Martini wrote:He made it clear (and Steve Cannane also noted it) that he didn't seem to have a valid reason to NOT implement the reforms. He out and out LIED about his knowledge of the content of the report and the funding principles underpinning it. He also lied about meeting with the review panel.
I'm not sure that 'promised' carefully costed budget was so carefully costed.
didn't show workings and the costings for some major policies weren't done.
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Economy ‘running on empty’: PM’s adviser Newman
Phillip Coorey Chief political correspondent - 11 Nov 2013 20:56:00
The federal government’s top business adviser has criticised the cost of the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the school funding reforms, slammed wages as too high and industrial relations as being too rigid, and urged the government to push the envelope in order to “repair” the economy.
In a fiery speech on Monday night,Maurice Newman, the head of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council, lamented as “hasty” Tony Abbott’s pre-election promises to quarantine such areas as health and defence from budget cuts and suggested the Prime Minister “disturb the comfort zones of many’’ to pay down debt and cut the deficit as soon as possible.
Vowing to furnish Mr Abbott with “dependable and fearless advice’’, Mr Newman said the economy was “running on empty” and, without reforms and fiscal discipline, it was “facing the prospect of growth with a zero in front of it’’.
“That will feel like hitting a brick wall,’’ he said.
Mr Newman’s comments, made in a speech to a Committee for Economic Development of Australia function, will increase pressure on the government to pay down debt and reduce the deficit.
http://m.afr.com/p/australia2-0/economy_running_on_empty_pm_adviser_tFb2vM3XYbI411jzaHU0gN
Government of ‘no surprises’ rewrites history
PUBLISHED: 26 NOV 2013
Mr Pyne says Bill Shorten “cut $1.2 billion from the school funding envelope for the next four years”. In fact, the former government was unable to get the conservative governments in Western Australia, Queensland and the Northern Territory to agree to a new funding deal. It had allocated $1.2 billion to deals with these three jurisdictions in its August economic statement but they declined to sign up. Therefore, the money was no longer relevant by the time of the pre-election fiscal and economic outlook.
Joe Hockey made reference to this before the election. A majority of schools was covered by deals done with NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Tasmania and the ACT, as well as Catholic and independent schools.
Mr Pyne and Mr Abbott repeatedly committed to honouring funding agreements for at least four years. Mr Pyne has been working hard in the past few days to claim even some of these deals weren’t properly done. But he has struck push-back from those on the other end of the deals.
The bottom line is the Coalition is now saying it will only honour one year of the agreements reached with all of these school systems because, after that, it will have to spread the pot of money across the whole country.
http://www.afr.com/Page/Uuid/c692ec04-5648-11e3-b1c8-465f9441c1e6
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