Let me let you into a secret. No matter what the Government says publicly, aid policy is always tied into a country’s foreign policy.Well.
Some argumentation is offered to bridge the gap:
... frankly it is bizarre to suggest we should give money out in a way where we ignore NZ’s interests.Certainly we wouldn't want to be giving out money in ways which actively harmed our interests, like giving maps of New Zealand to terrorists. But...
1) Is it that preposterous to want Governments to be altruistic? In a sense you could see it as correcting for a market failure, in that people generally act under a morally unjustifiable geographical discount rate with respect to altruism. That is an argument I broadly believe, but will not make the case for it right now.
2) Abolishing world poverty is in the long term interests of NZ (climate change issues aside). Imagine if we had a prosperous Africa buying our agricultural products. It is difficult to underestimate the economic benefit of this.
I am of the opinion that aid to developing countries should (but probably never will) be greater than that you give to citizens within your own country, if you choose to do so. I will expand on this argument in a future post perhaps.