Well it just demonstrates how far this government has been captured by economic rationalists. Aid must "pay its way", must be cost justified, becomes a tool for rewarding government supporters with cosy contracts, becomes corporate welfare.

Whilst individual 'dole bludgers' are given great scrutiny, the elite corporate bludgers are excused for all sorts of serious misdemeanours, and if found out, pensioned off with a massive payout (e.g. the outgoing AWB CEO).

Aid could be a great tool for reducing terrorism, reducing poverty, reducing disease. This government sees it as just another way of paying its elite mates.

“The criticism related to the Australian Government putting the interests of Australian business, in this case wheat farmers, before the development needs of the people of Iraq.”

Oh, the shame of it! Australians doing something for Australia! What are Australia and its wheat farmers supposed to do? Just act like charities and hand out alms to countries too corrupt and dysfunctional to look after themselves?

“The ethics of using the aid program for such narrow domestic interests appears difficult to reconcile”, claims our intrepid reporter. How naïve can you get? That’s what “aid” is all about – the donor country has to benefit too - but Mr. O’Connor thinks countries are like individuals putting change in a charity box on the way into the football. This is a repeat of his last effort.

It’s not surprising that the “Advisory Board” of the political organization that Mr. O’Connor represents includes that doyen of world leftism, Noam Chomsky, the west-hating journalist, John Pilger and the Magistrate Pat O’Shane.

Have a look at the web site. They also want the Australian Government to interfere in the politics of Burma.

Beholding to rational economics interests as a criticism... thats very funny.

Hmm lets see... the farmers ability to sow a bountiful crop is beholden to rainfall. Rather than the needs of hungry mouths. Ahhh, how inconsiderate is this thing known as basic simple truth. Then again we can always redefine mathematics and make 1+1 = 2.5. That always seems to help, until the numbers start falling off the page and people start crying the well is somewhere between dry and poisened.

Its all good... as long as someone else pays of course. Hey there's a free ride here, just jump on dood.

Hate to state the obvious but, er business IS a PART of what makes a nation. My heart and lungs should not be held to my legs.

“Well it just demonstrates how far this government has been captured by economic rationalists.”

Yes AMSADL. We all know what the purpose of our international aid program should be. It has been hijacked.

“Aid could be a great tool for reducing terrorism, reducing poverty, reducing disease. This government sees it as just another way of paying its elite mates.”

Well said.

ALL of our aid monies and that of all other countries should go to ‘consolidated revenue’ in the UN. From there it can be divvied up proportional to needs, on a global basis. The UN should be in charge of the whole caboodle. Let’s get rid of this vested-interest pseudo-aid scenario.

OK, I’ll bring the population issue into it. Aid that is geared towards the promotion of trade serves to facilitate population growth both in Australia and for our trade partners. But one of the primary purposes of aid should be to work towards stabilising populations, in the interests of sustainability and the maintenance of a half-decent quality of life.

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“ ‘The ethics of using the aid program for such narrow domestic interests appears difficult to reconcile’ , claims our intrepid reporter. How naïve can you get? That’s what ‘aid’ is all about – the donor country has to benefit too “

But Leigh, the purpose of this aid is to facilitate trade with Australia. Most advantages for the ordinary people of the receiver countries are incidental. And there are much more needy people on which this aid money should be focussed.

The donor country doesn’t have to benefit directly. Aid is about giving, not giving and receiving. Trade is about giving and receiving. Let’s not get them mixed up. Aid should be about us celebrating our high quality of life by giving to those in desperate need without expecting anything in return at all. In the longer term this aid will be to our benefit, if it is the right sort of aid, by way of alleviating poverty and greatly reducing massive population growth.

National interest and aid. I seem to remember that the UN was set up with the idea of a central body as the site for the compromises necessary in Foreign relations but also with the idea of development for all people. Now mind you economic rationalism and former foreign policy claims that seeking the best for the individual nation or industry will achieve the most fruitful outcome in terms of total wealth and well being and its distribution provided one accepts that those who work to achieve this end deserve most, the remainder, since killing is supposed anathema should be accorded enough diversions and money as to prevent rebellion by them. The development of all people, at the risk of free loaders, a real worry to liberals, encouraging cooperation and thus achieving the best for all but at a level in which the elite does not receive as much money .
Sure the UN has not achieved this though has probably done better then its detractors admit and the main fault has been the individual desires of nations, America and Britain particularly, who can use their power to achieve their ends.
Australia has now joined this group though prepared the use the auspices of the UN when suited and deride them when not

