Why Foreign Aid?

[Pedro]

Even though the Australian economy has plunged from surplus to debt in the past couple of years, the Federal Government's annual foreign aid budget is set to double to $8 billion by 2015.

So being in this financial position, why are we giving away this massive amount of money to foreign countries when our nation gets NOTHING, ZIP, ZERO from other countries when we need help when experiencing difficulties including natural disasters like cyclone Yasi, the North Queensland floods or the recent Western Qld/NSW floods?