the all-round perpetuation of poverty cycles in these countries.

I did'nt say they are started unnecessarily, I said they are continued (or prolonged) unnecessarily, there is a difference.

phooey,

I appreciate your point.
I was just making a further point. Often it's the same feeble reasoning that instigates war that also fails to perceive the difficulties in prosecuting a swiftly realised objective.

Once the government gets an issue with which they can justify increasing taxes (public endorsed), they ride it for all its worth (carbon tax).

phooey,
you are right, living standards have risen around the globe since the industrial revolution, in both developed and developing countries. But they have risen far faster in developed ones. We could afford to meet the Government’s 0.5% of GDP aid target with negligible impact on our standard of living.

And, although things have improved, 150 million children around the world still suffer malnutrition. Almost a billion people live below the World Bank’s absolute poverty benchmark of $1 a day, and about 3 billion line on less than $2.50 a day. Aid is still needed.

*150 million children around the world still suffer malnutrition*

Well yes Rhian. The more boatloads of food aid that are sent, the
more children will be created in future, who will be hungry. As
Sir Bob found out the hard way in Ethiopia, when 20 years later the
population had doubled.

So what say we start to address the issue of spending what we do
spend a bit more wisely, rather then simply contributing to
create an even larger problem in the future.

"Almost a billion people live below the World Bank’s absolute poverty benchmark of $1 a day, and about 3 billion line on less than $2.50 a day." - Rhian

These types of comparisons are very general. For instance if you visit these countries you would find $2.50 has much more buying power than in Australia as their labor costs are much less. Numbers can more deceiving than words.

In fact labor is the ONLY real cost to any product. On a primary level all materials and goods are free, it is only those who control the primary resources (or means of production eg landowners) who add the cost.

By injecting more money into their economy, inflation will become greater in these countries negating any positive effect you hope to achieve.

Yabby,
I agree we should spend aid more wisely, but I think contraception is preferable to starvation as a means of slowing population growth.

Phooey
You’re right, $1 a day goes further in developing countries than developed ones. It’s still not much money, though. Labour costs are less because productivity is less, which is also why those countries are poor.

If all we did with aid was to send money to developing countries then you may be right, it could lead to inflation (or appreciation of the exchange rate that could have other detrimental economic effects). But aid is almost always in the form of goods, and long-term aid is typically invested in physical or human capital with the aim of raising productivity. This kind of aid can be effective at and raising living standards, although Yabby is right to caution that it is not always well spent.

The labour theory of value is a Marxist fallacy that was debunked decades ago.

*but I think contraception is preferable to starvation as a means of slowing population growth.*

Well exactly, Rhian. Which is why we finally need to address the
former, when we do foreign aid. Merely lotfeeding people as we do
now, is hardly going to solve the problem, only increase it.

A number of points. Firstly, we don't possess a bottomless bucket of money, in fact there is a structural deficit. Simply put, we don't collect enough tax for the current essential outlays.
I agree in principle with the idea of more foreign aid; given, reduced poverty via various self help programs, creates trade and self reliance where none exists now.
Ever hear the expression trade not aid? What we also need to achieve is an entirely level playing field. The end of export subsidies by those who currently use them for domestic vote buying purposes. We are talking about many billions. Money which would be far better spent in addressing poverty in all its guises and forms, which in turn would help the developed nations to grow their own economies, without also growing the population base.
Poor people have no discretionary spending power. Whereas the better off have! Not all that long ago, it would have been unthinkable that a US major export market for American luxury cars, would have been China.
We for our own part need to mend the structural deficit via often proposed reform, which ends tax evasion and or avoidance.
With that done and a system so transparent and vastly simplified that compliance costs can be removed.
This simplicity would come as a single stand alone expenditure tax, which would grow with the economy; rather than shrink with the remaining tax paying demographic.
Adding over 100 billion to internal revenue, all while jettisoning all other tax measures, would add around 30% to the averaged Australian based business bottom line and around25% to household disposals. With that done nobody is going to bellyache about a truly miserly 0.5% of GDP being earmarked as our total foreign aid budget.