BY DONALD HOOK

HIGHLY PAID AUSTRALIAN aid advisers working in developing countries are to have their pay and allowances slashed by 25 percent, and many will lose their jobs.

Australia’s Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has confirmed the government will axe more than 250 long-term positions from 11 different programs over two years. PNG and East Timor will be the main targets.

There’s already been a positive reaction from Australia’s main foreign aid group – the Australian Council for International Development.

Council executive director, Marc Purcell, says reducing advisers must be the first step as part of a larger reform and questioning of what made foreign aid effective.

He said the most sustainable way to deliver aid was to work with the citizens of a country to build their own reliance.

“At the end of the day experts will fly in and out but it is the citizens of the country who have the responsibility to take the lead for themselves in the long run,” he said.

“You do need technical assistance experts upon occasions but paying people a quarter of a million dollars – people are rightfully going to ask - is this the most effective way to spend aid money?”

Opposition foreign affairs spokesperson, Julie Bishop, said heads of state and foreign ministers from the region had raised the high level of advisers’ salaries with her.

“This is a matter of concern to them that Australian aid is being absorbed by payments to the officials in charge of the aid program and that it wasn’t reaching the required destination, particularly in the areas of health and education,” she said

Some of the Australian-paid technical advisers were reported to be on $500,000 tax free salaries, more than Kevin Rudd was paid as prime minister when he launched the review into salaries in May last year.