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Budget 2015May is budget month, and we’ve just published our analysis on the budget in three pieces. We were disappointed that government expenditure has grown to 25.9% of GDP, a rate only exceeded three times since 1975, and every other time at the height of a recession, not in a normal growth period as of now. There were some good measures that saw taxes cut for small business, some waste trimmed, expenditure redirected to be more effective, and encouragement to invest in plant and equipment which should have short term economic payoffs. But the major problem remains – the structural imbalance where spending exceeds not only our income, but what is reasonable. Bill Shorten talks a lot about unfairness, but what is fair about his generation leaving a huge debt for younger generations to repay? While it is understandable that the government wants to pick what fights it has with the senate so as to maximise its chances at the next election, it’s our role to carry the torch for reform. That means urging the government, the opposition and the cross benches to think about reform seriously, suggest good reform to them, and discourage them from cheap populism. Recent articles on our website
Future eventsWe are planning an annual lecture. To be called the Sir Thomas McIlwraith lecture it will celebrate achievements in building hard and soft infrastructure in Queensland using free enterprise and individualistic principles. McIlwraith was premier of Queensland in the late Nineteenth Century. He was an engineer and a free trader who was responsible for a lot of the early infrastructure in Queensland. He hit health and financial troubles at the end of his career and his sometime nemesis Sir Samuel Griffith grabbed the historical high ground. We think it is about time that McIlwraith’s legacy was recognised. Regards,
Graham Young 
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