Praise the Lord, and DON'T pass the ammunition

Rudd vows lift in Pacific island aid
July 05, 2007

FEDERAL Labor leader Kevin Rudd has promised a big increase in Australian aid to Pacific island nations to end instability in the region.

Mr Rudd last onight said a “radical rethink” of the nation's role in the Pacific would focus on economic improvement to avoid costly military interventions and a flow of refugees to Australia.

He said a Labor government in its first term would undertake auditing and planning with each Pacific neighbour and, if re-elected, it would commit to a “significant” investment program over time.

Labor would seek to reach an overall overseas aid target of 0.5 per cent of GDP by 2015-16 - about twice current levels.

The Opposition Leader will detail what he's calling a Pacific partnership for development and security in a speech to the Lowy Institute in Sydney this morning.

“What I'm proposing is a radical rethink about Australia's engagement with the states which form part of our arc of instability,” Mr Rudd told ABC TV.

“If we don't act to change now, what I fear most is in the future we're going to have more costly military interventions.

“What we'll have is states fail in the region, or more of them fail ... you'll then have the risk of significant refugee outflow from the island states of the region into Australia.”

In the past decade Australia has twice sent troops to East Timor and continues to lead a Solomon Islands peacekeeping mission.

Mr Rudd said the change in policy would prioritise economic development so security problems would be come more manageable.

“Right now we're simply dealing with the military or security symptom of an underlying economic development challenge.”

In addition to one-off military interventions and refugees, Mr Rudd said he was concerned about the threat to public health in Australia.

“When you talk about the collapse of public health in Papua New Guinea, you're looking at HIV-AIDS infection rates of something about two per cent of the population and the exposure of our communities in the Torres Strait and in north Queensland.”

Mr Rudd agreed he was also concerned about other nations supplanting Australia as the principal power in the region.

“If we fail to act effectively then I think we're going to see a long-term drift in Australia's strategic standing right across this region as well.”