USAID - AusAID: Same playbook different actors
18 February 2025
Donald Trump tweeted “Looks like billions of dollars have been stolen at USAID and other agencies much of it going to the fake news media as a payoff for creating good stories about the Democrats”. Revelations about corruption in the USAID beg questions about the integrity of Australia’s aid programs.
There are long-standing questions dating back to the Clinton days and before the Rudd ALP Government.
The Clintons are estimated to be worth between $120 million and $240 million having been in debt by $16 million when Bill left office in January 2001. According to the newsagency, Associated Press, 85 private sector stakeholders, which is more than half of the non-government people who met with Hillary Clinton while she was secretary of state, gave money — either personally or through companies or groups — to the Clinton Foundation. This amounted to $156 million. In addition, Clinton met with representatives of at least 16 foreign governments that donated as much as $170 million to the Clinton charity. Australia was among these governments.
According to Grok, in:
February 2006: $25 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation by Foreign Minister Alexander Downer
October 2006: Another 15 million was given for HIV/AIDS initiatives by the Clinton Foundation
April 1 2008 – September 5 2008: Under Prime Minister Kevin Rudd $10 million was donated to the Clinton Foundation
September 2012: Under Prime Minister Julia Gillard $14 million was donated while Hillary Clinton was the US Secretary of State. Gillard later Chaired the Foundation’s Global Partnership for Education
September 22 2014: Foreign Minister Julie Bishop announced a commitment of $88 million over five years to the Clinton Health Access Initiative, a sister organisation to the Clinton Foundation
Miranda Devine reported, “The Abbott government topped up the left-wing organisation’s coffers with another $140 million in 2014, bringing total Australian largesse to $460 million, according to a press release from Foreign Minister Julie Bishop. The funding ceased in 2016, when Trump assumed office.
Section 70.2 of the Commonwealth Criminal Code Act 1995 makes it illegal for Australian individuals or companies to bribe foreign officials. Apparently, the law does not extend to Australian officials and politicians!
AusAID (which Tony Abbott located within DFAT in 2013) follows a similar playbook to USAID. Thus:
The Office of Development Assistance (ODA) investments valued at $3 million and above must have a gender equality objective.
DFAT has a $3.5 million Inclusion and Equality Fund to support LGBTQIA+ organisations to catalyse change in their communities.
ODA spent $619 million (15 per cent of its budget) on climate related issues in 2022/23. It is not clear that grants to NGOs pressing climate issues are included.
Other Australian agencies are also involved in foreign expenditures. These include considerable funding for activities associated with climate change under the IPCC and the biennial Conference of Parties in which Foreign Affairs participate (as do CSIRO, BoM, Industry, Agriculture and others). These activities will surely soon be fully recognised as the gross destructive squandering of resources that they always were.
The Global Carbon Capture and Storage Institute (GCCSI) was initially launched in 2008 by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd who committed up to $100 million annually as part of his aim to make Australia a global leader in CCS technology. Over 15 years of total failure has not daunted its subsidy-seekers’ zeal.
More recently, the Quad Clean Energy Supply Chain Diversification Program, a spin-off from the diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the United States, has a $50 million budget administered by “Business Australia”. Round 1, which closed on February 10, provides up to $2.5 million in funding for Australian and Indo-Pacific joint applications for studies to develop and diversify clean energy supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region. Such a scheme would not find support from President Trump but will program inertia allow it to survive the changed US agenda?
If Australia is ever to get the Trumpian leadership it needs, such programs will have to be excised, perhaps by using techniques, pioneered by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), involving freezing bank accounts.