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Sunday / February 9.
HomeminewsLabor Aid Promise Welcomed by The Fred Hollows Foundation

Labor Aid Promise Welcomed by The Fred Hollows Foundation

The Fred Hollows Foundation has welcomed The Australian Labor Party’s commitment to rebuilding Australia’s critical aid program, which has seen more than AU$11.3 billion of cuts under the current Coalition Government.

The ALP National Conference voted to increase aid as a percentage of Gross National Income (GNI) every year starting with its first budget and to reaching at least 0.5 per cent of GNI.

Australia can afford to do more and must do more to help some of the poorest people in the world

In December, The Fred Hollows Foundation Chairman John Brumby said the announcement was a welcome first step “in restoring Australia’s aid program to internationally acceptable levels and showing our neighbours that Australia is committed to doing our fair share on the global stage.

“The announcement reaffirms Labor’s commitment to delivering on Australia’s existing commitment to the Sustainable Development Goals. The Fred Hollows Foundation looks forward to seeing the detail of Labor’s election commitments in relation to Australian aid ahead of the next election.

“We also call on the Coalition to reverse its position on raiding the aid budget for other spending.”

Mr Brumby said the Coalition’s mid-year economic and fiscal outlook announcement in December demonstrated “that it is putting the world’s poorest people last. It’s time for the Coalition to support Australian aid and offer bipartisan support to this announcement from Labor.”

He said the Government’s position that alleviating global poverty would have to wait until the budget was back in surplus would be hollow without an immediate announcement to increase aid.

Australia now spends only 21 cents on aid and development for every $100 of income with forward estimates predicting that unless more funding is committed, Australia’s aid budget will be at its lowest levels by the 2021-22 financial year at just 19 cents in every $100.

“Australia can afford to do more and must do more to help some of the poorest people in the world,” said Mr Brumby.

“As Fred Hollows said: ‘Just as the quality of humaneness comes from having a concern for the sick, the lame, the blind and the people less fortunate, so too does the humanity of a country, which will be determined by the extent to which it helps countries less fortunate than itself’.”

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