A Critical Review of Australian Foreign Policy

Australia's foreign aid policy attempts to achieve a mix of often mutually incompatible goals. The rhetoric of Australian aid is overtly humanitarian and there is overwhelming public support for aid on charitable grounds. But covertly, Australian aid also aims to maximize foreign policy objectives such as donor's international prestige and strategic objectives such as political stability and democratic governance in recipient nations. Despite the recurrent injections of Australian aid the economic and political performance of recipients has fallen short of donor expectations resulting in the phenomenon of aid fatigue.Australian aid strategy should be reshaped to promote the development of projects that harness a recipient nation's comparative advantage. Aid should also be directed to satisfy the basic human needs of the poorest in the recipient countries rather than on prestige projects. This paper also reviews the effectiveness of Australian aid to the largest beneficiary-Papua New Guniea