Hard as it is to believe now, the Abbott government actually came to power promising to deliver on a bipartisan pledge to dramatically increase foreign aid: the Coalition's 2013 election campaign foreign policy document reaffirmed its long-standing commitment to increase spending to 0.5 per cent of gross national income.

The commitment had its roots in the heady days of 2007, when Australia was awash with mining boom bucks.

The federal budget was $20 billion in surplus and it felt like the good times were here to stay. In those days, our politicians weren't trying to figure out how to cut costs or raise revenue – they were struggling to spend the mountains of moolah already filling the coffers.

It was in this intoxicating climate that our leaders started talking about giving more money to the world's poor. John Howard pledged to increase aid spending from about 25 cents in every $100 of national income to 37 cents. That cheeky opposition leader Kevin Rudd promised to do even better and lift aid spending to 50 cents in every $100 – equal to about $8 billion – by 2015.

After Labor was elected, the 0.5 per cent of GNI target became bipartisan. And for a while there it seemed like both parties would stick to it, even after the good times came to an end, and American subprime mortgages started sucking the global economy into the abyss.

With the budget now deep in deficit, Julia Gillard decided to push back the 2015 deadline and slow the aid program's growth. It was a broken promise but not unreasonable in the circumstances. With every area of the budget taking a hit, why should aid be quarantined? And what was the harm in giving AusAID extra time to scale up?

Rudd, stewing on the backbench after his first unsuccessful attempt to take back the Labor leadership, was publicly silent about the decision. But privately, he was livid. Yes, Labor's cuts were modest – but they would give the "barbarians" on the other side of the aisle all the political cover they needed to abandon bipartisanship and mount an attack on aid.

He was spot on.

The Abbott government's assault began almost immediately. Just moments after his team was sworn in, Abbott issued a statement announcing that AusAID – Australia's respected official aid agency – would be subsumed by the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

New governments regularly merge and disband agencies. But rarely do they scrap highly successful agencies with $5 billion budgets and thousands of staff without a hint of warning.

It was the first surprise from the no-surprises government – and it was a sign of things to come.

The cuts started soon after. Bishop announced aid spending would fall back to about $5 billion a year and the large increases would stop. The budget would rise only in line with inflation and the 0.5 target would be put off indefinitely.

Ms Bishop argued aid had to be put on a more sustainable footing, and she castigated the previous government for promising big increases it couldn't deliver.

"It created the impression that Australia was an unreliable aid partner," she said. "So we intend to be reliable, consistent and far more strategic."

She emphasised that her new paradigm would bring "certainty", "stability" and "predictability" to the program.

Not so much.

"I think we've been through an era now of the greatest unpredictability ever in the Australian aid program," says Marc Purcell, of the Australian Council for International Development.

Ms Bishop's inflation plan didn't even last a year. Last December the government wielded the axe again. The budget would be cut by a further 20 per cent and would not rise. Rather, it would in fact decline as a proportion of GNI to just 0.22 per cent – the lowest level on record.

The total cut from the aid budget? $11.3 billion.

Despite weathering the GFC storm better than any other developed nation, Australia is now less generous than it's ever been and we're sliding down the international league table. Our global reputation and influence is undeniably taking damage.

Last month's budget locked in the latest cuts. Adding insult to injury, the government is now taking the axe to transparency too: the budget papers contain far less detail than usual about how aid money is being spent.

Gone is the "blue book", the official ministerial statement containing vast amounts of information about aid spending. Despite Ms Bishop's pledge to improve transparency, aid experts say the program is now more opaque than it's been in decades.

Ms Bishop claims all the relevant information is available on DFAT's website but experts say that's patently untrue. She says more information will be made available later in the year but it remains to be seen whether it will adequately fill the void.

Building a sustainable aid program requires building public support for it by explaining what it does and how its helps people – and by making it accountable to the taxpayers who pay for it. Even the government's own commission of audit stressed the need to keep the blue book as a way to give the public confidence their money is being spent appropriately.

Ms Bishop has delivered a new aid paradigm alright – one that heavily resembles a blueprint for destruction.