Well, Paul, I do remember when an Australian aid worker was appalled at the poor milking qualities of the small goats that fed along the paddy bunds in some Asian country.

He arranged for the Aid Program to give each local farmer some Sarneen (?) milking goats.
This solved the problem of small returns but it meant that the farmers had to give up valuable working time to cut feed for the big goats.

The small goats required very little looking after as they foraged for themselves.

"Paul1405, I seem to recall some TV news many years ago"

"Well, Paul, I do remember when... appalled....qualities of the small goats"

This could be evidence of the onset of dementia among another pair of the forums geriatric brigade.

I think it is time that nursie took away your computer privileges, doped you up with more, a lot more, Haloperidol and put you pair to bed.
Nursie, has a treat for the pair of you in the morning, an extra bowl of porridge each, and Hasbeen is going to recite Bar, Bar, Black Sheep, just for you.

Paul1405,
Ridicule in the absence of meaningful retort is the tool of the insipid & hypocritical.
Can't you answer questions because doing so would expose your agenda ?

A thought has come as a result of the clear need some have to verbally taunt others here, do we have the ability to hold different views but no try to bring others down because they too have views but not like ours? can we sift the bad things that take place in,in this case countrsy we may or may not give aid to, but still look at aid? references to what we see as bad/dreadful/ weird behavior by some, in the countries we help ignore such things take place here too, Paul one thing old Kermit told us and others continue to prove here *it ain't easy being green* but be assured in this matter you are far from alone

Its seems some on here want to pull the plug on Australia's billion dollar aid program, based on some cockeyed story about goats, and a vague recollection of Malcolm Fraser.

If that's it, if that's the best you've got, you deserve the ridicule. Did you blokes enjoy the extra bowel of porridge, and Hasbeen reciting 'Bar, Bar, Black Sheep' this morning?

I know it is a waste of time talking to the likes of Paul, but here is an example $400 million a year aid spending.

In New Guinean a lot of our aid was worse than wasted on buying Auzzy plantation owners out, & giving the plantations to local villagers.

Firstly it was found that only 47% of the aid money for this actually bought plantations, 53% was "absorbed" in the port Moresby bureaucracy.

Secondly the thing was counter productive. The locals never had anything to do with the plantations & didn't want to. The villagers quickly turned a 30 ton a month plantation to a 3 ton a month plantation. They were just not interested in working hard enough to run a plantation.

This was seriously reducing PNGs export of copra, but was worse for the villagers. With such small amounts of copra, the once a month copra boat, that supplied everything villagers needed, including the rice that had become their staple, became the 2 or 3 times a year boat, & perhaps stopped coming at all. The plantation trade store closed.

The radio the planter maintained stopped working, so no more calls for emergency medical help. The air strip the planter had built & maintained became overgrown & unserviceable, so no emergency transport either. The power house ran out of fuel, so no more power tools.

I knew a couple of PNG ministers who were fighting against this crazy destruction of their only export industry, & villagers lives, but those Moresby based bureaucrats loved all that money much of which they could misappropriate at will.

$400 million was a lot of money in 1975, & would have been much more productively used in Oz. Of course with less Foreign aid, we would have needed less bureaucrats wouldn't we Paul. Between us & PNG it probably gave a couple of hundred bureaucrats a nice cushy living.