Gillard says no to 'big Australia' (29 June 2010)

Australia's immigration will slacken under the new leadership, New Prime Minister Julia Gillard signaled yesterday, amid rising concerns on the nation's swelling population.

The former lawyer who usurped the role from Mr Kevin Rudd last week said that the population system has to strike the right balance between expansion and sustainability.

"I don't believe in a big Australia," Ms Gillard said. "I don't believe in simply hurtling down a track to a 36-million or 40-million population."

Mr Rudd recently endorsed a "big Australia", citing government statistics that the country's population would burgeon from 22 million today to 35 million by 2050 through increasing birth rates and immigration.

The new leader, however, said such population growth could raise concerns given Australia's water scarcity, the difficulty in delivering services across the vast landscape and transport infrastructure.

"I think we want an Australia that is sustainable. This place is our sanctuary, our home," she said.
Welsh-born Ms Gillard, who came to Australia with her parents when she was four, said, however, that immigration for skilled labour was still needed, and that Canberra would keep accepting refugees.

Immigration is a delicate matter in Australia, where boatloads of outlanders from countries, including Afghanistan and Sri Lanka seek asylum.

Issues regarding the refugees, along with the delaying of a carbon emissions trading scheme and a new tax on mining profits, are believed to have been behind the poor rating that led Ms Gillard to contest Mr Rudd's leadership of the party.

Meanwhile, Ms Gillard said she had gone a "big step" in ending the dispute over a planned RSPT by cancelling government advertisements on the issue.
The mining industry responded by ceasing their anti-tax campaign, which had argued that the proposed tax would injure Australia's most valuable export industry. International Business Times

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Australia moves asylum seekers from Christmas Island (8 June 2010)

Australia has begun transferring dozens of asylum seekers from an overcrowded detention centre in the Indian Ocean.

They are moving to an old mining camp 830km (416 miles) northeast of Perth.

Officials say the Christmas Island facility can no longer cope with a recent influx of boat people in Australia's northern waters.

Initially 86 asylum seekers will move to the isolated gold mining town of Leonora while the authorities process their refugee claims.

'Accept them'

Home for a group of asylum seekers from Afghanistan, Iran and Sri Lanka is a disused mining camp in a remote, semi-arid corner of Western Australia.

The town of Leonora, with a population of 1,200 people, has answered a call from the federal government to help it alleviate overcrowding at the Christmas Island detention centre.

Additional health and education services will be provided to help the small gold mining community cope with the new arrivals.

The president of the town council, Jeff Carter, hopes those residents who oppose the relocation of asylum seekers will change their minds.

"Most of the negative feeling is people should go back where they come from. That is the impression I got," he said.

"Personally, I've got no great objection. I don't agree with the people coming by the boats but our government does accept them, to help them when they come to our shores. I'd just like to help people that way if we can. I hope that the town would accept them."

The government says the asylum seekers are likely to remain in Leonora for up to six months while their applications to stay in Australia are processed.

Refugee groups hope the gold mining town will provide a "merciful haven for the families" while the political debate over immigration intensifies.

With a federal election expected in Australia in the coming months, the conservative opposition has promised to send asylum seekers to detention camps in neighbouring countries as part of a hard-line plan to deter boat people.

Critics have derided the policy as "cruel" and ineffective. BBC

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How millions of Australia's foreign aid is being wasted on executive pay and costly contracts (23 May 2010)

An extensive investigation revealed a lucrative foreign aid "industry", raising questions on the Rudd Government's decision to double funding to $8 billion-plus a year.

And a high-level review has slammed the $414 million program in Papua New Guinea, claiming that $100 million is being redirected to a handful of firms while little of a lasting benefit is delivered.

Aid experts have also questioned the size of contracts paid to "briefcase" advisers flown into poor countries such as Tonga, East Timor, Vanuatu and Solomon Islands.

As Australia prepares to double its foreign aid budget, it can be revealed:

JUST five firms - led by Coffey, GRM and Cardno ACIL - secured $1 billion in AusAID contracts;

* MORE than a dozen aid consultants earn more than Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to fly around the Pacific advising on everything from "gender integration" to sport, transport, energy and justice;

* MILLIONS of dollars are being diverted to questionable aid programs including $12 million to research the giant panda in China and $13 million to redevelop a single school in Nauru;

* AusAID, the agency in charge of foreign aid, is investigating a small number of cases of fraud and is about to undergo significant restructuring;

* MILLIONS are being spent by the AFL, Girl Guides, ACTU and other community groups on "selling" a pro-aid message to the public.

One highly paid executive, Gerald Gahima, a former justice in his native Rwanda, is no stranger to controversy. In February 2004 he suddenly left Rwanda, amid questions about personal debts of $US600,000.

The US State Department cited allegations of misuse of office in personal bank transactions against Mr Gahima.

Four years later, in February 2008, he was made "senior justice adviser" to East Timor on a two-year $757,960 tax free contract, paid by Australian taxpayers.

Consultant John Dinsdale, a former clerk of a court in Melbourne, is paid more than $500,000 a year, tax-free, as PNG Law and Justice adviser.

Nikhil Desai, whose glamour address is listed as 6850 Melrose Drive, Los Angeles, was appointed as Vanuatu Energy Adviser on a two-year contract valued at $746,730.

Around the Pacific rim, questions are being asked as to why consultants, such as Peter Kelly, who is paid $433,000 a year to supervise Vanuatu's small road system, are paid so much. Partly it is because Australia has signed up to so-called Millennium Development Goals, which includes a commitment to gender equalisation.

That helps explain why Susan Ferguson earns $293,423 tax-free a year as "Gender Integration Adviser" to PNG.

The review into the flagship PNG program is particularly embarrassing - and raises serious questions over the value of pumping billions of dollars into fragile states.

The former Howard government tightened aid to PNG in 2005 after it received secret intelligence of scams involving senior members of the then PNG administration.

AusAID will pour $415 million into PNG next year but the review - conducted by three independent experts Stephen Howes, from the Australian National University, Dr Eric Kwa from the University of PNG and Canadian Soe Lin - is scathing of the present scheme.

They found tens of millions of dollars was "wasted" on consultants and glossy reports. Money also props up bureaucracies instead of buying life- saving medicines and equipment.

The review team found Australia's financial support was "being spread too thinly" across a raft of areas - including health, education, transport, law and justice and tackling HIV Aids.

The review has criticised the amounts being spent on highly-paid advisers and called for a shake-up in how the PNG scheme is managed. It did identify some positive outcomes - particularly in health programs run by churches and other non-government organisations.

It wants a stronger focus on this sort of program - and last night, the Foreign Minister Stephen Smith backed changes in the aid program.

"Advisers have been a feature of Australian aid over many years and, while we do not intend to pre-judge the outcome of the [PNG] review, it may be that there is an over-reliance on advisers in some countries," the Minister's spokesperson said.

The aid agency's new head, Peter Baxter, is vowing to crack down on highly paid consultants. The Daily Telegraph

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