Morrison Government viciously cut Australian aid to poorest of the poor

The latest figures from the World Bank show Australia had the worst record of all developed countries over the nine years of the Coalition Government, reports Alan Austin.

AUSTRALIA – alone among rich nations – slashed overseas development aid to the world’s poorest nations by more than 40% between 2012 and 2021.

This shameful record is now apparent to all observers of the generosity of rich countries towards the poor. Unfortunately, these watchers do not include Australia’s mainstream media – which steadfastly refuse to expose the callousness, corruption and incompetence of Coalition governments.

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Australia’s shameful record of callous aid cuts

The World Bank has just released for 2021 the total aid flows from 28 wealthy donor nations to all recipient countries and regions. This voluminous dataset on what it calls ‘net bilateral aid flows’ enables minute dissection of overseas aid.

The focus of this analysis is the period from 2012, the last full year of the reformist Rudd and Gillard Labor Government, to 2021, the last of the Coalition’s nine years in office.

In 2012, Australia’s total disbursements were a satisfactory USD $4,549 million (AUD $6,908 million). That was up from just USD $1,813 million (AUD $2,753 million) in 2006, the year before Labor came to office.

This allocation then diminished progressively through the subsequent Coalition years, falling to a low of in USD $2,246 million (AUD $3,411 million) in 2019 before being partially restored.

Australia’s total aid contributions in 2021 were USD $3,089 million (AUD $4,691 million), a reduction since 2012 of 32.1%, among the worst in the world.

More shameful still, the heaviest cuts were to the poorest of the poor.

Range of motivations for aid transfers

National governments distribute so-called development aid for a variety of reasons, not always altruistic. Money from Australia to Papua New Guinea has served to develop infrastructure which has enabled Australian mining and other corporations to operate with greater ease and efficiency in generating profits there.

Many countries, including Australia, have sent aid to neighbouring countries with the agreement that the money will be spent on wheat or dairy products or other produce from corporations in the donor country.

The USA and Canada have long sent aid to poor countries in Central and South America in the hope that this will stem the flow of refugees arriving from those countries. Canada in 2021 allocated 14.2% of its aid budget to Latin American and Caribbean countries, but only 10.4% to the Arab world. The USA, which has much greater commercial and strategic interest in the Middle East than Canada, allocated 14.3% of its overseas aid there, but only 7.2% to Latin America and the Caribbean.

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Poverty alleviation a low priority for the Coalition

The World Bank’s data helps us assess commitment to poverty alleviation by showing allocations to ‘least developed countries: UN classification’. These are low-income countries confronting severe structural impediments to sustainable development and are highly vulnerable to economic and environmental shocks.

Currently, the United Nations Development Program identifies 46 nations as least developed, mostly located in Africa and the Asia-Pacific.

Aid from Australia to the four African regions – Eastern, Southern, Western and Central – totalled USD $265.1 million (AUD $402 million) in 2012 under Prime Minister Julia Gillard. Although not a large amount relative to Australia’s Budget that year, this signalled to the recipient people and to other donors that Australia was a willing participant in lifting Africans out of poverty.

In the Abbott Government’s first year, 2014, this was more than halved to just USD $125.4 million (AUD $189 million). It was halved again to USD $61.5 million (AUD $93 million) by 2018. Finally, in 2020, the total sent to Africa was slashed to zero.

The least developed nations which suffered total elimination of Australian support include Burkino Faso, Mali, Togo, Angola, Benin, Central African Republic, Djibouti, Guinea and Haiti.

Three least developed countries are situated close to Australia. The Coalition slashed assistance to all three. Aid to Timor-Leste was cut between 2012 and 2021 by 3.1% to USD $104.1 million (AUD $158 million), to Tuvalu by 22.7% to USD $11.3 million (AUD $17 million) and to the Solomon Islands by 39% to USD $137.6 million (AUD $208 million).

Dismal country comparisons

Of the 28 rich nations monitored by the World Bank, Australia has been the worst in slashing aid to the poorest countries since 2012.

ODA 28 least developed Aug 2023 F.jpg

The countries with the strongest rise in aid to the poorest countries are Italy, up more than fivefold, Slovenia, almost five times higher, followed by Slovakia, Poland, Iceland and South Korea.
(Please note that this chart shows increases in aid over the last nine years, not total aid. The strong showing of some countries, particularly the Eastern European states, may reflect a low base in 2012.)

It is the other end of the chart that contains the damning indictment of Australia, showing by far the worst decrease in allocations to the world’s poorest, at 42.5%. That’s down from USD $1,180 million (AUD $1,792 million) to just USD $679 million (AUD $1,031 million).

Help is on the way

Given the lag in data collection by the World Bank, it will be two years until we get to see if, and by how much, the Albanese Government manages to restore development aid. So far, the indications are positive.

Meanwhile, the latest data provides another reason for members of Parliament who were part of the destructive Morrison regime to resign at the next election or be voted out, and for citizens who voted for them never to do so again.