Regional Resettlement Arrangement (RSA) and Australian aid to Papua New Guinea

Image source: AusAID

Debate over the recent RSA agreement between Australia and PNG has resulted in the potential implications for Australia’s bilateral aid program being largely misinterpreted.

'Reprioritising' Australia's aid budget



Image source: AusAID

In 17 December 2012, Foreign Minister Bob Carr announced that the government would report up to $375 million as support for asylum seekers waiting to have their claims heard in Australia. In effect this meant that $375.1 million would be diverted from the overall aid budget to the Department of Immigration and Citizenship. The reallocation represents an effective cut of 7.3 per cent to other elements of the aid budget. The Australian Federal Police and the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research also suffered cuts of 7.6 per cent to their respective aid budgets. Details of the revised Budget Estimate were released in the Portfolio Additional Estimates Statements 2012-13 (pp.102–105).

PNG parliament votes to allow reserved seats for women



Image source: United Nations Democracy Fund

In a historic vote, the Parliament of Papua New Guinea has passed a bill allowing 22 parliamentary seats to be reserved for women MPs. On 23 November 2011, the Equality and Participation Bill (or ‘Women’s Bill’) received 72 votes to two, with several members abstaining and some absent. PNG has had four women Members of Parliament since the country’s independence in 1975, and currently has only one woman MP—Dame Carol Kidu—who sponsored the Bill. In a recent ABC radio interview, the Queensland-born MP described the vote as ‘a real paradigm shift’ on the floor of the parliament, and noted that the years of campaigning for change had helped to raise public consciousness of women’s under-representation in the country’s parliament. In a nation where violence against women is endemic, Dame Carol cites international evidence to show that social issues gain priority when more women are involved in making laws. The PNG parliament must now pass enabling legislation that will determine the boundaries of the 22 electorates. The enabling legislation, still to be introduced, will require 73 votes or two-thirds of the parliament.