As World Vision's Tim Costello puts it: "Julie was in there fighting. She was rolled. Her new aid paradigm is in tatters."
The
indefatigable Bishop was in Papua New Guinea, the second-largest
recipient of Australian aid, on Monday when Treasurer Joe Hockey
revealed $3.7 billion in cuts to the foreign aid budget as an aside
while releasing his mid-year budget update.
Hockey's press
conference, with Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, was surreal on a
number of counts, but mostly because the nation's attention was
singularly focused on the siege at Sydney's Martin Place that ended so
tragically in the early hours of Tuesday.
Hockey began with a
monologue utterly at odds with reality. He reported that the government
had made "a good start" to the budget repair task, that the economy had
continued to "strengthen" during the year despite "significant offshore
headwinds", and that the budget was "on track for a credible surplus".
Much
of the commentary that followed commended the Treasurer for not taking
the "austerity option" of slashing domestic programs or increasing taxes
and charges to offset collapsing revenues. The foreign aid cut received
almost as scant attention as the slashing of the Australian Human
Rights Commission's budget (an act that smacked of retribution).
No comments:
Post a Comment