2021-09-29
Media Release
At a time of global crisis, the Greens will provide support and reparations for the Global South by boosting international aid through Official Development Assistance, providing $4.5 billion of climate finance and reparations to 2025, and cancelling bilateral debt obligations.
The Greens’ funded plan to decolonise international aid will help to right historical wrongs and support countries across the world grappling with interconnected crises.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi, Greens spokesperson for International Aid & Development, will be delivering a keynote address at the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID) conference today laying out the Greens plan.
Quotes attributable to Greens Senator Mehreen Faruqi:
“Countries in the Global South are facing the climate crisis, a public health crisis, and an economic crisis. It’s time Australia stepped up and provided appropriate international aid to help countries combat these interconnected crises.
“As a wealthy, colonial country, Australia has a responsibility to contribute its fair share of aid, and pay reparations for its role in the climate crisis and the ongoing damage caused by Western imperialism.
“Women carry a disproportionate burden of these crises, but their voices go unheard. We must refocus our aid program to centre on the rights and self determination of women and girls, ensure clear gender equity targets and deliver aid through a feminist lens.
“This is the defining decade for climate action and Australia must commit to providing its fair share of climate finance at COP26.
“In the last decade Australia has been cutting aid, while the rest of the world has been doing the opposite. Shamefully and embarrassingly, we are near the bottom of global aid rankings. We are failing our Pacific neighbours who have water lapping at their doorstep.
“The Greens will boost international aid and provide billions of additional funding for climate finance.
“The cascading legacies of colonialism have locked communities into poverty and economic underdevelopment with mounting debts they will never be free of. By cancelling bilateral debt obligations, Australia can be a global champion for debt forgiveness and start to turn the page on the crushing levels of debt owed to wealthy countries by poorer countries.
“The Greens’ vision is to reimagine aid as not simply charity, but as a matter of global justice. Aid should never be a way to further our national ambitions or greedy trade interests.
“Aid programs should work to right historical wrongs and build communities in parts of the world that have been left destitute.”
The Greens plan will:
- Increase Australia’s aid budget to 0.7% of GNI by 2030
- Provide climate finance and reparations of $4.5 billion from 2022-2025, more than tripling Australia’s current commitment
- Establish an independent development oversight agency
- Place the human rights and self-determination of women and girls at the centre of Australian development assistance programs
- Cancel future loan repayments from all countries in the Global South who owe debt directly to Australia
- Advocate for financial institutions and foreign governments to cancel any outstanding debt payments from countries in the Global South
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Paying for our plan:
By making billionaires and big corporations pay their fair share of tax and winding back handouts to big polluters, we can build a better life for all of us.
1 in 3 big corporations pays no tax and many big corporations and billionaires send their profits offshore tax free.
The Greens will tax billionaires with a new ‘billionaires tax’, require big corporations making excessive profits to pay a ‘corporate super-profits tax’ and axe billions of dollars in handouts to the coal, oil and gas giants that are driving the climate crisis.
When big corporations and billionaires pay their fair share, everyone can have the services they need for a better life.