Gillard’s British lashing for Morrison over foreign aid

Julia Gillard has criticised the Coalition for its ‘regrettable’ foreign aid budget at a Tory Party forum.

Former prime minister Julia Gillard

Julia Gillard has criticised the Coalition for its “regrettable’’ foreign aid budget in an appearance at a forum backed by Britain’s Conservative Party.

Appearing at a fringe meeting at the Tory party conference in Manchester, England, where Australia was attacked for not spending enough money on the poorest countries in the world, the former prime minister defended Labor’s failure to meet a promise to increase aid to 0.5 per cent of GDP and turned her sights on the Coalition.

“In our time in government (in Australia), we kept increasing expenditure (on aid) year by year, then the global financial crisis hit and a decision was made about the ramp of increase,” she said. “What has happened to aid under the current conservative government in Australia is deeply to be regretted and is at a low percentage.’’

Ms Gillard was at the conference as the chair of the Global Partnership of Education.

She said she never would have thought that as a Labor ­politician she would be at a ­Conservative Party event but she fully supported the Tories’ committed aid spending of 0.7 per cent.

Ms Gillard endured her own criticism from aid groups as prime minister when in December 2012, $375m was diverted from the aid budget to pay for a blowout in asylum-seeker ­processing.

Her government announced ahead of the 2013 budget that it had deferred lifting foreign aid spending to 0.5 per cent “given substantial writedowns to budget revenues”.

Labor’s decision to pour almost $400m a year into African countries as Australia campaigned for a seat on the UN Sec­urity Council drew fire from then opposition leader Tony Abbott, who criticised the ALP’s foreign aid program at a time when the federal budget was in deficit.

Aid spending during the Gillard government increased from $4.8bn in 2011-12 to $5.2bn in 2012-13, reaching 0.35 per cent of gross national income.

In the 2019-20 budget, it sank to 0.21 per cent of GNI, and is forecast to drop to 1.9 per cent in 2021-22.

International Development Minister Alex Hawke hit back at Ms Gillard.

He said the government was delivering an affordable and effective aid program “in contrast with the approach of former Labor leaders who seemed mainly interested in making grandiose aid announcements on the international stage, even though these had to be paid for with borrowed money”.

“Let’s remember Labor diverted hundreds of millions from the aid budget to pay for its border protection blowout,” Mr Hawke said.

“Labor need only listen to (former foreign minister) Bob Carr, who conceded in his autobiography that you can’t run an aid program on borrowings.’’

Australia has committed $4bn in development assistance in the 2019-20 budget, including $1.4bn to Pacific nations, $1bn to Southeast and East Asia and $266m to countries such as Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan. There is also $200m allocated to the Middle East and Africa as well as extra money for humanitarian assistance.

Overseas Development Institute acting chief executive Simon Gill delivered the sharpest criticism of Australia’s aid ­effort at the Tory Fringe con­ference, when he unfavourably compared Australia with ­Ireland.

“Australia should give more,” Mr Gill said.

“On our principal aid index, if you compare Australia with Ireland, Australia is on the bottom of the pile and Ireland at the top: Ireland spends aid on the poorest nations that is eight times better than Australia.

“My message to Australia is to bump up your money and target it more powerfully.”

The ODI’s criticism stems from Australia’s strategic decision to focus on countries within the region rather than target the poorest countries in the world for assistance.

The ODI has argued that all countries should increase spending to 0.7 per cent like the United Kingdom.

Mr Gill said the way Australia had targeted its aid to achieve political objectives rather than focusing on poverty needs also set “a bad example’’.