AusAID fears massive staff cuts AusAID is bracing for sweeping staff cuts after Prime Minister Tony Abbott ordered it be absorbed back into the foreign affairs department. It's understood AusAID Director General Peter Baxter has already resigned as Mr Abbott flagged the merger as part of a bid to cut "duplication and waste" across the public service. Mr Abbott says AusAID, which administers Australia's $5 billion official aid program, will be "integrated" back into the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). The move will enable the aid and diplomatic arms of Australia's international policy agenda "to be more closely aligned," he said in a statement shortly after he was sworn in on Wednesday. The announcement sent shockwaves through AusAID. One senior AusAID official say the agency's roughly 1300 Canberra-based staff members will be bracing for wholesale change. "It doesn't bode well," the official told AAP on condition of anonymity. I would say a lot of people are going to be out of work. The move comes after the coalition declared it would stop the planned growth of the aid program, effectively stripping it of $4.5 billion over the forward budget estimates. AusAID split from DFAT and became an executive agency under Labor back in July 2010. At June last year, AusAID employed 2124 people - 1301 in Australia and 823 overseas. Of the overseas staff, 227 were members of the public service and 596 were "locally engaged." Mr Abbott says DFAT will also take responsibility for Australia's participation in climate change negotiations, "bringing the right expertise to bear on the management of these negotiations." Human rights group ActionAid spokesman Archie Law said integrating AusAID into DFAT would have dire consequences for the world's poor. Mr Law described the decision as "short sighted." "The message Tony Abbott is sending to the world's poor is that Australia is no longer committed to ending poverty," he said.