Stay Calm And Keep Shopping - Another Budget Thread

[icyfroth]

I decided I should read up on the budget so I could comment. Found this article explained it well:

Budget 2014: the six graphs that matter for Australia

This is a horror budget for many – but the cuts overall are not as bad as in the past and, surprisingly, leave Wayne Swan with the record for wielding the budget axe

"On the broader economic front the budget suggests 2014-15 will be worse than this year. While the economy in 2013-14 is expected to grow by 2.75% (a slightly conservative estimate given annualised growth in the last half of 2013, which was 2.9%), in 2014-15 it’s expected to just trudge along by a mere 2.5%. Only in 2015-16 is the economy expected get back to close to trend growth of 3%.

Why are they so gloomy? Well it’s not households. Household consumption has been revised up since the Myefo – from growth of 2.75% next year to now 3% and 3.25% in 2015-16.

So we’re expected to keep shopping.

The problem is the end of the mining boom. This budget really throws off any hope that mining might sustain us. In the pre-election economic and fiscal outlook (Pefo) done just prior to the 2013 election, business investment was expected to grow in 2013-14 by 2%. The Myefo revised that down to a fall of 1.5% and the budget has dumped it even further –estimating a fall of 4%."

"This was going to be a horror budget. And it is. If you are intending to go to university, if you are under 30 and unemployed, if you are a family with a child over 6, if you go to GPs, you’ll going to be hit hard.

Family tax benefits are frozen to save $2.5bn over four years, the threshold for Family Tax Benefit cut from $150,000 to $1000,000 will save $1.2bn, cutting it for families with kids over six saves $1.9bn and the $7 co-payment for GP visits gathers in $3,5bn. The increase in costs to uni students through the deregulation of fees, the cutting of funding to unis and the changes the HECS/HELP repayments $3.2bn

But the biggest individual “saving” is through not increasing foreign aid as promised. This saves $7.6bn and is easily the laziest save any government can do."

"Hockey is not rushing back to surplus. Yes he’s putting on the fiscal breaks, but not like Costello did in 1996 to 1999, nor even like Keating did after the “banana republic” crisis in the late 1980s.

The budget deficit will shrink by on average 0.7% of GDP over the next four years. Costello trimmed it by 1% of GDP when he came in –but he was able to rely on much more revenue growth than Hockey.

Spending is expected to be cut each year by on average 0.3% over the next four years. Costello’s cuts to expenditure were double that."

Entire Article Here

Those baying for Hockey's blood should do a bit of back-reading.

[fourandsixpants]

to am*3

257 000 unemployed youth (over 18) and 16500 public servants won't be feeling calm, nor likely to vote for the LNP next election.

Abbott gave the number of public servants to lose their jobs before the election as 12,000. Now he just tacks on another 4500 to that total.
Anyone would have to be living in cloud cuckoo land if they can't see the flow effect that will have... That many people without work, they wont be spending a cent apart from basic living necessities. Retailers, restaurants, and other services will feel that badly and in turn will have to cut staff and/or close down.

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this is same thing/pattern that LNP work to every time they get 'in' to mess with us. Nothing new here but totally unacceptable all the same.

What Spot said too about the part-timers and casual workers need to be counted in the total resulting unemployed figures too.....this cagey lot holding the sceptre at the moment ......my goodness me words escape me that are unrepeatable on here.

[spotweldersfriend]

The outrage is not confected,sf,and the polls will reflect it.If an election was held this weekend the LNP would lose 20 seats.

[izabsmiling]

Paying this lot for what they are doing feels like being forced to fund national and international crime atm.

[boris1gary]

While those families in the bottom quintile (or 20 per cent) of income earners see an average 5 per cent reduction in disposable incomes, those in the top quintile barely register a decline, down just 0.3 per cent.

and my favourite headline of the day....

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbotts-name-is-mud-20140515-zrd9w.html

Tony Abbott's name is mud

The Prime Minister is a liar. There is no point mincing words. We have never seen anything like it.

With this budget he has shown himself to be cynically dishonest on a scale unprecedented in modern politics. Although Abbott is not the first political leader to break an election promise and will not be the last, no prime minister in memory, Liberal or Labor, has come even close to his contemptuous deception of the electorate he sucker-punched on Tuesday.

[aftanas]

The budget isn't all bad news.  People forget that the government has committed $12.4 billion dollars to purchase 58 F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.  People also tend to ignore the $50 billion dollar medical innovation fund, a policy that was first mooted in the Hollowmen episode Rear Vision.

[boris1gary]

yes true the defence budget is up and we might find a cure for cancer, for those that can afford it. Still the downside for defence is we are throwing 40 of our top military scientists and engineers on the scrapheap, but like the cartoon says - there is always wikipedia.

[silverfaun]

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@boris1gary wrote:

While those families in the bottom quintile (or 20 per cent) of income earners see an average 5 per cent reduction in disposable incomes, those in the top quintile barely register a decline, down just 0.3 per cent.

and my favourite headline of the day....

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/tony-abbotts-name-is-mud-20140515-zrd9w.html

Tony Abbott's name is mud

The Prime Minister is a liar. There is no point mincing words. We have never seen anything like it.

With this budget he has shown himself to be cynically dishonest on a scale unprecedented in modern politics. Although Abbott is not the first political leader to break an election promise and will not be the last, no prime minister in memory, Liberal or Labor, has come even close to his contemptuous deception of the electorate he sucker-punched on Tuesday.

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Calling our PM a liar on here is unacceptable and against the cs values. Name calling of any kind is not in line with the cs rules and regs.

[fourandsixpants]

 LOL!

[2013marfield]

The Prime Minister IS a liar.

[i-need-a-martini]

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@silverfaun wrote:

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Calling our PM a liar on here is unacceptable and against the cs values. Name calling of any kind is not in line with the cs rules and regs.

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Since when is the PM a CS member?