Thus the latest scam the Iraq war was presumably joined as one of the few supporting members was in the national interest. That is be onside with America, agreeing to flout the UN international law the Geneva convention, the Iraq deaths and destruction being payment for protection of Australian interests.
Such action within a nation and with the national laws would if death or property destruction resulted constitute a crime.
Presumably the use of Dubai in the waterfront dispute the figures fudged in the black hole of 1996, the lies of the children overboard and the flouting of the refugee agreements, the Pacific solution, locking refugees up for long periods, the doubtful validity of the better economic manager of a few years back,
the new terror laws and that of sedition and now the wheat board scandal and the lies that go with it. Of course the Gov was merely getting the best price for wheat and maintaining the market opening for-well for the Australian wheat farmer. Try this within Australia and jail would result.
So yes the evidence for long term benefit of cooperation may not be as obvious as that from the more immediate wealth of individualistic approaches but long term results in loss of trust, scramble for resources and conflict. The loss of belief and trust may even extend to the members of the home country.

We gave aid to Indonesia and as thanks they bombed us twice. Now they steal our fish. Should we upgrade or downgrade the aid?
Chinese fishing vessels have been found ,laden, in our waters. Should we give them aid to develop fish farms...or should we refuse to sell them our minerals until they promise not to trespass in our waters?
To keep on giving or appeasing will not get us anywhere. It takes two to tango.

Thanks for your well thought out treatise on aid.

I thought about these issues at length whilst on a recent voluntary assignment in Papua New Guinea.

There is no doubt Australia's commitment to overseas aid has done a summersault in recent times. Whereas it was previously largely driven by basic humanitarian concern (even if oftentimes insensitively applied), it is now driven by Australia's crass foreign policy interests. Too bad if the recipients themselves are overridden in the process.

But, in overall context, not much has changed at all. The one thing that shocks me more than anything else is Australia’s amazing sense of cultural superiority. This goes right to the core of our society.

Our cultural premise is that Australia is a sort of ideal, problem-free state… wealthy, harmonious, happy, a land of milk and honey. The recipients of our ‘aid’ are, on the other hand, failed states that need to follow our example and catch up with our bountiful success.

This arrogance so annoyed me that I spent much of my time educating PNG communities about Australia’s chronic failures: the plight of Aboriginal people, the stolen generation, urban pollution, soil salinisation, our obsession with consumerism, widespread depression, youth drug addiction, the war in Iraq, greenhouse gas emissions… and a host of others.

To balance things out further I went to the trouble of highlighting the beautiful, positive side of their own cultures.

My final message to them was: “PNG has got big problems. You know all about them, we remind you of them every day. Australia is a wonderful country, but it has got much bigger problems than yours. The difference is, we try to ignore our problems. Please don’t try to copy Australia. There are many things you can teach us.”

Unless the foundation of our aid program is guided by honest humility and reciprocity, then it will always be subverted by our blatantly arrogant cultural attitudes. So long as ordinary Australians possess strong feelings of cultural superiority to our neighbours, then we have no hope of turning around our government’s attitude to aid

Posters and Author,

The reality is that we are providing aid, no matter which way shape or form, to often countires who would turn around and knife us at the drop of a hat. they have no concept of indebtedness and they will forget very quickly.

There is no problem with skewing our aid so at least we as Australians derive benefit from. We all want to help these people who need it, but you all know it is a corrupt and difficult environment.

We should be realistic, we should not give money away to outside countries when we have many inadequacies here, unless there is a direct benefit.

We would be stupid to think and act otherwise.

If you worry about the rest of the world your own backyard rots, our people in power know the score, so Johnny and the team in this case are totally correct (if it were me i would have the funding skewed even more) and totally committed to our people.

You do not feed a wild dog (reference to the 3rd world governments, not the people) until it strong enough to bite you, you ensure your interests and your money you are giving away at least has a benefit to your own country. We are not perfect and we need plenty of funding here, therefore it is ludicrous to give money away with just a warm fuzzy feeling to come out of it.

The world is not fair, and at least we provide aid in the first place, when our own backyard is in need.

I agree with Realist, charity begins at home and we have a lot of people who need help more than some overstuffed dictator.
Young maimed people have to live in homes for the aged, homeless people , usually mentally ill, need more than the streets,pensioners need more help particularly with power and telephone bills and those in public housing must pay at least a quarter of their income in rent.
There is far more than this list that could do with a big boost in finances.
The Means Test should be strictly applied so that those who are genuinely in need get extra whole those who are just greedy do not.

