Tagaid

Joe Hockey ends the idea that Australia can help make poverty history

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Yesterday Treasurer Joe hockey announced that next year’s international aid budget would be slashed by $1 billion. This decision marked much more than the cutting of the aid budget. It marked the end of the idea that Australia could play a significant role in bringing extreme poverty to a halt. In the last decade a revolution occurred in the Australian aid program. Inspired by the...

Julie Bishop’s tortuous logic on foreign aid

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There it was again last night. Foreign Minister Julie Bishop on Channel 10’s The Project program offering up the Coalition’s tortuous logic on foreign aid: “We can’t borrow money from overseas, just to send back overseas again”. The 2014 – 2015 aid budget stands at $5,031.9 million, equal to 0.32% of our national income. Prior to the Coalition coming to power there...

Tony Abbott, Aid and the National Interest

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The Greens are currently running a campaign that declares “Tony Abbott has removed poverty reduction from the goals of the aid budget.” My politics lean more toward the Greens than the Coalition, but this campaign is outrageously misleading. This was the stated objective of Australia’s government aid department prior to the Coalition coming to power: AusAID advances the...

A Bigger Vision for Who We Can Be

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It seems that the major parties are leading us into a time of turning our backs upon our global neighbours. We are witnessing a race to the bottom on asylum seekers, both parties are pulling back on their previous commitments to increasing aid, and there is fading resolve to lead on combating climate change. Given both major parties are led by committed Christians this is tragic. In the Gospels...

Foreign Aid. We Can Be Better Than Average

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When in Cambodia fifteen months back I visited a remote community where the organisation I work for, Baptist World Aid Australia, was funding a community development project. The project will make a huge difference in the lives of the villagers through things like improved crop yields and better nutritional practices. But there are limits to what that community can achieve through grassroots...

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