The swingeing cuts to foreign aid promised by the Coalition – to be made simultaneously with significantly increased defence spending – would hurt the world’s most vulnerable people and make Australia less safe, humanitarian groups have said.
The Coalition’s finance spokesperson, Jane Hume, announced on Thursday, two days before the federal election, that an elected Coalition government would cut $813m from Australia’s foreign aid budget, with funding to the Pacific, Indonesia and Timor-Leste to be quarantined from reductions.
