Australia to slow increase in foreign aid spending




Carr said Australia's foreign aid budget would increase by around 500 million Australian dollars ($499 million) to AU$5.7 billion in the next fiscal year - a 9.6 percent increase on the current year. That would lift the aid budget to 0.37 percent of gross national income.







"The diversion of AU$375 million for asylum seeker costs is a sleight of hand. It is not money that will ever assist the world's poorest overseas," Purcell said in a statement.

Carr said OECD rules allowed countries to spend foreign aid domestically. The United States, Norway and Sweden were among countries that spend foreign aid on refugees within their own borders.

Australia pledged in 2010 to scale up its foreign aid spending to meet the United Nation's millennium target by 2015-16.

While Chinese demand for raw materials such as iron ore and coal kept Australia out of recession during the global economic crisis, a cooling of the mining boom combined with a stubbornly high currency is eating into Australia's corporate tax revenue.

The government conceded in December that it was unlikely to keep its promise to return the budget to surplus in the current fiscal year. Economists expect the budget documents to be revealed to Parliament on Tuesday will forecast a deficit of between AU$10 billion and AU$20 billion for the current year.

The budget plan will need the approval of Parliament in the next two months before it can be implemented.

The Associated Press


