Australia will shift $119 million to prioritise immediate gaps created in essential health services and climate action, including an extra $5 million to maintain HIV programs in Papua New Guinea, Fiji, and the Philippines.

The Trump administration has slashed tens of billions of dollars from the foreign aid agency USAID, which has impacted the Indo-Pacific, including a shortage of food for refugees who fled Myanmar.

The foreign minister had been critical of the former coalition government for cutting aid, saying it left a vacuum in the Pacific that China was able to exploit and reduced Australia’s standing as a partner of choice for island nations. Source: AAP / EPA / Neil Hall

The aid shift will come from three multilateral institutions, including reducing a payment to the Global Partnership for Education and deferring funds earmarked for a global fund to fight HIV, Malaria, and tuberculosis.

“Cutting aid leads to unrest, inequality, it leads to profound conflict,” he said.

Australia will advocate for the Pacific and Southeast Asia to the US, Senator Wong said.