This special 2025 federal election episode of Devpolicy Talks brings together perspectives from key political figures on the future of Australia’s international development program. Host Alison Carabine interviews Pat Conroy (Labor), Mehreen Faruqi (Greens), and Zali Steggall (Independent), exploring their visions for aid, responses to global humanitarian crises and priorities for Australia’s role in the Indo-Pacific region. The Coalition was invited but declined to participate. This special episode is a joint production of the ANU’s Development Policy Centre, the Australian Council for International Development, the International Development Contractors Community and the Safer World for All Campaign. It offers a comprehensive look at the competing priorities and policy proposals shaping the aid debate ahead of the 2025 federal election.
This special episode is a joint production of the Australian National University’s Development Policy Centre, the Australian Council for International Development, the International Development Contractors Community and the Safer World for All Campaign.
The episode opens with Minister Pat Conroy outlining Labor’s record and vision for Australia’s international development program. He highlights the government’s significant increases to the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budget, surpassing $5 billion for the first time in over a decade, and emphasises reforms to policy performance, gender equality, disability inclusion, and transparency. Conroy frames Australia’s aid as both a moral obligation and a matter of national interest, particularly as other donors withdraw from the region. He points to the importance of partner-led approaches, long-term indexation of the aid budget, and new mechanisms such as the Australian Development Investments vehicle. On humanitarian funding, Conroy acknowledges rising global needs but argues that the government’s overall humanitarian spending far exceeds the fixed $150 million Humanitarian Emergency Fund, with total humanitarian outlays projected at $859 million in the coming year. He also stresses the need for flexibility in policy settings to respond to evolving challenges and partner priorities, underpinned by ongoing sector consultation.
Senator Mehreen Faruqi presents the Greens’ vision for a “bigger and better” aid program grounded in solidarity, global justice and climate justice. She critiques traditional aid paradigms based on charity or narrow national interest, advocating instead for needs-based, partnership-driven assistance that addresses historical injustices and centres the rights and voices of recipient communities. Faruqi calls for Australia to increase its aid budget to 0.7% of GNI over ten years, as recommended by the UN, and to provide additional climate finance in recognition of Australia’s role as a major fossil fuel exporter. She proposes an independent development oversight agency to improve accountability and ensure aid is not captured by commercial interests. Faruqi is critical of the government’s approach to climate change, arguing that continued fossil fuel expansion undermines claims of climate leadership. On humanitarian crises, she calls for increased support, particularly in the face of funding shortfalls caused by US and UK aid cuts, and highlights the need for Australia to play a constructive role in addressing global inequality and conflict.
Independent MP Zali Steggall argues that strong international development is essential for both regional stability and Australia’s national security. She supports calls to restore the aid budget to 1% of federal expenditure, noting that current levels are well below public expectations and international standards. Steggall emphasises the importance of climate resilience, both domestically and regionally, and advocates for a $10 billion Climate Resilience Fund domestically with similar investments regionally. She frames aid not as a “nice-to-have” but as a strategic investment in Australia’s future, particularly as global leadership from traditional donors wanes. Steggall also calls for a reassessment of DFAT’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund, which has remained static despite rising needs, and urges a more humane and consistent approach to refugee policy, including clearer pathways for those fleeing conflicts such as Gaza. She sees a leadership opportunity for Australia, especially in partnership with Pacific nations, to advance climate and humanitarian objectives.
Throughout the episode, all three interviewees respond to the withdrawal of major donors like the US and UK, agreeing that Australia must step up its support for the region and beyond. While there is consensus on the need for increased aid and a focus on climate resilience, the parties differ on the scale of ambition, the role of commercial interests, and the mechanisms for delivering and overseeing aid. The discussions also highlight broader themes of national interest, moral responsibility, and the interconnectedness of security, development, and climate action.
Devpolicy Talks is the podcast of the Australian National University’s Development Policy Centre. The producers of this episode were Robin Davies, Amita Monterola and Cameron Hill. Music by Finn Clarke.
Visit the Australian Aid Tracker at devpolicy.org/aidtracker.
Pat Conroy: I also think that we’ve got a moral obligation, and I know it’s dangerous — politicians talking about morality — but I do think that humanity should not end at the water’s edge. I would argue that anyone who gouges our development program, who cuts $11 billion from it such as the Coalition aren’t fit for government.
Mehreen Faruqi: Poverty is not written in the stars. Underdevelopment is not one of God’s mysterious designs. Poverty and inequality are clearly a result of colonisation, war and extractive capitalism which has resulted in such unjust distribution of wealth.
Zali Steggall: There are no submarines that will keep us safe from a cyclone or keep a neighbouring nation safe. We know, for example, in Australia, for every $1 we invest in preparation, in resilience building, we save $11 on disaster recovery costs. And the same applies in our region when it comes to aid.
