Interview with Lyndal Curtis, AM Program, ABC Radio National

Subjects: Burma, Aid Program Review, Afghanistan

Transcript, E&OE, proof only

16 November 2010

TONY EASTLEY: Australia's aid program is being put under the microscope as the federal government holds its first full-scale review of the program since 1996. The independent review will be conducted over the next five months.

The Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, is speaking to chief political correspondent, Lyndal Curtis.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Mr Rudd, welcome to AM.

KEVIN RUDD: Thanks for having me on the program.

LYNDAL CURTIS: If we could start first with the conversation you had yesterday with the Burmese democracy campaigner, Aung San Suu Kyi, did you get the sense from that conversation that she knows the way forward for her democracy campaign?

KEVIN RUDD: My belief is that - from our conversation and from what Aung San Suu Kyi has said publicly, is that she will consult with other democratic forces within Burma. She's also indicated quite strongly that a pathway to engagement and reconciliation is a useful way forward. And what I've indicated to her, as I've indicated to other Burmese political leaders, is that we believe the right thing for Australia and the international community is to take - is to respond to their lead.

The reason being, it's their country, they know the conditions best and, therefore, will be very attentive to the path which Aung San Suu Kyi carves out for the future.

LYNDAL CURTIS: If we could go to the aid budget, you've launched the first review in nearly 20 years. Has the aid budget lost its way?

KEVIN RUDD: Absolutely not. It's just a timely thing to do. The last time the Australian Government took a root and branch review of the aid budget was in 1996. Now, that's about 15 years ago. The time has come to do it again.

On a normal year-to-year basis, there are multiple audits conducted by the Australian National Audit Office, by other external and internal audit arrangements. This is simply standing back for a moment and looking at the overall effectiveness and efficiency of the aid budget.

In the last five years, we have doubled the aid budget, and we're on track to double the aid budget again over the next five years.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But...

KEVIN RUDD: This is doing good work for Australia, but we just need to make sure that every dollar is being properly spent. That's why I've commissioned this independent external review.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But in recent weeks you've cut technical advisers, or consultants in Papua New Guinea and East Timor, and looking at two other countries as well. Has money been spent on the consultants that's not been working well?

KEVIN RUDD: Our judgement is that it's important to keep such a significant investment of taxpayers' dollar under continuing review.

We have mechanisms to do that, but every now and then you need to step back from the lot and say, what's the policy framework, are the programs in place best designed to give effect to the policy in terms of poverty reduction, in terms of providing a credible path towards self-generated economic development. Are we - do we have the proper audit mechanisms in place? These sorts of questions need to be asked from time to time. It's been 15 years since they were asked.

We're significantly expanding the budget. I believe it's a prudent course of action at this stage.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Given you are significantly expanding the budget though, to meet Millennium Development Goals, which themselves have attached to them targets and what you might call key performance indicators, does Australia's aid budget need that as well to make sure that people know where their money is going, that it's being spent properly, and that the programs on which it's being spent are working?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, let me give you a core example of what we've done in the three years of this government so far. Practically all of our individual aid relationships in the South Pacific have now been organised first against the Millennium Development Goals which seek poverty reduction, improvements in education, improvements in health, against defined measures, against defined timelines.

And secondly, it has done so with each of the Pacific island countries, including Papua New Guinea, in a way which is measurable and reviewable each year.

Now, over the last three years, we've done that with 11 Pacific island countries. We're moving to 13 soon.

This is the right way forward. But my responsibility is to look back more - look across the field more broadly, that our aid relationships not just in the Pacific, but across South-East Asia, across South Asia, across to Africa and across Central and Latin America.

This represents some $4.3 billion of investment by the Australian taxpayer each year. Fantastic work is being done, lives are being saved. People are being educated. Mothers and babies are surviving as a result of what we are doing. I just want to make sure that we are driving every dollar as far as it can go.

LYNDAL CURTIS: But part of that money too is spent by other agencies, people like the Federal Police, like the Defence Department. Do you have enough scrutiny on what that money is spent on?

KEVIN RUDD: I believe at present we do. But one of the reasons why we are so keen to have a properly constituted independent external review, which brings together experts who have worked in the field before, experts from the non-government sector, including former Liberal Senator, Margaret Reid, here from the ACT who has a deep passion in the area in working for the non-government community, as well as those who are specialist development economists, is to make sure we've got this as right as we can.

As I said, our existing internal audit mechanisms, on an annual basis, are good, they are sound. You'll always find problems in the system. No system is ever perfect. I want to make sure that the strategic direction for the next five years is absolutely right as well.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Would something like the regional processing centre proposed for East Timor come out of Australia's aid budget?

KEVIN RUDD: These arrangements are funded separately. And, I believe, the key objective, which has to be borne in mind for the aid budget is this: objective number one, reduce poverty. Two, do so through actions which improve health outcomes, which improve education outcomes, which improve basic rural development outcomes for poor people right across the world. That's what we're on about, in order to create the foundation for self-sustainable, self-generated economic growth whereby local private sectors then take hold as well and generate economic development in its own terms. That's what we're on about. Other programs should be funded by other means.

LYNDAL CURTIS: A quick, final question about Afghanistan. Julia Gillard goes to NATO at the weekend. There are reports that the US will propose a four-year phased withdrawal from Afghanistan, putting more weight on the Afghans to take up their own defence. Is that what the US outlined to you at the AUSMIN talks recently?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, we don't go to the detail of our discussions which occur at a diplomatic level with the United States and with our other friends, partners and allies. But the bottom line is this, we are all singing from the same hymn sheet here: ourselves, and our friends in Europe, and our friends in the United States. One, to provide sufficient capacity in the Afghan security forces to obtain enough capacity to look after their own security, through their army and their police over time. Two, to provide enough resilience within the governance of Afghanistan, at a national and provincial level, to enable those administrative structures to be self-sustaining as well. And thirdly, we support also a process of what's been broadly called political reconciliation.

That's the road map going forward. We're part of that road map in the province of Oruzgan.

LYNDAL CURTIS: Kevin Rudd, thank you very much for your time.

KEVIN RUDD: Thanks for having me on the program.

TONY EASTLEY: Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd.

END

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