An economics professor anticipates more aid funding from the Australian government, despite cuts in its latest budget.
Australia pared back its foreign aid spending by nearly $500 million, but it also announced additional short term funding of $AU335 million to help countries, such as Papua New Guinea, cope with Covid-19.
This additional funding will stop after two years.
Photo: Long Zheng/ CC BY-SA 2.0
The director of the Development Policy Centre at the Australian National University, Stephen Howes, said this is not realistic. Although the Budget was disappointing in the sense of embedding those cuts, I think as the situation unfolds the government will recognise that it does need more money and, of course, it can afford more money. It s shown it s willing to run a very large deficit, so I think rather than seeing this support wound back so quickly, we will, in the course of the year, see further extensions of funding, he said.
RNZ
In this episode of The Detail, Emile Donovan speaks to researchers Tom Barraclough and Curtis Barnes, and media commentator Gavin Ellis, about a new reality in which you can’t necessarily believe your eyes. (First published July 2020)
ANALYSIS: When Hong Kong pro-democracy activists last month received messages from Australia’s Finance Minister, Simon Birmingham, on encrypted messaging service Telegram, they were overjoyed. But it was too good to be true. The activists quickly realised something was up when “Birmingham” requested they transfer money into a Hong Kong bank account. It was, in fact, a cyber hacker who had somehow managed to verify a Telegram account with Birmingham’s phone number, thereby stealing his contact book. This “phishing” scam also hit Health Minister Greg Hunt, Australia’s ambassador to the United States Arthur Sinodinos and a number of other senior diplomats.
Independent senator Rex Patrick had earlier met Australian Uighurs in front of Parliament House to call out China's repression of the ethnic minority in Xinjiang.
Government blocks motion to recognise China s treatment of Uighurs as genocide sbs.com.au - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from sbs.com.au Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.