Alison Carabine: Yuma. My name is Alison Carabine, and I’m pleased to present this special federal election edition of the Devpolicy Talks podcast from Ngunnawal and Ngambri country in Canberra.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land from wherever you might be listening today, and to pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
This special episode is a joint production of the ANU Development Policy Centre, the Australian Council for International Development, the International Development Contractors Community and the Safer World for All Campaign.
It features interviews with the relevant spokespeople on international development from the Labor Party and the Australian Greens, as well as independent Zali Steggall, ahead of the 3 May federal election. We talk about their vision for Australia’s international development program, some of the big challenges ahead and their priorities when it comes to the aid budget.
The Coalition was invited to participate in the discussion, but declined.
Alison Carabine: First up, I talked to Labor’s Minister for International Development and the Pacific, the Honourable Pat Conroy MP. Minister Conroy is the federal member for Shortland, and was appointed to his portfolio in June 2022. He also serves as the Minister for Defence Industry and Capability Delivery, and was appointed to Cabinet in July 2024. This interview was recorded on Monday the 14th of April.
Welcome to Devpolicy Talks, Minister. First up, can you please outline for our audience Labor’s vision for Australia’s international development program if it were to secure another term of government?
Pat Conroy: Thank you for having me, and I want to say a big thank you to everyone in the development community for what you do every day, which is to save lives and lift people out of poverty. Labor has been a strong and consistent supporter of Australia’s international development program, and our intention is that a second-term Labor government would build on our strong record of delivery that we achieved in the first term.
In the first term, we delivered the single largest ODA [Official Development Assistance] budget increase in well over a decade, including $1.4 billion in our first budget; we reformed the entire policy performance architecture of the ODA program; and, this coming financial year, the ODA budget will jump past $5 billion — this is sooner than expected, and will be the first time $5 billion has been surpassed since Labor was last in government. And it’s especially significant given the Liberal-led Coalition government capped the ODA program at $4 billion.
We live in very turbulent times, and as other countries withdraw from development assistance and withdraw from our region, our region is trying to navigate the changes, and the Albanese government is staying the course on ODA and doubling down on our region. In the next financial year, three-quarters of our development program will be targeted to support outcomes in the Indo-Pacific region, and that’s a 40-year record for Australia.
If we start with what we inherited — which was an under-resourced and under-stress development program, we’ve worked very hard to rebuild it after nine years of cuts and neglect. We shouldn’t forget that the former Liberal government cut Australia’s aid budget by $11.8 billion during their nine years in office. And, in contrast, in the first three years of our term, we committed to increase Australia’s aid budget by $10.4 billion over the coming decade.
And importantly, that rebuild is concentrated on our partners’ priorities: that’s at the heart of our policy. And so the money is critical, but it’s not the whole story. It’s about respectful relationships and acting on what our partners want. And that’s why we’ve delivered, in terms of policy reform, a full new policy for the ODA program, a new gender-equality strategy, a new disability-equity strategy, a new humanitarian policy, a new performance system including targets and Development Partnership Plans, and growth in the ANCP [Australian NGO Cooperation Program] to support our NGO partners. We’ve also strengthened performance targets on gender. We’ve got the first-ever performance targets on climate change, the first-ever performance targets on disability. We delivered the Development Finance Review, which led to the creation of the $250 million Australian Development Investments vehicle, which is now operating across the region and supporting NGOs to work better with blended finance. We’ve seriously invested in transparency by creating a new online portal publishing more than ever, and recommenced engagement with global transparency efforts.
And I think importantly, we’ve also shown in our first term how we want to ensure our development program works hand in glove with other areas of government to support positive outcomes for our region. The development policy is one tool in our engagement in the region, and we’ve used other efforts to amplify the development budget. So, for example, ensuring banking services continue in the Pacific, our aviation partnerships, our investment in telecommunication cables, supporting critical infrastructure like roads, bridges, ports that enable economic growth, our patrol boat program that monitors illegal fishing, our IMF Special Drawing Rights where we’ve pledged to provide two-and-a-half billion dollars in Special Drawing Rights to support the IMF poverty reduction and growth trust fund, and labour mobility through the PALM [Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme] and PEV [Pacific Engagement Visa], which is sending home $400 million of remittances a year.
And if I can finish on this point, all this is based on our five principles for the ODA program — that it’s based on partner priorities; it’s transparent in its approach; it’s not transactional in nature; it’s high quality and prioritises local leadership and approaches and content. And I think we’ve performed well on all five measures. And I think I could talk more about our climate initiatives, particularly the Tuvalu arrangement, and contrast that with Peter Dutton joking about climate change and lots of other things, but that’s the essence of our first-term achievement that we want to build on in our next three years if we are so privileged.
Alison Carabine: Well, thank you for all of that, Minister. You do mention that we are living in very turbulent times, no doubt a reference to the Trump administration and other donors pulling back from aid and international development. In the face of these changes, how would you explain to Australians the value of our international development and humanitarian programs? Why should we care about international aid and so forth?
