Friday 29th of March 2024

MYEFO...

not too bad...

going down...

The Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook is projecting a $37.4 billion deficit this financial year - $2.3 billion worse than predicted in May.

Government revenue expectations have fallen due to plummeting commodity prices and weaker wages growth, and economic growth has been revised down over the next four years.

Follow our blog for updates as they happen, or read the story here.

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-12-15/live:-myefo-budget-update-shows-37.4-billion-deficit/7029504

old savings that don't add up...

The government announced new savings in the midyear economic and fiscal outlook (Myefo) on Tuesday – including cutting bulk-billing incentives for pathology services and tightening a welfare “crackdown” – to pay for already announced new spending on innovation, the special Syrian refugee intake and processing asylum seekers in Australia.

But a slump in revenue, partly as a result of falling commodity prices, saw the 2015-16 deficit climb from $35.1bn predicted at the time of the last budget to $37.4bn now.

And included in that deteriorating bottom line are old savings included in policies that the Senate has steadfastly refused to pass – which means the budget update counts “savings” that are “wholly unrealistic”, according to the Australian Council of Social Service (Acoss).

Among the “savings” still counted in the budget update despite being rejected are:

* The $4.8bn that would be saved by the latest version of proposed cuts to family payments, even though Labor has only passed $500m of them;

* $3.2 bn from increasing the interest rate for student loans and requiring that they be paid back sooner;

* $1.1bn from cutting university funding;

* $1.3bn for the proposed $5 hike in the PBS co-payment that was supposed to start in January;

* Over $600m in rejected welfare savings, including forcing under-25s to wait a month to receive the dole, which was rejected by the Senate in September.

read more: http://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2015/dec/15/myefo-budget-banks-on-unrealistic-139bn-savings-blocked-by-senate

back in 1916...

During the war years in Australia, the first WW that is, budget conditions were tough. Cartoonists were having a ball. Neo-satirical and literary magazine were flourishing. Here in the Bulletin, David Low explains the budget (1916).

 

A Pardonable error

FRIEND (showing back-blocker* round): "That's the famous Monte-de-Piete, you know. The place for loans."

BACK-BLOCKER: "Where the cabinet meets, ain't it?"

cabinet

 

 

Though the poor were doing it very tough (as shown in many cartoons) the frolicking and partying of the high society were going at full bore — while the diggers were being killed by the thousands or barely surviving in the squalid conditions of the trenches — all for a good cause.

Here a fantastically-skilled cartoon by D H Souter in the Bulletin (1915):

 

"Terrible war—isn't it?"

"Frightful—why this is the seventh Red Cross Dance I've been to this week!"

 having a ball

 

*Back-blocker: someone out of town, living in the sticks. From the outback.