Philip S; I asked you to offer evidence If you have any real evidence for what you claim in regards to aid to our Pacific neighbors, please present it. Otherwise take your own advice "Please activate brain before applying fingers to keyboard to save future embarrassment."

As for the "I(Philip S) have been traveling around Asia for years and have seen the houses etc of the so called NGO's that administer the aid, also what they actually do and seen what some actually do." For your information Asia is not our Pacific neighbors. This is not evidence, how did you know who lived in what house? What does Australian aid in the Pacific have to do with Japanese aid, where ever you are talking about?

Here's one for all the whingers.

If this doesn't make some introspective of their and their new govt's mean-spirited, greedy, insular attitude, then nothing will.

http://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/aussies-the-worlds-richest-people-credit-suisse-20131009-2v7qy.html

"Australians remain the richest people in the world, by one measure at least.

The median wealth of adult Australians stands at $US219,505 ($233,504) - the highest level in the world, according to the Credit Suisse 2013 Global Wealth Report, released on Wednesday.

Median wealth is the midpoint between richest and poorest, meaning that 50 per cent of the population has more than $233,504, and 50 per cent less than that.

By the measure of average wealth, Australians fall back to second with $US402,578 per person, ranking behind the Swiss who were the world’s richest on $US513,000

Credit Suisse chief investment strategist, Australia, David McDonald said the nation’s household wealth per adult grew by 2.6 per cent in the past year. That was slower than the global average of 4.6 per cent, but Australia still had the best distribution of wealth among developed nations."

Poirot, that is true, by any measure of material wealth we in Australia are well off indeed. The fact we have a lot of "things" tends to make many of us insecure, we fear others will take from us, and also we need to maintain that material lifestyle, which for many is a burden. Lots of Australians with their busy materialistic lifestyles have lost sight of so many of the real values in life, family, friends, the value of interacting with other human beings, the satisfaction of helping to add to the quality of both their lives and the lives of others.
I don't for a minute advocate that those in the third world who are materially lest fortunate than us, should strive to become like us, I think they would loose so much if that was the case. Its good to see people in the third world trying to take the best from us, education, health, etc and use it to enrich their way of life. We in the developed world are in a position to give a helping hand to those that desperately need it, and so we should, both individually where we can, and collectively through government, foreign aid programs. `

Agreed, but not if that foreign aid is a subsidy for terrorism, genocide and murder.
We should give no aid to terrorists, in fact our law forbids it.

'where as the ideal minimum should be 0.50%.'

huh?

Which public servant picked that figure out of their ass?

'ideal'? Whose ideal?

Why not 10%? Why even give a figure like that? Why not 0.495%? Or 0.57698%? What sort of precision are we able to obtain? What is the standard on targets for agreement in principal, how many decimal places should the target value include?

I look forward to my meal including the ideal minimum .5 carrots, as designated by the global health and carrot institute, aligned with best practice in preparing meals involving carrots. Perhaps at the next global convention in Hawaii there will be a new standard target agreed too, in sensible round figures.

I can picture the hand shakes, after a definitive decision is made to agree on a timetable to decide on a target to be agreed upon in principle at the next meeting of this illustrious initiative at Rio, which will help the local economy.

We will save all the poor countries of the world by bringing our conferences to their doorstep, and employing their hookers while we decide on arbitrary definitions that will be used as political tools in the effort of increased funding them in the form of aid rather than these interminable meetings

Is Mise, I do not advocate supporting terrorism with Australian aid, no more than I advocate social security supporting criminality, although criminals often get social security.
I too support the struggle by West Papua against their Indonesian oppressors. they certainly have a legitimate cause, despite what Abbott had to say.

Houellebecq, your stupid childish post is not even worth replying to. Get your mum to change your nappy, and put you back in your cot with a bot bot and go back off to sleep.
How old are you? 6?