Pat Conroy: Well, I think there’s two reasons for that. One is hard-headed national interest — 22 of our 26 neighbours are developing countries. PNG is only four kilometres away from Australia. For example, we have an interest in these countries prospering and being peaceful and stable. That’s an element of national interest that I think should appeal to even the most sceptical of people. I also think that we’ve got a moral obligation, and I know it’s dangerous — politicians talking about morality — but I do think that humanity should not end at the water’s edge. I think that we have a moral obligation to help lift people out of poverty. Having children dying from preventable diseases, diseases that we’ve effectively eradicated in Australia, within four kilometres of Australia’s borders, is something that we should be acting upon. So I think from a both hard-headed, hard-edged national interest and a moral principle, we need to have a strong development program that’s grounded in principles, that’s effective. And I would argue that anyone who gouges our development program, who cuts $11.8 billion from it, such as the Coalition, aren’t fit for government, because not only are they, I think, failing morally, they’re failing our hard-edged national interest in making Australia less safe.
Alison Carabine: Minister, despite all that funding you mentioned, there’s always an argument that we should be doing more. Australia currently allocates just 0.68% of the federal budget on international development. A range of community, faith-based and business groups have called on the next government to restore this to 1% which it has been previously under both Coalition and Labor governments. If you win the election, would you commit to delivering 1% in your first budget, or at least in the next term?
Pat Conroy: Look, I want to acknowledge that the Safer World for All campaign has made a really welcome contribution to the debate on international development, and it’s always going to be the role of organisations and communities to call for more investment. That said, Penny Wong and I have been really proud of the budget commitments we’ve been able to achieve over the past three years. We went into the last election committing to deliver $1 billion in new ODA, and we’ve exceeded that. We’ve exceeded that significantly. We were able to deliver almost double that over the immediate forward estimates: $1.8 billion in new ODA. We also locked in long-term ongoing indexation of the ODA budget, which sees it grow by 2.5% each year. That will add another $8.6 billion in new ODA over the medium term. So that means that we’ve committed to an increase of ODA by $10.4 billion during our first three years in government. That’s a lot more than the $1 billion we committed to and it stands in stark contrast to what the Coalition government did, which was cut $11.8 billion.
And it’s also important to point out that the Shadow Treasurer Angus Taylor has said very clearly that he does not support the Albanese Labor government’s ODA increase. So if you talk about choices at the election, the choices between a government that promised a $1 billion increase but actually increased the budget by $10.4 billion versus a Liberal–National Coalition that cut $11.8 billion and are promising more cuts.
Alison Carabine: But would you restore to 1%?
Pat Conroy: We’ve made our commitments known. I think while these sorts of measurements as a share of budget are attractive to people, our development budget is going up. It’s increasing by $10.4 billion, and we’ve restored long-term indexation, which is critical so that it maintains its real value over time. But we won’t be looking at what has been suggested.
Alison Carabine: Thank you, Minister. With regards to funding, we are seeing increases in humanitarian needs across the world, from Sudan to Gaza to Myanmar, Bangladesh, Ukraine and Congo. The already serious funding shortfalls are likely to worsen following cuts announced by the US and other donors. Australia’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund [HEF], which is used to respond to these crises, has not increased from $150 million a year since 2018. Do you think that number, the $150 million, is adequate, or will Labor commit to at least doubling this funding in a new term of Parliament?
Pat Conroy: It’s pretty clear that humanitarian need is increasing globally, and that the major conflicts you mentioned are prime examples of why we can’t let the spotlight waver, just because some donors are withdrawing funding. And beyond individual conflicts, the Albanese government’s conscious of the role climate change is playing, and will increasingly play, in driving natural hazards and disasters as well as exacerbating conflict. The Humanitarian Emergency Fund that you’ve talked about remains the best mechanism to respond to rapid-onset emergencies, and an important example of that is the Myanmar earthquake response, where we recently contributed to and were able to draw on HEF support to support immediate funding, some multilateral response funding and funding through Australian NGOs and regional response mechanisms. And you’re right that the HEF is set at $150 million and hasn’t changed for a while.
But the other point to make is the HEF isn’t the only mechanism that we use to respond to humanitarian situations. And throughout the last term, I’m proud that the Albanese government spent a significantly higher amount of humanitarian response over and above the HEF itself. Just to give you examples. In 2023–24 we spent $672 million on humanitarian expenses over and above the HEF, in 2024–25 $676 million and in 25–26 we estimate $709 million. So next financial year, for example, we estimate that we will spend $859 million on humanitarian responses. So the HEF is important, but it’s not the only mechanism where we deliver humanitarian responses. And so some of those other things have been supporting countries around the world, around the region, with warehousing, essential supplies, preparatory action in anticipation of disasters and on disaster risk reduction. So I think these are really important.
