I grilled the Liberal Government about Australia’s almost $4B p/a or $50B plus (over a decade) ForeignAid Budget.
There are a number of important facts that many Tasmanians would be shocked to learn – when it comes to the management our Foreign Aid budget. Despite what the Attorney General initially told me during the Estimates questioning.
And given that Tasmania grows and processes some of the best food in the world – I know our farming community and workers will be very disappointed to hear that Australia does not have in place an official policy to buy local when it comes to our Foreign Aid food, goods and products.
Australia sends a lot of Foreign aid to countries with much larger militaries than our own, including Indonesia approx. ($300M p/a) and Pakistan approx. ($40M p/a
I stand by my network’s policy to halve Australia’s Foreign Aid budget over the next 10 years and pull our pensioners out of poverty.
Our government should redirect that extra $25B to Australian Aged Pensioners.