Funding will help tackle poverty and shore up security in the region and make Australia ‘more influential in the world’, Penny Wong says

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The Albanese government will increase aid to Pacific countries by $900m as it declares next week’s budget will deliver the biggest rise in Australia’s official development assistance in more than a decade.

The foreign affairs minister, Penny Wong, will announce the extra funding during a speech in French Polynesia on Friday, arguing the budget will be “a major step toward the goal of making Australia stronger and more influential in the world”.

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