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The opposition party has labelled the federal government’s $110 million assistance package to Ukraine as “too little, too slow” after it was announced earlier this week.
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The Australian government pledged the assistance package on 26 June but stopped short of offering main battle tanks or fast attack aircraft requested by Ukrainian leadership.
Under the new assistance package, the war-torn country will receive 28 M113 armoured personnel carrier, 14 special operations vehicles, 28 MAN 40M medium trucks, 14 trailers and supplies of 105mm artillery ammunition.
Funding donations of $10 million were also supplied to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which manages the Ukrainian Humanitarian Fund for shelter, health services, clean water, and sanitation.
Australia will also extend duty free access for goods imported from Ukraine for a further 12 months to support recovery and trade opportunities. In total, Australia has now contributed around $790 million in military assistance to Ukraine.
Shadow minister for foreign affairs Simon Birmingham and shadow minister for defence Andrew Hastie have both called transparency regarding why the announcement does not include the military capabilities Ukraine have been publicly campaigning or how quickly the vehicles announced will be on the ground.
“While this assistance is desperately needed and has complete bipartisan support, its impact on the ground would likely have been far greater had it been delivered sooner,” they said in a public statement on 26 June.
The Prime Minister confirmed this decision of additional support was only agreed to by cabinet this morning, a decision which could have been made months ago.
“Overall, this announcement appears to be too little and made too slowly relative to the critical needs Ukraine has right now.
“We urge the government to keep all Ukrainian requests under active consideration rather than waiting until pressure builds or the next prime ministerial photo opportunity approaches.”
The opposition also criticised the lack of new or additional funding for Ukraine included in Labor’s May budget and called for urgent consideration be given to supply of Hawkei protected mobility vehicles, F/A-18 Hornets fighter jets, M1 Abrams tanks and the return of the Australian embassy to Kyiv.
“Disappointingly, this package was not included in Labor’s May budget and this last-minute decision will be absorbed by the already incapacitated Defence budget,” they added.
“Labor needs to explain how Defence can absorb these commitments when $1.5 billion has already been cut from its budget, $1.8 billion of cuts still need to be found and no replenishment strategy exists to compensate for the commitments being made to Ukraine.”
