Upset as Australia trims its diplomats

Last Updated: Fri, 6 Nov 2009 09:33:00 +1100

Foreign affairs experts and a civil service trade union have criticised the Australian government over its decision to cut funding to the country's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The government has announced nearly $A90 million will be cut from the department - DFAT - by 2013.

It will withdraw seven diplomats from overseas postings and scale back accomodation costs.

Michael Tull, from the Community and Public Sector Union, says the move is the latest in a string of substantial budget cuts made to the department.

'No fat'

"There's no fat left to cut in DFAT," he said.

Professsor William Maley, from the Australian National University's Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy, agrees.

"It's going to be very difficult to accomodate cuts on this scale without it impacting on the performance of Australia in a diplomatic sense," he said.

The government says the withdrawals will be made from Australia's larger overseas posts and more locally based positions will be created to compensate for the changes.