But the other point that I think we should really focus on is long-term, protracted crisis response, and we’ve made a commitment to our new humanitarian policy, which will support multi-year, predictable funding commitments, which will help partners plan and deliver long-term responses. And one of the best examples of this was our recent announcement in the 2025–26 ODA budget of a $370 million package over three years to support Rohingya refugees and host communities in Bangladesh. This is the sort of long-term, predictable funding that’s even more important in the context of other donors’ withdrawing their support.
Alison Carabine: But given what you’ve just said, no increase in funding for the HEF?
Pat Conroy: Oh, look, we’ve made announcements about how we’re tackling humanitarian crises in other ways, including that long-term crisis response. But as I said, we anticipate spending $859 million on humanitarian responses next year. So that’s much more than $150 million HEF in itself.
Alison Carabine: Minister, just finally, Labor released its international development policy in mid-2023. Given the big changes that have occurred since, how would a re-elected Labor government ensure that these policy settings are able to meet the moment in terms of securing Australia’s development partnerships and building development capability?
Pat Conroy: The release of the development policy in 2023 was a big shift in our settings. It was the first new policy in a decade. And alongside it, we obviously had a Development Finance Review as well, and we married that with additional budget resources to support strengthening international development capability within DFAT. It’s something that I go on on and on about, which is, I want DFAT to have the best possible development capability so that we can work with the development sector. So that’s an important starting position. But your question is a good one that talks to what a Labor government would be wanting to do with the sector in the second term, if we are offered that privilege. It’s important to state at the outset that the outlines of the 2023 policy will remain the overarching architecture of how we work with the region. I don’t see us deviating too much from that policy and my areas of focus, which I talked about at the start — partner led transparent, not transactional, high quality, and locally led — those are enduring principles, as far as I’m concerned.
But it’s always good to make sure our policy settings are flexible and responsive so we can continue to adjust the settings to meet our evolving conditions, as you said, and that’s a great example. So we’ve talked about earlier about how we are adjusting our annual budgets in response to the withdrawal of other donors from our region. That’s why, for example, we did an analysis of the impact of the US decisions, and we looked at where we could immediately fill gaps in our region, particularly things around HIV response, as one example. We do need to be flexible.
And another point is we have to meet the priorities of our partners as they change. And that’s why the Foreign Minister and I visited the Pacific so many times. I visited the Pacific 29 times across 12 countries, more than any other former Coalition government’s five different Pacific ministers. Penny Wong visited every PIF [Pacific Islands Forum] country within her first few months. So responding to our partner priorities is the purpose of the Development Partnership Plans which we’re bedding down. And the majority of these are now being finalised and published, and the DPPs are the way of ensuring our partner priorities are at the heart of our country and regional programs. So while the architecture of the policy, say, is relatively fixed, the DPPs come with a life of four to five years, and they all include a mid-term review. So that’s how we will be flexible and change our approach as we respond to the changed circumstances.
But I think it’s really important to say that we do this all in partnership with the sector. We’ve got record levels of transparency in our policy priorities and our funding, and we will always talk to and consult with our partners, whether it’s other governments, communities, individual NGOs, civil society, on how to shape our plans, because we have to be effective and responsive, and the only way we do that is by continuing to talk with our partners.
Alison Carabine: Minister, we’ll leave it there. Thank you again for your time.
Pat Conroy: Thanks very much, Alison.
Alison Carabine: That was Pat Conroy, the Minister for International Development and the Pacific.
Alison Carabine: Next up, I speak to Senator Mehreen Faruqi, the Australian Greens spokesperson for international aid and global justice. Senator Faruqi is a Senator for New South Wales and is also the deputy leader of the Australian Greens. This interview was recorded on Tuesday, the 8th of April.
First up, can you outline the Greens’ vision for Australia’s international development program in the next parliament?
Mehreen Faruqi: Hi, Alison, and thanks for this opportunity. Well, in one sentence, the Greens want to see a bigger and better international aid program, one that is grounded in solidarity, global justice and climate justice and peace. So our approach to international aid has a different perspective than the government. Traditionally, international assistance has been shaped either by a disempowering charity mindset that casts Australia as a saviour to like so called undeveloped or underdeveloped nations, or by narrow self-interest where aid serves more some vaguely defined national or security goals. So we reject both.
The Greens approach aid through a global justice lens, because aid shouldn’t be about charity or national ambition or greedy commercial interests. Aid programs should be driven by need, not politics, and they should work to right historical wrongs. They should build communities through partnering with them and recognising their strengths, capabilities and knowledge, rather than relying on corporations to deliver aid programs. And one of my favourite quotes on this issue is from the Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano, who said, “poverty is not written in the stars [and] underdevelopment is not one of God’s mysterious designs”. I mean, poverty and inequality are clearly a result of colonisation, war and extractive capitalism, which has resulted in such an unjust distribution of wealth and debt.
