KEVIN Rudd is demanding a large funding boost for his bureaucratic empire - despite overseeing Foreign Affairs cutbacks as prime minister.
The Foreign Minister called for more resources during a marathon 40-minute speech at an invitation-only gala event in Canberra on Thursday night to mark DFAT's 75th anniversary.
Mr Rudd told the audience of several hundred diplomats that Australia had the "smallest diplomatic footprint" of all the G20 nations and trailed behind other nations in its number of overseas postings and missions.
"Finally, there is the challenge of resourcing," Mr Rudd said. "The truth is, DFAT was starved for a decade."
He said some improvement had occurred under former foreign minister Stephen Smith.
"But I am acutely conscious of a core fact: we now have 18 per cent fewer staff abroad than we did in 1996 while, in the rest of the APS (Australian Public Service), there are now 12 per cent more staff," Mr Rudd said.
"I am also conscious of the fact that, of all G20 countries, Australia has the smallest diplomatic footprint of all, with posts in less than half the capitals of the world.
"It will take time to change the underinvestment of a decade."
Mr Rudd did not mention his own hand in ripping money out of the department when he was leader. The cutbacks in 2008 saw $57 million stripped from the budget and the loss of 44 jobs including 25 overseas-based diplomats across a range of scaled-back European and Asian embassies including Beijing, Brussels, London, Riyadh, Seoul, The Hague, Belgrave, Ho Chi Minh, Port Louis in Mauritius, and Kuala Lumpur.
Since then, two small missions have been added in Lima in Peru to facilitate mining and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia
It is understood Australia has fewer overseas missions than Finland against whom we are competing for a temporary UN Security Council seat.
In November last year, the mid-year budget update revealed Canberra was intending to chop a further $105.2m out of DFAT over four years. Queensland Liberal senator Russell Trood, the deputy chairman of the Senate Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade legislation committee, said he supported Mr Rudd's change of heart.
"I fully support the Foreign Minister's call for additional funding for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade but he has been deeply hypocritical in calling for it now since during the time that he was prime minister he ripped tens of millions of dollars out of DFAT's budget," Senator Trood told The Australian.
During his call for extra funding, Mr Rudd noted that Canberra's budget was tight.