Adam Bandt @AdamBandt
What would you rather in tmrw's Budget: raise $11bn with a modest levy on the incredibly profitable big banks, or cuts to uni & aid funding?
about 8 hours ago

You fuckwit Bandt, that's still our money, we pay those fees.

Edited by batfink: 13/5/2013 08:57:49 PM

Edited by batfink: 13/5/2013 08:58:15 PM

don't you think the banks would just pass the cost onto the consumer..........???

looking good on the foreign aid front, we will up our foreign aid (another broken promise) and guess what!!!!!! give it back to ourselves!!!!!!!! that's farken gold right there, that's how you manipulate statistics....LOL

Batfink I agree on all points aside from calling Gillard a liar ;)

Bottom line is we have the system we have, it's not perfect but we have to work with it, improve it as we can and live with what it is in the present.

Rather than calling Gillard a liar, instead say "The labor party does not have a strong sense of conviction with regards to climate policy as evidenced by their willingness to cede to the Greens on the matter of a carbon tax, and this concerns me with regards to their ability to govern properly"

And I'd apologise for being condescending, however saying I felt remorse would be a lie :P

Fuel subsidies for mining companies - $12bn
Fixing the holes in the mining super profits tax - $100bn

Damned socialists, hey.

This. You tax the banks more they'll just push the interest rates up.

You mean the cap on self invested aid/funding for asylum seeker processing that won't be going up?

-PB

Well as for mining..."fix" those holes in that imaginary tax take and turn even more projects over to global competitors. Yes we may live on an actual island, but not in the sense of mining investment. Our main resources can and are being extracted in cheaper locales as it is.

I guess the unions would love that though, drive away private sector mining and nationalise the whole sector :?

Is there any evidence to suggest that this is actually the case, or is this just hyper-pessimism?

Not sure what you mean there ballbags????

As i understand it the ALP promised/committed to increase oversea's aid to 0.5% of GNI, which is 50cents out of every $100.00, but have deferred this to 2018-2018......the increase is from >35 up to .37 cents....so modest increase, however they are diverting $375 million of this to process Asylum seekers making the gillard government the third largest recipient of foreign aid.......LOL.....THAT'S GOLD...!!!!!

Well every resource we have some other lower cost country has...once china especially gets further into africa and develops things there, it'll only make it harder for us. Especially if they are also slowing at the same time and need less so can drive harder deals.

The main thing against some of those developing countries is instability...our problem is costs incl wage, red tape, taxes...eventually we'll lose out if others get their act together.

Gas projects for starters are already being delayed or shelved (James Point). Thats meant to be our next boom resource.

The less fracking the better.

0.5% of GDP yes but the amount spent on asylum seekers has been capped and won't increase, that's what I said (any why is it an issue that foreign aid money is spent aiding foreigners?...)

Making plans for 2017 isn't really useful as it might all go out the window come September.

-PB

Or in 2016. :lol:

Baby Bonus Out. About fucking time.

Get rid of the bullshit negative gearing and mining subsidies and we might get back to surplus soon.

Budget 2013: winners and losers
Date
May 14, 2013 - 7:49PM



Families will hurt: Colebatch
The federal budget is taking a fistful of dollars from people including $5 billion taken from family benefits and added costs to big businesses says economics editor of The Age, Tim Colebatch

WINNERS

1. Infrastructure: $24 billion over five years to upgrade and expand urban public transport infrastructure in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne and Adelaide.

2. Schools/education: $9.8 billion over six years for a new needs-based funding model for schools that increases Commonwealth funding for schools to $104.3 billion from 2014 to 2019.

3. Higher education: $97 million to increase the number of Commonwealth-supported university places and an additional $186 million for research infrastructure.

4. Disability: $14.3 billion in new investment for DisabilityCare Australia, a national disability insurance scheme that will be paid for with an increase in the Medicare levy.

5. Seniors: $127 million for older Australians, including $112.4 million to support those downsizing their homes, $9.9 million to extend broadband support and $4.6 million for a new ageing policy institute.

6. Health: $226 million to fight cancer, including $55.7 million for breast cancer screening, $18.5 million for prostate cancer research and $23.8 million for bone-marrow transplants.

LOSERS

1. Individuals: Personal income tax cuts to begin in July 2015 to help with the carbon tax deferred until carbon price estimates reach $25.40. New estimate for 2015-16 is just $12.10.

2. Environment: Deferral of $370 million of funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, while $225.4 million will be deferred and $32.3 million redirected from the biodiversity fund. $58 million in funding for the Clean Technology Program moved to 2017-18.

3. Resources: Tighter rules on exploration deductions for miners that give the government $1.1 billion over four years. $500 million cut from carbon capture and storage programs.

4. Multinational companies: Tightening of the corporate tax system to remove erosion and loopholes, bringing the government extra revenue of about $4.1 billion and $219.20 million in savings.

5. Foreign aid: The government will defer an increase in the aid budget to 0.5 per cent of the gross national income by one year to 2017-18, saving it $1.9 billion.

