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