Senator Brown asked the Minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs, upon notice, on 6 May 2004:

(1) In relation to the Government's new policy on international volunteering, which takes a whole-of-government value for money approach, is it correct that under the new policy, $1.6 million will be withheld from Australian Volunteers International.

(2) Will these funds be spent on any other aspect of overseas aid and/or international volunteers.

Senator Hill (Minister for Defence) —The Minister for Foreign Affairs has provided the following answer to the honourable senator's question:

(1) Australian Volunteers International (AVI) is allocated funds from the Government on an annual basis. No funds have been “withheld”.

In 2003-2004 AVI was allocated $10 million. This represents a reduction of $1.6 million from funding provided in 2002-2003 and reflects a critical audit and financial systems assessment of AVI and the outcomes of an accreditation review of volunteer sending organisations.

AVI has received a total of $32.74 million between 2001-2002 and 2003-2004 under the Government's volunteer program.

(2) Of the $21.6 million allocated to volunteer programs in 2003-2004, $1.7 million has been reallocated within the Non-Government Organisations (NGO) Program for various development activities.