The 2015 Federal Budget represents a capitulation by the government to the ALP and the Senate and builds a populist base for the next election.
Trajectory to surplus not the same thing as budgeting for a surplus
As I mentioned to Pat Hession on Townsville ABC radio yesterday afternoon, the 2015-16 Federal Budget simply kicks the can down the road, as they say, leaving it for a future Government (or this one if it stays in power) to make the hard decisions necessary to truly repair the budget (see my post on Queensland Economy Watch from May 12). A trajectory back to surplus is not the same thing as budgeting for a surplus, and there is no surplus over the forward estimates, just a steady fall in the deficit – a fall which may not occur as projected, as new budget pressures emerge in coming years and the Government commits to new expenditures or renews old programs.
A steady hand
This time last year, we noted that the budget was one of pretend austerity. Much of the debate following the budget then pretended that the austerity was real. It was not real austerity then and it is not real austerity now. In Chart 1 below, drawn from Statement No.10 page 6, we see the payments of the budget as a percent of GDP. Last year the budget was for year 2014/15.
Go for a debt deal
Bill Shorten should take a long hard look at Labor leaders Luke Foley in NSW, Premier Daniel Andrews in Victoria and Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk in Queensland. None has a plan to pay down debt, none has money to spend, and each has wrong plans to enhance productivity.
It shouldn’t be too hard to explain why spending must slow
In 1996, when Pauline Hanson was asked on 60 Minutes if she was xenophobic, she replied: “Please explain?” It was an intelligent question from a poorly read person to a smart-arse journalist.
Baird’s asset test
Privatising assets didn’t cost Newman his election. Ignoring basic politics did.
There was no government in waiting in broke Queensland
The real result from the Queensland election is that drovers’ dogs will occupy the Treasury benches for the foreseeable future. There was no government in waiting, just a bunch of kids waiting their turn.
Facts not fictions
Queensland-based policy think tank the Australian Institute of Progress, has called for a truthful election campaign, saying the choices facing Queenslanders were too important to permit political fictions and misinformation.
Activists should pay taxes
The High Court decision 'overturns 90 years of Australian law, swinging the pendulum quite to the other end, in that it recognises that engaging in public debate is a public benefit in itself'.
Memo to G20: trade is the key to beating poverty
Why are we still arguing about this? If “98 per cent” of “climate scientists” agree the climate is changing (not a hard thing to agree on, given the thesis is so vague), why can’t we just accept that trade is the key to poverty decline? Relative poverty, something which only becomes a political issue once a society heads beyond a threshold, is not as important in the third world as absolute poverty. Inequality, pro-growth and other such distractions are noise, which keep the West’s values held high, and the most impoverished and vulnerable within their economic confines.