For Australia, as a wealthy colonial country and a major contributor to climate change through fossil fuel extraction and export, we have a responsibility to contribute our fair share to ending global poverty, to addressing the climate crisis, to advancing human rights and gender equity. And for me, women and girls, we know women and girls are on the front lines of all injustices, whether it’s climate change or whether it’s economic inequality or whether it’s war. So their human rights and self-determination must be central to all our aid programs and corporate greed and self-interest must be removed. And this becomes even more important, and Australia stepping up and increasing aid, has become even more important in light of Donald Trump’s devastating aid freeze and global gag orders.
So if I could summarise in a nutshell, for us, our aid budget must be steadily increased to 0.7% of GNI, as recommended by the United Nations. Australia must pay its fair share of climate finance and climate loss and damage funds in addition to the aid budget. This is our obligation, given we are one of the biggest exporters of coal and gas. The Greens also want to establish an independent development oversight agency, and this is to improve accountability and transparency in our aid program and to ensure that it is effective and equitable. This type of agency, you know, will make sure also that aid is not just used purely to advance Australia’s national commercial interests, and that it is always delivered in partnership with recipient countries.
I mean, we just have to make sure, Alison, that development assistance programs can’t be cash cows for private corporations and companies to profit from and I know that our recipient countries have criticised us for that. For example, PNG has recently criticised Australia for funds that are absorbed by Australian management contractors and consultants. And so they want to make sure that resources are allocated directly to benefit the community. Transformative change requires a bigger aid budget, but also much better ways of delivering it as well.
Alison Carabine: You say aid policy should be driven by needs, not politics, but we have seen the Trump administration pulling back from international development with cuts and policy shifts that will have regional and global consequences. In the face of these big and rapid changes, how would you explain to Australians the value of our international development and humanitarian programs?
Mehreen Faruqi: I mean, Trump’s US aid funding freeze alongside the global gag order is such a callous political attack on international human rights which will cost lives. It will inflict suffering, and it will result in a closure of vital health and gender equity programs in the Global South. And the urgency for Australia to act is clear. I mean our government should firstly be putting pressure on the US to reverse this reckless aid freeze, but we should also be stepping up and increasing Australian aid, which is already well below our fair share. For us living in this country, the fundamental question is this: what kind of world do our actions show we want to live in — what are we prioritising and where are we putting our public money?
So right now, we are a fossil fuel exporting superpower, causing climate damage across the globe, especially to our neighbours in the Pacific. We’re also spending hundreds of billions of dollars on dangerous war machines like nuclear submarines, with the AUKUS deal costing upwards of $368 billion, and I don’t believe that is the legacy most Australians want us to leave in the world: climate crisis and war. Instead, we should be building connections which are rooted in peace and mutual respect, and that means supporting efforts to dismantle centuries-old systems that keep countries poor. We need to strengthen the powerful community-to-community links that exist between people here and those living abroad.
We also know a significant number of people who call Australia home were born overseas. I’m one of those people, and we have deep connections and ties beyond our borders. So for them, it matters that Australia plays a constructive role in reducing poverty, in tackling the climate crisis, in ending wars and in empowering communities. And there is definitely a growing awareness that the climate crisis, war and genocide are impacting the most marginalised in the most horrific ways, and it is increasing inequality globally. I think people living in this country want to be part of a global movement to change that.
Alison Carabine: As you know, Australia currently spends just 0.68% of the federal budget on international development. Community and business groups have called on the next Australian Government to restore this to 1% as part of their first post-election budget. As the Greens deputy leader, would you make such an increase a condition of your support for a minority government in the case of a hung parliament?
Mehreen Faruqi: The Greens support increasing the aid budget, and we do support these calls by the aid sector and community groups to increase the aid budget by [intended: to] 1% in the first term of government. But we know that Australia’s aid contributions are at historic lows, much lower than other high-income countries that are comparable to us. And so we are also committed to a policy of increasing the aid program to the UN-endorsed 0.7% of GNI over 10 years. All the polls are pointing to a minority Parliament after this election, which does put the Greens in the box seat, and there are many things that we will be pushing for in a minority Parliament, such as getting dental into Medicare, making it easier for people to see their GP for free, wiping student debt, taking climate action, and, of course, increasing our aid budget will be part of the fight in the next parliament. We want government to step up and deliver a bigger and better aid budget. In terms of what our key asks will be when we are in minority Parliament, we will, of course, have more to say about that closer to the election, but global justice is definitely at the centre of the Greens’ policies and the Greens’ fight to address global injustices.
Alison Carabine: Labor made climate change, inclusive and locally led development and the perspectives of First Nations people a big focus of its 2023 international development policy. Where would you like to see the next Australian government take this focus in the context of international aid?
