Budget aid cuts: is this the worst government on Earth?
One of the biggest cuts in the 2015 budget is to foreign aid. Although the usefulness of aid is often questionable, the cuts represent a significant reduction in assistance to some of the poorest people in the world.
The budget forecasts a 19.5 percent cut in total aid over this financial year. A 5.5 percent cut will occur in the following year. Total annual expenditure will fall from $5.04 to $3.8 billion – a decrease from the equivalent of 0.32 to 0.22 percent of gross national income. (The UN target for wealthy countries’ contribution to aid is 0.7 percent of GNI.)
The largest area of cuts is the African program, which will lose 70 percent of its funding. This is punishing a region that has some of the highest levels of poverty in the world.
The cuts occur at time when, according to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, overall levels of foreign aid from wealthy donor countries have stabilised after a decline in the wake of the global financial crisis. Despite savage austerity measures at home, even the conservative UK government has maintained aid funding at more than 0.7 percent of GNI.
The biggest cuts – of 10-20 percent – mostly have been from crisis-ridden European economies and Canada. But Australia and Canada continue to enjoy some of the highest levels of economic growth among the wealthy capitalist economies.
The Australian ruling class and the Abbott government are moving to export their brand of cruelty to the world’s poor.
Despite the scale of the cuts, there has been little attention in the media. Organisations in the non-government aid sector have largely failed to mobilise public opinion. A so far rather lacklustre “Campaign for Australian Aid” has been launched – ironically funded by the Gates Foundation.
Public indifference, however, seems to have grown in tandem with racism and xenophobia, especially towards Muslims and refugees. Politicians such as Jacqui Lambie have also called for more cuts and even the abolition of aid.
Aid is of course often used for counter-insurgency and foreign policy objectives by the Australian ruling class. Large quantities flow back to Australian capitalism as payments to engineering and consultancy firms.
But there is evidence that some benefits, such as humanitarian relief and services, reach income-poor people.
Abbott and Hockey’s aid cuts appear motivated by their desire to promote xenophobic sentiments to distract from the government’s vicious cuts to health, welfare and education.
