Out of Africa: deficit-cutting should start at home

An unfamiliar observer watching this election campaign past would have been hard pressed to miss the fiscal hypochondria that saw both major parties bragging about how much money they were saving rather than spending. Strangely enough, the possibility that winning a majority in a hung parliament may require turning on the spending spigot seems to have put paid to any austerity anxieties for the time being.

This rare state of electoral indecision almost certainly gives the so-called “three amigos” (Katter, Oakeshott and Windsor) the capacity to extract all sorts of financial promises from the government. Plainly, this should not simply be limited to demands for new spending but also to rigorously examine the merits of proposed spending cuts.

One promised budget cut in particular stands out for review: the Coalition’s recent pledge that it would end the government’s bid for a rotating seat on the UN Security Council and the $12.9 million of ancillary aid measures to Africa thought to be little more than international vote-buying.

The focus on Africa has been one of the peculiar obsessions of opponents of the bid. Andrew Bolt has decried the government’s desperation “to win the cheap votes of African and Muslim nations” (“Our values cannot be so cheaply sold. Or defended with such hesitation”, The Adelaide Advertiser, March 18, 2009).

Greg Hunt has suggested that the government’s apparent unwillingness to demand the return of Stern Hu could be attributed to an unwillingness to provoke China out of a fear of an antagonised China corralling its African allies to oppose Australia’s bid.

Andrew Robb has suggested that insofar as winning the support of African countries involves a “softening of our position on human rights abuses, especially in Zimbabwe, that the bid is a dangerous folly” (The Age, April 11, 2008).

Greg Sheridan has suggested that an apparent rebalancing in Australia’s voting behaviour on Israel issues at the UN could be explained by a bid-related desire to curry favour with African nations (“A price too high to pay”, The Australian, March 7, 2009).

Setting aside the merits of the Security Council bid (of which there are many), one of the clearest benefits of the process of bidding was that it has formed a circuit-breaker for Australia to finally improve its relations with many African nations. Increased engagement with Africa represents an opportunity to advance Australia’s humanitarian, security and commercial interests. And increased aid for some of the world’s poorest and most populous countries has a logic all its own.

The Coalition proclaims that it is not against the provision of foreign aid. In May, it affirmed its support for the government’s commitment to increase foreign aid levels to 0.5 per cent of Gross National Income. Its largely-unexplained contention is that the increase in foreign aid should be spent in our region rather than more distant regions such as Africa.

This year, AusAid (the agency tasked with delivery of Australia’s aid budget) expects to deliver about $200 million in aid to African nations - a negligible portion of its $4 billion overall budget. If we are to commit to the aid target it will involve at least an additional billion dollars in aid expenditure - all of which, according to the Coalition - must stay within our region.

The projects in question, titled the “Africa Law and Justice Framework”, involve Australian government agencies helping African governments to develope greater institutional capacities to manage their countries. AUSTRAC, the Australian agency responsible for fighting money laundering and financial crime, has been providing technical training to their African counterparts. The Australian Federal Police have used the funds to help host the first African Pathologists Forum in Botswana in May and run forensics courses in South Africa, hoping to improve the standards of forensic science across Africa.

These are small but worthwhile initiatives that will help improve law, order and governance across Africa. They may be incremental and unsexy in their approach but they are nevertheless vital to political development. Unpunished crime only serves to undermine faith in the rule of law and financial crime deprives governments of necessary revenue.

It is unsurprising that these projects are the target of cuts, however. Foreign aid is inevitably the low-hanging fruit of deficit reduction. Its cancellation has no constituency to adversely affect. There will be no public outcry on the nightly news. And we can assume that the countries that benefit will not be sounding their vuvuzelas in anger. But we should not pretend that there are no victims. Indeed, scaling back our focus on Africa places Australia atop any such list.

Compared to a nation like Canada, Australia’s diplomatic footprint in Africa is pitifully small. Canada has 24 embassies or high commissions in Africa, Australia has just seven. Indeed, DFAT specifically outsources consular assistance for Australians to Canadian diplomats in many African countries. The missions that we do have in Africa are consequently over-stretched and under-resourced. The High Commission in Nairobi, for example, is expected to service seven different countries.

Africa has not always figured so lightly in Australia’s foreign policy. The Kenyan Foreign Minister, Moses Wetangula, noted as much when (in endorsing Australia’s bid) he reflected that it brought him “back to the good old days when Australia fought side by side with Africa in liberating our continent”. The legacy of Fraser and Hawke in opposing white rule in Southern Africa gave Australia moral credibility throughout the whole continent.

Improved relations with African countries also offer the opportunity to advance the commercial interests of Australian companies. Australian trade with Africa has grown rapidly in recent years. There are more than 400 Australian companies active in Africa, including some of our major resource companies, and over $20 billion of Australian investment. The recent plane crash involving Macarthur Coal’s Ken Talbot and other Australian mining executives on the Cameroon-Congo border was a tragic emblem of the newfound investment focus on Africa.

In human terms, Australia hosts 250,000 citizens born in Africa and hosts more than 10,000 African students. Most critically, the trend line of these connections is ever upward.

The perceived smallness of the issues of the election can be interpreted positively as a sign that Australia remains a well-governed, prosperous country with only trivial miscellany to decide votes. We should be proud to export our skills and know-how to the countries that need it most. Or at least explain why we won’t.