Mehreen Faruqi: I guess the first point is for us to commit to all aid projects’ recognising the rights of indigenous communities to free, prior and informed consent, as recognised in the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. I mean, too often indigenous communities are overlooked in the delivery of aid and we must always remember that there can really be no social justice, no climate justice, or no racial justice without first nations justice. So I’m a strong supporter of deepening the connections between First Nations people here and indigenous communities globally, but that has to be led by indigenous people themselves and based on their priorities. Indigenous knowledge systems have been ignored and undervalued for far too long. I mean, I think we need to rectify that.
And as the Greens’ spokesperson on international aid, for the last many years, I have met so many people from the Global South who are affected by climate change. And one message that comes through consistently and across every Pacific representative that I have met, including the diaspora youth here in Australia, who are very passionate about addressing the climate crisis — I mean, they tell me and we know that their lives have already been upended by the climate crisis, and they want strong action from our government. They don’t just want a world where Australia pays for a sea wall. They want to address sea level rise. They want to tackle the problem at its root cause, and to do that, they are demanding that Australia put an end to new coal and gas. So when Labor says climate change is a priority in the aid program, but then keeps opening up new coal and gas projects and continues expanding fossil fuel exports, I have to say it rings hollow. We want to see climate justice as a core pillar for international development. Climate justice recognises that people who contribute the least to climate change are the ones suffering the most, and it means putting equity and human rights at the centre of every decision and action. It also means Australia providing its fair share of international climate finance and committing to doing the same for the climate loss and damage fund, as was agreed to at COP27.
Alison Carabine: The Greens have been vocal in their support for communities in Australia on issues like Gaza, Sudan, the Rohingya and other major humanitarian crises. The already serious funding shortfalls are likely to worsen following cuts by the US and other donors. Would you make your support for any minority government also conditional on increases in aid for the people living in these crisis situations, including through a doubling of the $150 million Humanitarian Emergency Fund?
Mehreen Faruqi: Alison, I’m very proud that the Greens look beyond our borders when it comes to issues of injustice, because people around the globe are suffering. They are suffering from Israel’s genocide in Gaza. They’re suffering from the horrific situation in Sudan and so much more in between. So it is absolutely vital that Australia plays a key role in supporting some of the most vulnerable people in the world who are experiencing these humanitarian crises. But you know, there’s also a sick irony here that cannot be ignored. Many of the countries that are seen as major humanitarian donors are also among the world’s largest arms dealers. Their weapons are helping to cause the very crises they then claim to respond to. So we see this with US bombs in Gaza and French weapons being used in Sudan. So yes, we must increase humanitarian aid to support people experiencing war, displacement and disaster, but we must also hold those responsible for these crises. We must hold those responsible to account and take real action to prevent these disasters from happening in the first place. And we will keep fighting in the next parliament for Australia to pay their fair share of aid through climate and global justice lenses. And in terms of what our key asks will be in a minority government, as I said, we will be doing that closer to the election. But of course, global justice is one of our topmost priorities in every Parliament.
Alison Carabine: Thank you, Senator Faruqi.
Mehreen Faruqi: Thanks so much, Alison.
Alison Carabine: That was Mehreen Faruqi, the Australian Greens’ spokesperson for international aid and global justice.
Alison Carabine: Finally, I speak with Zali Steggall MP, the independent Member for Warringah. Zali Steggall was elected to the House of Representatives in 2019 and is an Olympic medallist and a former barrister. This interview was recorded on Friday, the 11th of April.
Zali Steggall, welcome to Devpolicy Talks. First up, can you please outline your vision for Australia’s international development program in the next parliament?
Zali Steggall: Well, I strongly believe that for us to, in fact, keep Australia safe, we need to keep our region stable and safe, and that means we need to invest in strong aid abroad and invest in that support for our neighbouring nations, and that’s where aid is so incredibly important. By increasing that international development support, we know we can have a direct impact on, in fact, our region’s security and our national security. So I stood with Tim Costello and Admiral Chris Barrie to call for 1% of the budget to be directed to aid and international development.
Look, I was welcome, and it was great to see in the most recent budget an increase in aid from the government and the government’s plans to redirect aid to Pacific and Southeast Asian nations which, of course, deals with the Trump administration’s cuts they have done to US aid, and the UK has as well. But we have to be honest, the increase was modest, the $135 million, and barely keeps up with inflation. It really is minor compared to the massive increase in costs of defence, for example.
So in the next parliament, I want to see a much greater emphasis on climate resilience and investment in security in our region through aid. And I’ve called for a $10 billion Climate Resilience Fund for our domestic communities to be kept safer from growing climate risk. And I think the same needs to be thought of for our Pacific neighbours as well. And this is where, for example, the opportunity to host COP 31 would be very meaningful with our Pacific neighbours, so we can have that domestic and regional safety at the forefront.
