Foreign Minister Julie Bishop is set to preside over by far the largest overseas aid cuts as a proportion of the nation's income of any foreign minister in Australian history, a new report has found.
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The report by the left-leaning think tank The Australia Institute has charted the rise and fall in Australia's foreign aid program since it was introduced by the Whitlam government in 1974.
If the aid cuts projected in the most recent federal budget go ahead, Ms Bishop will oversee a massive 33 per cent drop in spending, which is nearly double that of the next most parsimonious minister Bill Hayden, who in the 1980s managed a drop of 17 per cent under the Labor Hawke government.
"When it comes to foreign aid, Australia is not generous – irrespective of whether this is considered against historical or world standards," the report by the institute's senior economist Matt Grudnoff and researcher Dan Gilchrist said.
Since coming to power, the Coalition under Tony Abbott earmarked $11 billion in aid cuts between 2014 and 2018. Ms Bishop reportedly fought the cuts internally but Mr Abbott and former Treasurer Joe Hockey made them a central plank in their budget repair efforts.
Aid cuts tend to be popular with the Australian public but the report noted a 2011 finding by the Lowy Institute that Australians tend to think their government spends far more on foreign aid than it actually does.
By the 2016-17 financial year, aid as a proportion of gross national income will fall to 0.22 per cent, which is the least generous level since the aid program began and a fraction of the 0.7 per cent committed to by the former Howard government under the 2000 Millennium Development Goals.
It also means that Australia, despite being the eighth largest economy in the OECD, will be the 19th most generous OECD donor.
The report said that with Ms Bishop remaining foreign minister under the new leadership of Malcolm Turnbull, "she has the opportunity to boost our aid budget and avoid being remembered as Australia's stingiest foreign minister".
The Australia Institute report concluded that former Labor foreign minister Stephen Smith oversaw the largest aid increase of 16 per cent followed by Liberal Tony Street in the early 1980s who hiked aid by 8 per cent.
Kevin Rudd as foreign minister increased aid by 5 per cent, but Bob Carr cut it by 3 per cent.
Further back, Labor's Gareth Evans cut by 8 per cent and Liberal Alexander Downer cut by 10 per cent.
