Australian Foreign Aid and the Bush Fires.

Of late there have been  a few intemperate remarks about Australian foreign aid in the context of the continental fires.  As usual with followers of Pox News, the facts are lost in the red haze of outrage.  

Still the facts do count.

1. Australia’s foreign aid is about half per capita that of the UK.  That is, it is not generous. In turn, the UK per capita amount is about half that of Sweden per capita.  
2. Nor is it a free gift.  Nearly all the aid is invested in projects (clean water, sanitation, roads, ports, schools, hospitals, training) the materials for which are purchased in Australia.  The water purification plants are bought from Australian suppliers.  The nurses training is delivered by Australian schools.  That is, the money is spent in Strine.  
3. In building projects, Australian firms are the preferred contractors, and secure the bulk of the business.  
4. The vast majority of the aid money is invested near Australia, e.g., the Solomon Islands, Fiji, Timor, Tonga, Nauru, and the like. The strategy is to make a buffer from the increasing Chinese influence in the South Pacific.  The aim is to make lasting friends with the neighbours and to strengthen them to resist Chinese blandishments. (Look it up.) I taught a number of students from these parts whose education in Australia was made possible by Aid projects.  In that sense, part of my salary came from the Aid budget.   
5. At no time are suitcases of dollars handed over contra Pox News.  

All of this and more can be gleaned from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade web site in five or ten minutes.  Of course, that is too taxing for a Pox journalist.  

The Solomon Islands, Timor, Tonga, Nauru and the like are in no position to come to Australia’s assistance in the fire crisis.  Pay a visit to one of these places to see why.  

Yes, the paper total is four billion sunbaked Strine dollars, but few of those bucks leave the country.  Moreover, to put that total in perspective the twelve-kilometre tram line I took today back from the blood bank today cost over one billion of those self-same dollars.  That makes it comparable to the sports stadia that state governments continue to build for football games most of us will never see.  The total cost of WestConnex, should it ever be completed, will probably dwarf the annual foreign aid budget as it moves Sydney traffic jams from one place to another.  

One cannot escape the feeling that part of the repeated and ritualistic outrage of the Poxes at foreign aid is racist.  We are giving our white dosh to darkies!