[palmer]

Note this bit posted by Liz: Downer is said to have close connections with Bill and Hillary Clinton and arranged for the Australian government to pay A$25 million to the Bill Clinton foundation to fight AIDS in Papua New Guinea and South East Asia in 2006 when Downer was foreign minister.

Downer was just protecting his investment in the Clintons.

[mad_as_he$$]

Very bad investment going forward from here.

[naturalman1975]

Alexander Downer was John Howard's Foreign Minister (equivalent to your Secretary of State) from 1996 until 2007. This overlaps the last four years of the Clinton Presidency. So the fact that Australia's top foreign affairs official met the Head of State of one of our closest allies is not surprising. There are likely numerous photos of them together.

In terms of the donation, that donation was made by AusAid, the agency that back then (until 2007, IIRC) distributed Australia's foreign aid. It was given as a donation to the Clinton Foundation to aid in work related to HIV in the developing world. Critically AusAid was deliberately designed so politicians (like the Foreign Minister) did not decide where aid was distributed to avoid political interference in what were meant to be purely humanitarian programs. Downer did not decide on the donation - the system was deliberately set up so he was at arms length from decisions like that.

But even if he had been, it would have just been a routine aid donation to an American based NGO.