The Importance Of Foreign Aid In Australia

Section 51 (xxix) of the Constitution of Australia grants exclusive power to the Commonwealth to legislate with regard to external affairs. Since its inception, through the development of case law, the external affairs power has been found to consist of three limbs:

As selfish as it may seem, if you aid a particular country they could possibly help you back. During future wars, third world countries could assist Australians with troops or building weaponry. An example would be the relationship between England and Australia during World War One. England helped Australia with defense from enemies, financial needs and medical tools when Australia was a developing country and Australia repaid them by siding with them in many wars to come.

Some of the main reasons why Australia provides foreign aid is to increase advanced systems and technology in other countries, decrease poverty, make other countries more stable generally and financially, etc. Some government and non-government organization like Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), AusAID, World vision, Red cross, etc. also help provide foreign aid to other countries. Australia’s 10 main focus points and the status of achievement for some of the following in providing aid to other countries are towards the following:

Along with New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Malaysia and Singapore, Australia is party to the Five Power Defence Arrangements, a regional defence agreement. A founding member country of the United Nations, Australia is strongly committed to multilateralism and maintains an international aid program which supports around 60 countries today, quite amazing right?Calculations made during 2005-2006 shows that Australia is giving about A$2.5 billion every year to developing countries. Australia ranks 15th overall in the Center for Global Development's 2012 Commitment to Development Index.

However, the domestic sphere is vital to Australian policy and must be engaged to improve relations with Indonesia. A 2013 survey of the Australian public commissioned by DFAT in 2013 found that 53% of Australian believe Indonesia is not a democracy and 54% believe Australia is right to worry about Indonesia as a military threat (Roberts and Habir 2015: 205). This is worrying as domestic support does effect on Australian foreign policy (Stephens and Gruber 2010: 38) Australian generosity, diplomacy and funding have been the most successful method of deepening relations

As mentioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australia’s Aid program works in, “promoting prosperity, reducing poverty and enhancing stability”. Cuts in the foreign aid budget will not only affect the countries around us, but also Australia. Through Australia’s ongoing support to developing countries by AusAID (Australian Agency for International Development), we have strengthened our countries political stability and security by creating close ties with other nations. Australia donates around AU$5 billion each year to aiding the developing countries around us, particularly nations located in the Asia Pacific Region. By doing this we have improved their economies, bringing peace to these countries.

Foreign aid aims to reduce poverty and create sustainable economic growth and development in the Indo-Pacific regions whilst promoting Australia’s national interests. Australian aid helps to provide access to safe drinking water for 2.9 million more people and enable 1.4 million more children to enrol in school.

Ever had that one friend? The one who tries to help, but no matter how hard he tries, he just aggravates the situation. This friend, Steve, insists he is helping, and those around, too, would support that he is indeed helping. But Steve is actually worsening the circumstances. He is like countries who provide foreign aid to less developed countries. Foreign aid, defined as “the international transfer of capital, goods, or services from a country or international organization for the benefit of the recipient country or its population,” can be military, economic, or humanitarian (“Foreign”). It is often granted to less developed countries in order to evoke government reforms or to stimulate economic growth. However, foreign aid neither elicits government reform, nor does it consistently and reliably stimulate economic growth; therefore, the United States should discontinue providing foreign economic aid.

Providing aid to developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region allows the countries to develop politically and economically, helping the region prosper, and therefore improve Australia’s personal security. The aid provided by Australia helps developing countries to stabilise their situation

Foreign aid is a term referring to resources and money lent out or given to a ‘recipient nation’ who is in need by a wealthier ‘donor country’. This can be given either in long term ‘humanitarian aid’, aimed at improving the welfare and development of the human population, or short term ‘emergency aid’ focused on providing the daily necessities to a population after a war, or natural disaster. Despite common belief, the purpose of foreign aid is not only to help countries which are in need, but also to achieve a range of social, economic, cultural and geopolitical goals that will benefit our national interest. Australia is currently the largest foreign aid donor of its nearest neighbour,

The first challenge for Australian foreign policy is to maximize the economic and security opportunities by maintaining their relationship with Indonesia and ASEAN. In the case with Indonesia, Indonesia is one of Australia’s closest friends as the two countries share strong security and economic system. In terms of politics, Indonesia is essential to Australia because Indonesia plays a key role in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations so a steady relationship with Indonesia is required for a cohesive and productive relationship with ASEAN. Moreover, Indonesia is the most important country in Southeast Asia with one of the most powerful military forces in the region. Therefore, Indonesia already controls and wants to improve its effect over ASEAN. According to researches, Indonesian motives for improving its role as regional peacekeeper have been revealed in recent perspectives by the general of the Indonesia’s military, who stated, Indonesian motives of playing a ‘big brother’ role with the respect to security in ASEAN and in the region (Tiernan, 2007).

Many skeptics challenge the reasoning for investing so much money into helping so many other countries when that money could instead help us improve internal affairs. After all, foreign aid spending has increased to $50 billion a year today, which could be put towards funding education to ensure that more kids go to college and possibly affecting the innovation of the future(Morris). Giving more than you receive is nice, but when it involves a country 's financial crisis, maybe it 's best if Santa cuts back some of this year 's presents. And although the argument may be valid, lending out a helping hand can create more allies than enemies to help us in return when we need it. In fact, foreign aid only accounts for 0.5 percent of the federal budget (Stearn). Compared to all the other matters at hand that the government is worrying about, the amount of spending put into aiding poorer countries is positive in both a moral aspect and a political aspect.

In a recent opinion poll, Australian voters naively believed that our foreign aid budget is ten time bigger than it actually is. In fact compared with other countries the government can not be seen as a big-hearted foreign aid donor and unfortunately due to the recent cuts there is little hope of improvement in the near future

In our economical national interest, Australia allocates a sector to contribute significantly by providing aid and financial support to promote the stability of a variety of countries within the Indo-Pacific. Within 2016 to 2017, 90% of Australia’s aid will directly go to the

Most people feel obligated to assist others in need. In major crises like natural disasters, wars, medical outbreaks, and the struggling economies of the developing world, many citizens of developed countries believe it is morally right to provide assistance in situations like these, in response to being more fortunate. However according to Mark Goldberg, an editor of the United Nations and global affairs blog UN Dispatch and host of the Global Dispatches Podcast, discusses the truth behind foreign aid. He reveals that foreign support is an issue that is widely misunderstood by the general public, and is one of the most complicated subjects. Foreign policy has been under a huge debate and there is an obvious need for reformation, for it lacks clear leadership and strategic planning. In fact political leaders are very skeptic about foreign policy, and often find ways to push it back. What the citizens of first world should be inquiring, is foreign aid actually what we think it is, or are the internal reasons of the politics reshaping its truth?