Can Australia afford to be so generous with aid to Ukraine?

So, Australian aid seems incongruous when Ukraine is surrounded by some of the richest and largest economies in the world - Germany, France, and nearby United Kingdom. We are not talking about some impoverished part of the world.

These countries are also some of the largest manufacturers of arms after the United States, Russia and China.

Further, while Australia should help refugees whose homelands are ravaged by war, it would be better that those from Ukraine were settled in Europe, certainly with our support. There, they can keep in easier contact with their families and government, and quickly return home once, hopefully, the invasion is repulsed, to rebuild their country.

Australia needs to get its strategic priorities sorted before any more decisions about aid to Ukraine or elsewhere are made. We need to concentrate our limited and finite resources to where they are needed most - boosting our own defence force and placing greater emphasis on our own backyard - the Indo-Pacific.

Making decisions based on emotion or for photo opportunities during prime ministerial overseas jaunts, without open public discussion back home and while parliament is not even in session, is not the best way to promote consensus or to develop policy in Australia's national interest.