The hypocrisy of the Howard Government's aid policy is evident in its policy on East Timor. After basking in the glory of its perceived role in helping the East Timorese gain its independence from Indonesia it helps out one of the poorest nations in the world by grubbily grabbing the lion's share of the income from the lucrative resources in the Timor Strait, even though these resources belong, morally at the very least, to the East Timorese.
Surely the Australian public interest is enhanced things other than its financial standing in the world economy.

Irfan

You still haven't told the forum where you stand on Sharia? You do believe in it don't you? You could always use taqiyya and say you don't when you really do. How do Muslims win in this climate?

I found your comment pathetic, and for you to even ask that of rational minded people is an insult. To my knowledge Irfan, the only places things like that happen are in the Islamic world, where Christians are persecuted endlessly, and now even Shi'ite Muslims. I noticed that Keysar Trad on John Laws radio had no problem with the bombing, saying something to the effect that Islam cares more about people than places.

Why all the fuss over pagan inherited Mecca then? You can also be sure that if it was a stray US missile that hit it Sunni's would be jumping up and down.

Irfan, again, tell us where you stand on Sharia, and you are ill to comment about Muslims being rounded up.

It's particularly insulting that you have a problem with this hypotehtical situation, yet although such crimes have been going on in the Muslim world against Christians (or do you deny this too?) you have never commented on it.

See this is the problem. Australians aren't ethno, religio-centric (I think I just invented a new word there!) wheares you are Muslim, first before anything. If you say you aren't then you aren't Muslim. Same with Sharia. If you are against it, you are an infidel according to the highest scholars of Islam, based in Cairo.

Yet, another opportunity has been given to you Muslim "moderates" and you blow it time and again.

You & other leaders of your fragile community (fragile because the slightest criticism makes you go wild, rampaging, killing people, like a drunk who is in denial. Funny how Muslim idea of heaven is rivers of wine and sex with virgins.

How can heaven be a BOTTLE SHOP & A BROTHEL ? I would think heaven would have none of the earthly desires, that it would be above that sort of thing

I have seen enough in the last few years to know that there are no moderates.

Once again, Irfan ruins another opportunity to strike a blow for those Muslims who are progressive, but he fails.

How dare there have been no protest when the filthy Sheik Feiz said that "unveiled women deserve to be raped", why didn't you protest?

Australians are doers Irfan, not talkers. We built this nation up to a first world place in one hundred years, while your two thousand year old nations are still backwater dumps.

I can't wait until western scientists come up with another invention and smash our dependence on evil oil.

Then, the middle-east will become what they were always destined for, another Africa.

The ONLY reason the Muslim problem is even an issue is because leftists are racist (yes leftists) becaue instead of thinking of them as humans, they consider them pets who aren't to blame for their evils. We are!

When this nonsense goes, which it is coming to soon, we will deal with the Islamic clerics themselves, as the "moderates", you Irfan, you, have done nothing.

Some post above said it all really, "Radical Muslims kill, moderates make excuses" .

Spot on whoever it was.

Irfan, where do you stand on the barbaric, utterly disgusting, incompatible with human civilisation, sharia law?

To the person who was asking q's about Islam, don't believe some of the answers you got. You need to know the truth, read the most hateful book on earth, the Koran.

Gosh! Why does every essay end up being debated in terms of race / ethnicity.

The origninal article was a sober assessment of Australian Aid programs - to countries such as pacific islands - and the commentaries end up being angry diatribes about Muslim clerics!

Look guys, we understand that you have very big chips on your shoulders, but there is another world out there.

I half expect an essay on the virtues of toothpaste to end up being attacked for its perceived radical Muslim overtones.

Trevor Flugge was awarded the Order of Australia for 'service to Agriculture'. He is a typical representative of the middle men in agri business, and they are overwhelmingly male, that are getting fat on skimming of the proceeds of the sales of Australian wheat.

Wheat growers might say that Mr Flugge and AWB just did what I takes to get a good price for our wheat and if AWB make a profit it goes back to the shareholders i.e. the wheat growers.

Mr Flugge seems to hold the view that what is good for Mr Flugge is good for Australia and the Australian Government seems to agree since they awarded him a million dollar contract for what has been revealed in the Cole inquiry was very little work.

At the same time these middlemen are holding back real innovation in Australian agriculture that is bringing us starch modified low GI wheat, resveratrol containing slim wheat by their unwillingness to invest in our agbiotech future and their blocking of new technologies being introduced in Australian agriculture.

AWB was against the release of GM canola and one of the most influencial agribusinesses that persuaded State Governments to introduce the present State moratoria on the cultivation of GM canola and GM wheat.