From the amalgamation of the Australian Agency for International Development to the 5 billion Australian dollar ($4.7 billion) cap on annual aid spending, Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s conservative government has brought about a dramatic change of course for the Australian aid program. Last week’s release of a new aid policy framework for Australian aid seemed to confirm yet another major change in policy: Australian aid won’t go much further than the Indo-Pacific any longer.
“In the past, [our aid program has] been spread far too thinly across the globe for reasons often not related to poverty alleviation, thus putting at risk our ability to achieve results in the geographic region where I believe we have a primary responsibility the Indian Ocean Asia Pacific,” said Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop as she rolled out the aid framework called “The New Aid Paradigm.”
While in opposition, Bishop and her conservative colleagues had slammed the previous Labor government’s expansion of Australian aid to Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean — and pledged to refocus Australia’s aid program on the country’s immediate neighbors once in power. At first glance, the Abbott government’s new aid framework seems to live up to this promise.