There's no way we can compete with a financial giant like China. What we offered is all we can do! If the Cargo cults of the Pacific want to sell their souls and sell their country out to the CCP? Then we are not going to get into a bidding war to stop them! End of story!

What we need to do is fix our own economy first so we can match China or America as a country that once again makes stuff and exports finished goods to the world! To become once again the third wealthiest nation on the planet and a creditor one at that!

And done by removing all the obtuse, asinine self-imposed limitations we gave ourselves! The first being our embargo on CARBON-FREE nuclear energy! TBC.
Alan B.

Come on Jeffrey, we are broke, & getting poorer.

The time to increase any foreign aid will be when we don't have a half a dozen ambulances queuing at every major hospital in the country, & most definitely not before. In fact foreign aid, & refugee intakes should be cut to minimum until we have got rid of deficits.

All foreign aid money should be diverted to defence. I recall a US politician saying of foreign aid: before we started helping foreigners who couldn't look after themselves, we had skinny friends; now we have fat enemies.

Agree to a point ttbn. The Gurkhas are the best jungle fighters the world has known. And when we could have given them a home here in Oz, we failed to do so and to our eternal detriment!

We could have given them a piece of our sparsely populated western coastline. And been a much better-defended country for it.

And today we have an opportunity to offer the continually persecuted Christian and Muslim Kurd a homeland in the same region, where they'd prosper and be the missing and extremely dependable link in our security. And better-spent aid money going where it works for us indefinitely!
Alan B.