6. Families: A reduction in the time allowed to claim family tax benefits and child-care assistance will save the government $562 million over five years, while changes in the eligibility age for another tax benefit will save $76.6 million over four years.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/federal-budget/budget-2013-winners-and-losers-20130514-2jkli.html#ixzz2TGFvX5DV

Cornered Labor chooses brave way out

May 14, 2013 - 7:48PM

Ross Gittins
The Sydney Morning Herald's Economics Editor

This is the weirdest budget you or I are ever likely to see. That doesn't make it bad - just very strange.

With just four months until the election, it's the most unlikely pre-election budget you could imagine, with loads of nasties and next to no sweeteners. It is more like a post-election budget, particularly the kind you get after a change of government.

It has to be said, however, that few of the nasties in the budget will cause voters to lose much sleep. They are aimed mainly at the well-off and foreign multinationals.

But its strangeness doesn't end there. The Parliament has so few weeks left to sit, it is likely most of its controversial measures won't become law before the election (with the increase in the Medicare levy the main exception).

That makes it less a budget than an election policy speech. Only if Julia Gillard is re-elected can we be sure the budget measures will become a reality.

And since the chances of Labor's re-election seem low, this is more Tony Abbott's budget than Gillard's. It will be he who decides which measures survive and which don't; whether Labor's last budget becomes anything more than its final, impotent gesture.

Do you think Gillard doesn't know that? This is the budget of a government that knows it's a dead duck.

Usually when governments know they are going to lose, they go for broke, offering electoral bribes they know they will never have to find a way to pay for, aiming to minimise their loss of seats.

Not this time. This budget is more likely to cost Labor votes than win it any.

No, the purpose of this budget is not vote-buying – it is reputation-rescuing, a last-ditch attempt to influence what history will say about the Rudd-Gillard government as an economic manager.

History will be impressed by this budget – and a lot more forgiving of Labor's shortcomings than voters are likely to be on September 14.

At this time in 2010, Wayne Swan seized on a Treasury projection three years into the future and boasted about his feat of returning the budget to surplus in 2012-13.

In the following election campaign, Gillard foolishly turned that long-range projection into a solemn promise.

This time last year, Swan boasted of budgeting for four surpluses in a row, as though they were in the bag. His surplus of $1.5 billion for the financial year just ending is now expected to be a deficit of $19.4 billion (but even that isn't yet certain). This year his boast of being able to get the budget back to a surplus of $6.6 billion in 2016-17 (again on the basis of Treasury's long-range projections) will draw understandable cynicism.

But just as Swan and Gillard should have more sense than to attach much weight to economists' forecasts, so should the rest of us. Treasury's crystal ball will be no more reliable after a change of government. Less initial naivety on the part of the media and the public would reduce ultimate cynicism.

The strength of this budget – should it come to pass – is that Swan has found sufficient saving measures (90 per cent of them tax increases) to cover the cost of the painfully slow phase-in of the disability insurance scheme, the Gonski school funding reforms and other new spending measures.

He has found other savings to make a start on reducing the budget's significant ''structural'' deficit – the product of excessive generosity by successive governments – and eventually getting the budget back to surplus, but without endangering the economy's tricky transition from mining-driven to consumer and business investment-driven growth over the coming year.

These additional, structural deficit reductions build from nothing in the coming financial year to $6billion in the following year and $12billion in each of the next two years. Being saving measures, these figures are less dependent on predictions about the state of the economy and so are easier to believe.

By my rough figuring, they will eventually reduce the structural deficit – that is, claw back unfunded handouts – by about 60 per cent.

It has to be said, however, that few of the nasties in the budget will cause voters to lose much sleep. They are aimed mainly at the well-off and foreign multinationals.

Even so, for a government that's been far too timid in tackling unjustified spending programs and tax breaks, this budget is surprisingly brave.

And if, by being the one to propose last night's unpopular measures, Gillard makes it easier for Abbott toagree to them now or to introduce them after the election, Labor willdeserve respect for initiating such a heavily disguised form of bipartisanship.

For what it's worth, this is a good budget. But that is the trouble: under these strange circumstances, it ain't worth a lot.



Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/business/federal-budget/cornered-labor-chooses-brave-way-out-20130514-2jklb.html#ixzz2TGH6HCp6

Back in surplus by 2015 yeah baby!

-PB

If the most profligate PM in our history says that the economy is in good shape, does that mean that our economy is fucked?

wellForeign aid is suppose to go to foreign countries not to ourselves.....hence being called foreign aid

most respected economists, suggest that yes Australia's economy is in OK shape, but they also concede that it SHOULD be a hell of a lot better off than it is........i agree with this...

So where does the money used to help Asylum Seekers come from?

What budget?

-PB

not sure Ballbagz??? but i'm guessing you do....

the point i was making is they move the money from their left pocket to their right pocket and want a pat on the back for the increased spending of which they are the recipient......

Show me where they want a pat on the back?

Left pocket->right pocket type spending happens all the time.

-PB

well that makes it fine...no worries


like murder and rape and drive by shootings happen all the time.....


"let's aspire to mediocrity"

"apathy rules the nation"

Links to where "most respected economists" have said this?

Fixed

What a strange and failed way at trying to make any kind of comparison.

At least try and debate the point instead of sidestepping it.

-PB