The foreign aid portfolio will not suffer any new funding cuts but individual programs in the south-east Asian region may be scrapped, the foreign affairs minister, Julie Bishop, has said.
Bishop spoke during a meeting of Liberal and Nationals colleagues on Tuesday, just hours before the Coalition’s second federal budget was due to be handed down.
She said the document would contain no new cuts to foreign aid, but that savings listed in the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) would take effect. No aid programs in the Pacific region would be cut. Programs in south-east Asia, excluding Cambodia which recently signed a deal with Australia over resettling asylum seekers, might be affected.
It is widely expected that Indonesia, which receives $605.3m in Australian aid, will suffer a cut, as a number of aid programs funded after the 2004 tsunami are due to end.
Among them, the Indonesia infrastructure initiative, which focuses on delivering clean water and safer roads. The initiative has been running since 2008 and cost $463m over seven years.
The prime minister, Tony Abbott, angered Indonesians earlier in the year when he linked Australia’s post-tsunami aid contributions with the then imminent executions of Australian drug smugglers Myuran Sukumaran and Andrew Chan.
The two men were killed by firing squad late last month, despite repeated pleas from the Australian government for clemency.
Indonesia receives more aid from Australia than any other country.
“One hundred million people in Indonesia are still living on very small amounts of money,” said Helen Szoke, head of Oxfam Australia. “We are making decisions that affect some of the poorest countries in the world.”
Szoke welcomes the emphasis on aid programs in the Pacific, but said programs in south-east Asia should not be subject to blanket exclusions.
“The driver of where aid is allocated should be where there is the greatest need.”
Szoke described the $11bn cuts to foreign aid since the Coalition came to power as “unprecedented” and said she would be “gobsmacked and surprised” if funding for the portfolio was cut even further.
