The
Australian Government announced this week that we’ll be permanently giving new homes to 12,000 Syrians refugees fleeing war in their country.
While some cheered, hot on the heels of this decision came the question: why would we let any more needy people into Australia while there are still children living on the streets and our elderly are sometimes cared for in sub-standard nursing homes?
Great question.
The reasoning here is that we take care of ourselves first, and if there’s anything left over, then we spend it on others. Most Australians agree that we prioritise Australia first. This is reflected in our Federal Budget, where 98.8% of all our spending is currently directly at our own concerns- Australian health care, education, welfare, defence spending and so on.
So what do we do with the other 1.22%?* Should we dedicate our entire budget exclusively to Australians until we all have a standard of living we find acceptable?
Here are some thoughts to take into consideration
1. Unfortunately, we could probably spend every last cent of our budget domestically and at least some of these same problems would persist. Why? There are numerous reasons but in general, issues like intergenerational poverty and homelessness are really complex! It’s possible that no amount of ‘money’ can solve them. While we can always do better, if directing 98.8% of the budget internally hasn’t solved the problem completely, it’s unlikely that 100% will fix it either. This means we need to work harder and smarter at addressing these complex problems, but the fact that they currently still exist may not be a good argument for withholding all assistance to other desperate people simply because not every Australian has the standard of living we’d like.
2. Gone are the days when we could think of ourselves as an island. These days the world is more like a street – you can get your own house in order, but if a number of the neighbours are in trouble, it won’t be long before their situation has an impact. If our neighbours are in conflict, there’s a chance our children will get caught up in it while walking home from school. Even if we try to stay well away, our relative wealth isn’t going to go un-noticed. Living in the same street, our position is likely to cause jealousy and tension, possibly even thefts or break-ins. If our neighbours get seriously sick and we do nothing to help, we’ll almost certainly be caught up in the outbreak sooner or later. As our neighbours grow poorer, our real estate prices may fall and our own financial stability suffer.
That’s how the globe operates too. It’s to our benefit to live in a more stable world; one that helps countries develop peacefully and equally so that extreme ideas are less likely to get a foothold – the seed bed for terrorism. It’s to our benefit to keep working worldwide against easily communicated diseases; to help hose down conflicts so that they don’t swallow up whole regions; to work for peace and stability between nations so that the economy grows and trade benefits us all.
Aid in all forms – whether it’s assisting refugees, sending development experts, peacekeepers or cash – assists all this. Our world is becoming more and more inter-connected. It’s no longer an option to suggest none of this is our problem when it quite clearly has an impact on our wellbeing and the future wellbeing of our children.
3. In theory, most people would be reluctant to suggest that some lives matter more than others – white lives more than black, people in the west more than in other places. If we agree this is the case, we’ll want to save the most lives possible for our dollar regardless of where they’re from.
Well, here are the facts. At home in Australia, the 1.2% of our budget “left over” might ‘buy’ us the lives of a hundred people (purely for example – it would do more than that). That’s great, but in a developing nation the same amount can save the lives of a thousand people. That’s because very simple, inexpensive changes can mean the difference between life and death for people living in developing countries.
The UK’s National Health Service considers it cost-effective to spend more than $30,000 for a single year of healthy life added to a person. By contrast, Against Malaria Foundation can distribute malaria nets and save a life at the cost of $3,340 per person. That’s a whole life saved, not just a year added to a life.
Or consider this one. It costs $40,000 to train a Guide Dog to help a blind person in the UK lead a ‘quality’ life. In the developing world, simple operations to CURE trachoma-induced blindness cost $20. One person with a Guide Dog vs 2000 people entirely cured. Thirty years added to a single life or 30 lives completely saved.
It’s absolutely clear that spending money in the developing world is outstanding value in terms of saving lives. While our 1.2% may not go very far here in Australia, it goes a long, long way in other places. 4. I like to think that the question about people in need here in Australia being disadvantaged by extras coming into the country is asked by people who genuinely care about others – perhaps someone who knows a homeless person or who regularly visits an elderly person. You’re a person of genuine compassion, someone with a big heart for others. The last thing to take into consideration, therefore, is this: how would you feel if you were trying to care for a homeless, elderly person or child in a country completely without all the benefits of stability, good health and democracy that Australia offers? What would it be like to live, completely by the accident of your birth, in a country where bombs fall, you could be arrested because of your beliefs, you were separated from your children or rape was used as a weapon of war? If you find your situation difficult here in Australia, how much harder would it be in another country? These are the people we are turning away when we withhold our 1.22%.
For me, the most compelling reason to share our 1.22% (and personally, I think we could share a shedload more) is because it’s the right thing to do. By any measure, we live lives of staggering good fortune. Life may not be perfect for everyone here, but maybe I can share more of my own wealth, my own time or expertise to help make it happen. And if I believe that every single person on this planet matters equally, it’s completely unthinkable to begrudge anyone a share of the enormous abundance I inherited when, through absolutely no merit of my own, I was lucky enough to be born Australian when others were not.
None of these ideas may change your mind. You may still believe that every cent Australians earn should be spent on Australians. But if something you’ve read here makes sense to you, next time you hear someone suggesting that ‘we should look after our own first’, perhaps you can point out that we DO look after our own first – to the tune of 98.8% of our total budget. Yes, we still have our problems. But when our 1.22% can achieve so much, wouldn’t giving it away be a beautiful way to show a little more of human kindness to a world that’s full of pain?
(*Yes, it’s 1.22%. Most Australians hear big numbers trotted out when talking about Aid and spending on assisting people overseas and assume the percentage must be huge. It isn’t. It’s 1.22% of the Annual Australian Budget.)
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