Australia, this is where your aid goes
BOB Carr pops up in the most unusual of places.
But yesterday the Foreign Affairs Minister went to extraordinary lengths even by his standards, flying straight from a week of intense lobbying in New York for a seat on the UN Security Council to Mongolia to visit an Australian funded kindergarten for severely disabled children.
With the Government under fire for the alleged largesse of it's bid for a Security Council seat, Mr Carr denied Australia was in an aid-for-votes race with Luxembourg and Finland, claiming the Government had spent a fraction of what the European nations had.
Australia has two people dedicated to the bid with an official budget of $25 million - estimated to have blown out to $40 million - while Luxembourg is believed to have 10 dedicated staff in its UN mission in New York spending an estimated $120 million on wooing other nations to back it.
Finland is said to have an even larger contingent working on its campaign.
Mr Carr yesterday visited the disabled learning centre, staffed by Australian volunteers, in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator to see how just $1.25 million of aid to Mongolia had helped transform the lives of hundreds of the most disadvantaged and impoverished children in one of the most remote regions of the world.
"Where else in the world could you be standing and claim to be proud of Australian aid than right here," Mr Carr said after visiting the centre with wife Helena.
News Australia, this is where your aid goes by: SIMON BENSON in ULAN BATOR From: News Limited Network October 03, 2012 12:00AM
But yesterday the Foreign Affairs Minister went to extraordinary lengths even by his standards, flying straight from a week of intense lobbying in New York for a seat on the UN Security Council to Mongolia to visit an Australian funded kindergarten for severely disabled children.
With the Government under fire for the alleged largesse of it's bid for a Security Council seat, Mr Carr denied Australia was in an aid-for-votes race with Luxembourg and Finland, claiming the Government had spent a fraction of what the European nations had.
Australia has two people dedicated to the bid with an official budget of $25 million - estimated to have blown out to $40 million - while Luxembourg is believed to have 10 dedicated staff in its UN mission in New York spending an estimated $120 million on wooing other nations to back it.
Finland is said to have an even larger contingent working on its campaign.
Mr Carr yesterday visited the disabled learning centre, staffed by Australian volunteers, in the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator to see how just $1.25 million of aid to Mongolia had helped transform the lives of hundreds of the most disadvantaged and impoverished children in one of the most remote regions of the world.
"Where else in the world could you be standing and claim to be proud of Australian aid than right here," Mr Carr said after visiting the centre with wife Helena.
News Australia, this is where your aid goes by: SIMON BENSON in ULAN BATOR From: News Limited Network October 03, 2012 12:00AM
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