The Federal Government has again slugged the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, imposing more than $100million of new budget cuts and substantially reversing funding increases that were to have been delivered through this year's federal budget.
In a little-noticed announcement in this week's Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook, the Government has imposed post-budget cuts on the Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio totalling $105.2million over four years. The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade is to deliver $88.3million of savings while Austrade's share of the cuts amounts to $16.9million.
In May, the Government moved to undo some of last year's budget cuts to DFAT with the commitment of an additional $106.5million over four years.
The Government also decided not to proceed with a range of cuts previously announced, thereby further increasing DFAT's funding by $51.8million over four years.
However, two-thirds of these increases have now been reversed as the Government struggles to rein in the federal budget deficit.
A DFAT spokesman yesterday confirmed that the department would be rationalising the diplomatic services, scaling back on its accommodation plans at overseas posts, and also reducing operating costs of the Overseas Property Office.
''DFAT's savings measures have been designed carefully to minimise the impact on the department's ability to take forward the Government's priorities,'' the spokesman said.
The department will withdraw seven positions from its overseas network and will scale back plans to boost overseas representation.
However, the department will still proceed with plans to establish 24 new Australia-based and about 17 new locally-engaged positions overseas, and 25 new positions in Canberra this year.
Positions will be abolished in larger overseas posts which are better able to absorb such withdrawals.
The department said there would be no redundancies and staff in positions to be abolished would be absorbed back into the department in Canberra.
No cuts were being made to the Government's $11.2million campaign to win a seat on the United Nations Security Council in 2013-14.
Austrade would rationalise its Australian office network ''to better target service locations and improve online information provision'' with agency sources saying Austrade's presence in NSW and Victoria would be down-sized.
Plans to build a new embassy in Peru have also been put on hold and as an interim arrangement the embassy will be accommodated in the premises of an existing Austrade office in Lima.
The Federal Opposition has criticised the latest cuts, saying that Australia's diplomats have been impeded in their work by funding constraints and a failure to adequately resource Australia's overseas posts.