Do you share my deep disappointment with the Governments intention to remove $4.5 billion from Australia’s overseas aid budget over the next four years – including cutting $656 million from this year’s budget? This $656 million cut, if it proceeds, represents: • 11% of the 2013-14 aid budget, • the largest ever cut to Australia’s overseas aid budget, • and the first cut in aid since Prime Minister John Howard signed on to the Millennium Declaration and committed Australia to “spare no effort to free our fellow men, women and children from the abject and dehumanising conditions of extreme poverty.” At just 1.4% of the Federal Budget, aid represents a small investment by the Australian Government, but one that provides huge returns in human welfare and improvements in stability, security and opportunity in our region and beyond. Among many other things, Australian aid in 2011 helped: • almost 500,000 children in Bangladesh receive vaccinations and over 125,000 women receive skilled medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, reducing the maternal mortality rate twice as fast as the national average in four targeted districts, • an additional 2.3 million people in Vietnam gain access to clean water, • more than 20,000 households in Cambodia produce at least one extra rice crop, • the people of Timor-Leste receive better services by increasing government direct tax collection revenues by 38%, • 29,681 extra children in Papua New Guinea enrol in basic education, • 370,000 malnourished children in Somalia receive urgent medical treatment. Australia is a wealthy and prosperous country. Joe Hockey says we can afford to be generous only when our economy is booming. The truth is that our economy is one of the healthiest in the world and we are among the richest people in the world. Please tell your local member what you think!
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 05:50:12 +0000
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