What we learned: Budget 2022-23
As expected, cost of living ruled the day. The treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, was spruiking the fuel excise cut, those tax offsets, and the relative strength of the economy.
That excise cut will give some short-term relief at the bowser, but as with most of the other measures, it’s “targeted” but “temporary”.
It was truly a pre-election budget, with money funnelled to critical seats and cashback offers for taxpayers. National security was high on the list, and we all just hope one day we’ll find out who came up with operation Redspice.
And keeping the Nationals on side was obviously front-of-mind, what with that extensive regional Australia package.
Debts and deficits as far as the eye can see barely make people blink these days.
If too much budget is barely enough, the whole team will be back tomorrow to keep pulling the various threads of this pre-election fiscal plan.
If you want to look at the yarns we’ve unspooled so far, click here.
Updated
More from the conga line of stakeholders and experts after the budget – the line seems to be almost running out now, with most voices having had their say.
Ian Henschke, from National Seniors, was upset the government didn’t do more to let pensioners get back into the workforce without their pension being affected. He called it a “missed opportunity” and said:
I don’t understand why they didn’t listen to us.
Helen Dalley-Fisher, of the Equality Alliance, claimed the budget had “forgotten” Australian women. She was critical that the women’s budget statement had less money than it did last year, and was critical the Coalition didn’t start paying superannuation on paid parental leave.
Annie Butler, the secretary of the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Foundation, claimed aged care workers had been “let down” with no word on wage increases in the sector. She noted some “announcements around the edges” on training more people to go into the sector, including a $50m pledge to train 15,000 workers, but questioned how successful that program would be. She asked:
What is the point of training more people to go into a sector in complete crisis until the core issues are fixed?
Fix the staffing crisis.
Updated
