Sydney

The Coalition’s plan to cut foreign aid by $4.5 billion over 4 years is a kick in the teeth to the 1.2 billion people living on less than $2 a day.

Shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey’s announcement comes on top of the $5.8 billion worth of aid cuts already signalled by the Labor Government.

 

Both major parties are failing to live up to the promises that all politicians made at the last election – to increase foreign aid spending to 0.5% of gross national income by 2015-16.

Why have the major parties totally ignored the issue of poverty?

2.3 million Australians now live below the official poverty line.

"In a wealthy country like Australia, it is not acceptable for more than 2.3 million people, nearly 600,000 of whom are children, live below the poverty line," Senator Rachel Siewert, Australian Greens spokesperson for families and community services said today.

Gerry Georgatos - September 1st, 2013 - We can change the political discourse in this country, we can change the political landscape. Next week, and despite it being unimaginable now, we can have a brave new Australia, a never-before-seen landscape, our national consciousness enriched. With less than a week to the federal election we have the opportunity before us to make this happen. The Senate-only party, The WikiLeaks Party, has three candidates in three States who are all close to being elected. We need your primary vote.