Alison Carabine: We will speak a little bit more about climate and climate resilience, but you did mention the way in which the Trump administration and the UK Government have pulled back from aid and international development. In the face of these big and rapid changes, how would you explain to Australians the value of our international development and humanitarian programs. Why should it matter to the Australian people?
Zali Steggall: Absolutely, it’s very, I think, distressing for many developing nations to see that cutback by the US and the UK towards those aid programs. I think we have to really redefine how we describe aid. It is not a nice-to-have. It’s not just about a moral duty or doing the right thing. It is, in fact, an investment in our national security and our regional security. So by having meaningful aid and support for our neighbouring nations, in particular in the Pacific and Southeast Asian nations, it creates security and safety for us as a nation, as well as helping them meet challenges that they face.
And, of course, we know by building strong trading partners, reliable allies — those close relationships in our immediate region are incredibly important for our stability and place in the world. What we’re seeing is with the US, pulling out of the region, pulling out of aid and withdrawing from the Paris agreement when it comes to climate commitments, a real void in leadership, and I think that is an opportunity for Australia and the next government to step up and be a leader in our region. We need to invest in that international development and humanitarian problems and programs. We know that builds trust, it builds stability and reliability in our region, and that is incredibly important.
Alison Carabine: Australia currently spends just 0.68% of the federal budget on international development assistance. There are many community, faith-based and business groups calling for the next government to restore this to 1% as part of its first post-election budget. Now you support those calls for the aid budget to be restored to 1%. As a cross-bencher, would you make such an increase a condition of your support for a minority government if we do have a hung parliament after May the third?
Zali Steggall: Well, look, I’ll start by saying I do strongly support that we need to reverse the decline when it comes to our support and overseas development aid. I think it’s incredibly important. And at 0.68% of the federal budget, that is very small, and it’s actually below what most Australians expect it to be. Most Australians assume it is much higher, and are always quite surprised and shocked to find out how low it is. And I should say, I’ve seen first-hand in other nations the impact it has, right, having visited as far away as a country like Mongolia, where Australian aid is creating huge differences.
So again, in our region and further afield, aid is incredibly important to Australia’s standing in the world. So that’s an incredibly important investment. In the event of a minority government, there’s a lot of things on the table, and for me, I will approach it with, I guess, rigor and process in the same way as I look at legislation — making sure that we are addressing our biggest challenges that we face as a nation, and prioritising those issues, and to me, that is addressing climate risk and how climate risk impacts us, domestically, you know, safety at home, but also in our region, and how it’s impacting the safety of our Pacific neighbours. So I do see that investment in aid to ensure our neighbours can build their climate resilience as well as a real core part of keeping Australia safe and strong.
Alison Carabine: But let’s return to a hung parliament, if indeed you are a key player, a key negotiator. Do you believe you would have the support of the Australian people for a restoration of the aid budget to 1% especially given the federal election is being branded as a cost-of-living contest between the major parties?
Zali Steggall: Again, I think this is why it’s so important how you describe the importance of foreign aid. It’s not a nice to have. It’s not something that you do out of moral duty. It’s actually an investment in our region, and that’s why I think it’s really important when it’s presented in that way. For the Australian people, it is very well understood that it actually contributes to our regional stability and safety. And just as Australians want to see much greater investment in climate resilience for us domestically, they absolutely support that our Pacific neighbours and other neighbouring nations also require that climate resilience.
So I think, yes, I think the Australian people would have an expectation that we would look to our, I guess, holistically, to our region, for that climate resilience and safety, and that would include increasing to that 1% of budget. Now I should say I will not be approaching a minority government situation in a transactional way of having a long shopping list of things. To me, it’s about requiring of a government to have a holistic commitment to climate resilience and safety in our region, and then looking at how and what are the ways we do that. Investing in Australia’s overseas development aid programs is a key part of that. So it would absolutely be a priority for me to have that as a commitment, but I’m just not going to be drawn into it in a transactional way.
Alison Carabine: Okay. Well, Zali Steggall, as is obvious from our conversation, you are a strong advocate for greater climate action from Australia, both domestically and internationally. Do you see a particular role for Australia’s aid and development programs in supporting the global and, more importantly, the regional response to climate change?
Zali Steggall: Absolutely, because everything is absolutely interconnected. Our safety and security depend on our climate resilience. We know, for example, through climate shocks and risks, when we have successive events that hit communities, it puts under stress emergency response mechanisms, whether they’re our domestic ones or for our neighbouring nations. And when you have those kind of emergency response systems put under successive threat or challenge, you end up with food and water insecurity, and communities that are displaced, but you also get political instability. With political instability comes greater disruption and risk and threat to our region. That’s why investing in climate resilience should actually underpin nearly all aspects of government foreign relations, because it’s incredibly important.
