Hi Guys,
I made a post “Putting Aid on the agenda for the 2012 Budget" a little over a month ago and it got about 5 pages of response. Sorry to those involved for my late reply, I do appreciate all the input that you guys gave!

In this post I made the suggestion that in the 2012 budget there should be an increase of our international aid contribution from 0.35% to 0.5%
Some of the responses included:

-Aid goes into a corrupt bureaucracy and could be better spent inside our own country. Can be allegedly spent on 5 star resorts and other irrelevant costs.
-The amount we spend on asylum seekers and refugees should be counted as aid.
-Foreign aid should have a focus on sustainability and reducing the birth rate. "The more you feed the more they breed".
-Domestic problems should come first, we need to set a good example of a sustainable society before giving aid overseas

Jayb made a really significant argument:
"Australia need to immediately stop all non-essential Aid to foreign Countries. Essential Aid is for Catastrophes such as Tidal Waves or Cyclones. Australia’s Hospitals/Health service, Schools & School system, Trade Training, Aged Care, Road/Rail infrastructure, Communication infrastructure is in a dilapidated state. This money we are giving away is urgently needed to be spent in Australia.
An old saying, 'You cannot help others if you cannot help yourself.'"

I like this argument as Australia is quite far behind compared to the developed world. But I’m wondering if I told you that Aid actually does work and a relatively small increase could drastically change living conditions for a large amount of people.
For example, child deaths have decreased from 20.5 million in 1960 to 10.5 million in 2004.

We heard the other day the promised increase in aid was postponed.

I found this link the other day while researching this topic. It is from the Australian Council for International Aid, so it is a bit of a different perspective. It addresses some of the arguments you have about aid.

http://www.acfid.asn.au/resources/docs_resources/myths-busted-the-facts-about-australian-aid/view

NewcastleSWDane, that’s a great overview from ACFID. Lots of good arguments for increasing our aid are made there. But I do worry that it is not strongly enough sustainability-oriented, with very little effort going into family planning and population stabilisation, so it seems.

Currently (well, in august 2011 according to the ACFID overview), only 1.7% of our federal budget is being spent on aid. That’s a piffling 3.5% of GDP. It should be increased to 0.5% immediately and 0.7% within the next two or three years.

Yes, the value of money is much greater in poor countries. So our aid money can be very efficiently spent there, with small expenditures making big differences to many peoples’ lives.

Now, if we were to stop onshore asylum seeking and simply redirect all the money being spent on it into our international aid programs, we could greatly assist many times the number of people, and have a really good impact on the general increase in quality of life and sustainability in many countries throughout our region and across the world.

I wonder how close to 0.5% of GDP we would get if we did this? It would have to be very close, if not exceeding it, I would think.

Do you there will be a time when there there will be no cost of asylum seeking? Or are you speaking about off-shore processing?

You don't think we can afford to increase our aid contribution unless we divert money from asylum seeking processing?

personally I would be in favour of closing all Climate change departments and giving the money to those who are not well off.

<< Do you [think] there will be a time when there will be no cost of asylum seeking? >>

I would certainly hope so.

<< Or are you speaking about off-shore processing? >>

No. All costs.

<< You don't think we can afford to increase our aid contribution unless we divert money from asylum seeking processing? >>

I think we most definitely can. It was just an interesting thought as to how close to the 0.5% of GDP we would come if we were to stop asylum seeking and spend the same amount of money on aid.

As the ACFID overview points out; aid is not just about helping others, it’s about our security and wellbeing as well, as healthier happier societies will be less likely to spawn refugees or terrorists or other forms of unrest that might affect us.

In fact, we might do well to direct part of our defence budget into aid, especially where it has a strong double purpose of helping people and increasing our own security.

@Dane,

<< Do you there will be a time when there there will be no cost of asylum seeking?>>

If you are talking about no cost “asylum seeking ” from the point of view of the “asylum seekers” –we already effectively have a no cost process.
If you had watched the Four Corners expose the other night you would have seen that most of the funds to pay the people smugglers was supplied from relations already living in Western countries (OZ ,& Germany being two cited).

Any moneys paid to people smugglers will very quickly be replenished once they get to OZ and avail of free public housing and welfare and/or special reserved jobs.

The real cost (or, to use a leftist buzz-word “externality “) of “asylum seeking” is borne by the *host* nation:
1) There will be special public housing provided.
2) Soon after arriving there will calls for the provision of special educational opportunities.
3) Special jobs will often be set aside for them.
4) If they have issues with they law there will be claims the police are profiling them and for special provisions/exemptions to be made.
5) And worst and most costly of all, we will be hounded hordes of naïve do-gooders seemingly with nothing else of worth to do with their time/lives but to advocate from easier and easier access for more and more “asylum seekers”.