The New Colombo Plan is vis-à-vis the Old: How Do These Initiatives Reflect Australia’s Foreign Policy Goals in Asia?

The New Colombo Plan is vis-à-vis the Old: How Do These Initiatives Reflect Australia’s Foreign Policy Goals in Asia?

By Sybilla GeorgeIn 2013, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Abbott government, Julie Bishop, announced the New Colombo Plan. It takes its name from the Colombo Plan, a post-war Commonwealth aid initiative led by then-Minister for External Affairs (now the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) Percy Spender, under the Menzies government. The Colombo Plan’s principal initiative, beginning in 1951, was to train students from South and Sout…