There are no submarines that will keep us safe from a cyclone or keep a neighbouring nation safe, right? So we have to deal with it. In that sense, our spending is still disproportionately on responding to disasters, and unfortunately for neighbouring nations and developing nations, there is always that high cost after an event. There is very little investment ahead of events into resilience building, and that’s where we really need to shift. We know, for example, in Australia, for every $1 we invest in preparation, in resilience building, we save $11 on disaster recovery costs. And the same applies in our region when it comes to aid.
So we know it’s an incredibly important part of economic management and, looking to the future, to invest in that. It’s still not something the major parties do naturally, and government doesn’t do it. They are, we are, still failing in this. In this respect, would welcome for Australia to host COP31, to actually have an opportunity to talk about it in those terms. We’re obviously seeing the world change very quickly at the moment, in very dramatic ways, with the US under its current leadership changing its positioning in the world, taking on a much more insular, America-first position and really, I would say, vacating the field of any kind of leadership around the world. Especially for developing nations, that leaves a void that needs to be filled.
And I think that’s where there would be an opportunity in hosting COP31 for Australia to really step up to that role with our Pacific neighbours and look to those vulnerable communities to build their resilience. Look, one of the other ways — we know, for example, you know, education of women and girls is one of the incredible ways we can get huge gains when it comes to climate resilience, safety and security. And yet, we know women’s rights are very much under attack around the world, and ironically, the US are nearly leading the fight, leading the way, in that respect. So I think through our aid, and Australian overseas development programs, we have capacity to really make an incredible difference in our region.
Alison Carabine: Well, just finally, Zali Steggall, we are seeing increases in humanitarian needs across the world, from the Sudan to Gaza, Myanmar, Bangladesh. Australia’s Humanitarian Emergency Fund has not increased from $150 million a year since 2018. Given the increases in people living in these crisis situations, where do you see that budget being? Where should it be?
Zali Steggall: Absolutely, I think we need to have a reassessment of that Australian Humanitarian Emergency Fund. Clearly the fact that it hasn’t increased since 2018 when, in fact, the call upon that fund has become much greater — we know, again, with increases in the severity and frequency of events, aid is required much more, much more regularly, unfortunately. And we also know, with the amount of conflicts and areas that are you know that are facing incredible difficulty, and as warming accelerates, we know that will have an impact on food and water security, which then obviously has a knock-on effect for so many communities. So I do absolutely agree we need a more humane, empathetic approach to that humanitarian aid.
We also need to update our refugee policy. We don’t have a strong humanitarian refugee policy that is, I guess, non-political, in the sense that we don’t look to the source or the country of origin of the humanitarian refugees. We should have, you know, a uniform approach. If a person is needing to come seeking humanitarian refuge, it shouldn’t matter which conflict they’ve come from. They should come to Australia and receive humanitarian aid, an empathetic approach, certain rights. What we’ve seen is a real distress in our communities that we’ve had different approaches for different conflicts, and I think that has had a real impact on our communities and sense of fairness in Australia. So I would like to see a more uniform approach to our humanitarian refugee program and that Humanitarian Emergency Fund.
Alison Carabine: You talk about refugee policy. Should Australia be doing more to help, for example, Palestinian refugees who desperately might want to get out of Gaza?
Zali Steggall: Yeah, it’s a really vexed issue, because we have, unfortunately as a matter of policy, had different approaches to refugees from different war zones, and I don’t think that’s really in accordance with international human rights law, and I don’t think it aligns with Australian values. I think it’s really important that we have a much better pathway to humanitarian visas, and have really clear pathway of assistance for people seeking refuge from a war zone, and in particular, at the moment, the conflict in Gaza. I think it’s incredibly important that we develop a much clearer, stronger pathway for humanitarian visas and assistance for civilians impacted by the conflict in Gaza, I’ve had the opportunity to assist some families that, in fact, I had met before the conflict started, and it’s incredibly distressing the journey and uncertainty that they face.
Alison Carabine: Zali Steggall, thanks very much for your time with Devpolicy Talks.
Zali Steggall: Thank you.
Alison Carabine: That was Zali Steggall, the independent Member for Warringah.
And that concludes this special 2025 federal election edition of Devpolicy Talks.
As mentioned at the top of the program, the Coalition declined an invitation to participate.
On behalf of the ANU’s Development Policy Centre, the Australian Council for International Development, the International Development Contractors Community and the Safer World for All campaign, thank you for joining us. The Development Policy Centre will continue its election coverage of Australian aid policy before and after the election on the Devpolicy Blog and the Australian Aid Tracker websites. Links are in the show notes.
Subscribe for fortnightly episodes from the Devpolicy Talks team as they bring you a mix of interviews, event recordings and in-depth documentary features relating to Australian aid, development in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific, and regional and global development issues.
I’m Alison Carabine, guest host of the Devpolicy Talks podcast federal election special. Yarra.