They feel assured that a chunk of their taxes will no longer be diverted to some mysterious not-for-profit organisation teaching lesbian folk-dancing in Kazakhstan.

These workers will not actually pay any less tax, but they will at least know that what they do pay will remain onshore while clinging to the hope that every reduction of government spending might one day reduce in their own tax burden.

INDIVIDUALISM

Leftists, of course, will never understand the joy this brings because they simply don’t see individualism the way you and I do.

To Leftists, people are merely cogs in a machine designed – by Leftists – to make the world a better place.

And if that means spending two out of every five days working solely for the tax man – who spends your money supposedly improving the lives of transgender amputees in sub-Sharan Africa – then so be it.

Trump started calling out this scam a year ago, saying USAID – the engine room of global aid – was funding projects that don’t even help the people they claim to.

In November, his waste-management guru Elon Musk said USAID was “a criminal organisation masquerading as charity”.

Perhaps in anticipation of imminent ruptures to this lucrative side hustle, the European Union announced on January 16, four days before Trump’s inauguration, an “Initial Humanitarian Budget” of $3.25b for 2025, most of it going to programs based in the Middle East, where checks and balances are conveniently opaque.

This massive outlay doesn’t include potential additions to the “initial” budget, nor does it include the countless billions the EU is already spending on Middle Eastern people who couldn’t wait for the aid to arrive in their home countries and simply marched into the EU with their hands out instead.

As a result, the EU is becoming increasingly broke and ungovernable while the United States is enjoying an invigorating surge of optimism and civic pride.

Given this dichotomy, which vividly illustrates the difference between governance that improves the lives of citizens and governance that improves the lives of a small cabal of people running not-for-profits, you would think that the Australian government would pause before making eye-watering commitments of foreign-aid.

But this is a Labor Government, and Foreign Minister Penny Wong is an authoritarian harridan with a messiah complex.

You won’t be surprised to learn that the spigot is spraying money to dodgy causes and countries with as much gay abandon as it has since Labor assumed power in 2022.

In the Budget on Tuesday night, Treasurer Jim Chalmers pledged a staggering $5.1b to Australia’s Official Development Assistance program. This money goes to the usual grab bag of hare-brained ideas.

For example, $5m will be deposited with the Asia-Pacific Humanitarian Fund, which is administered by the United Nations’ Office of the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Bangkok.

According to the OCHA, the fund “provides a flexible and cost-effective way to expand pooled funding to more countries, with modalities that are scalable to needs on the ground”.

So, just to be clear, this $5m has been deposited in a bank account in Bangkok, which will be spent “when and where” someone in Bangkok deems it necessary, if they ever do.

The rest of the $5.1b pledged in the Budget will be used to, among other things, “strengthen our support for sexual and reproductive health services and addressing gender-based violence; improve the efficiency, effectiveness and sustainability of the humanitarian system; and champion diversity, inclusion and participation”.

You have to marvel at the audacity of a program that spends money to “improve efficiency”.

Wong says this is all aimed at strengthening ties and promoting peace within our region.

NEGLECTED

If so, it’s not returning much on the investment. When Chinese naval ships conducted exercises off the Australian coast in February, for example, the Papua New Guinean Government, which knew about it two weeks earlier, neglected to pass this information on to Australia.

This financial year Australia is giving $637m to PNG, and another $600m to fund a professional rugby league team over the next decade.

That money obviously didn’t extend to the cost of a phone call to Canberra when the region’s most sinister military aggressor was preparing to fire live rounds from ships 200km off our coastline.

Wong and the rest of the Department of Foreign Affairs would argue that this confirms the complexity of diplomacy, which is best left to the experts.

But remember, Wong isn’t interested in peace, at least not in the Middle East.

She happily handed $26m to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in Gaza after it had been proven that some of its staff members raped, murdered and tortured Israeli citizens on October 7, 2023.