Thursday 25th of April 2024
Home » Blogs » Gus Leonisky's blog

amazing budget if you live that long...

budget pud...

The Coalition will have to win re-election if it is to deliver its long-touted surplus, which the Budget tips to be $7.1 billion next financial year. 

Key points:
  • The Budget forecasts a $4.2 billion deficit this year, before a $7.1 billion surplus in 2019-20
  • Low- and middle-income earners are set to benefit from bringing forward personal tax cuts
  • Billions have been pledged for infrastructure, health care and small business

 

Treasurer Josh Frydenberg's first budget includes billions of dollars for tax cuts, major road upgrades and health care. 

One of the biggest saving measures is a plan to change how welfare recipients declare their incomes, which the Government expects to add $2 billion to its coffers. 

But while the Treasurer has trumpeted that the budget is "back in the black", like Labor did when it was in power, the Coalition has only forecast a surplus but has yet to deliver one. 

There had been speculation the Government would attempt to deliver a surplus for the current financial year, but that has failed to eventuate. 

The 2018-19 financial year is projected to end with a $4.2 billion deficit. 

What Budget 2019 means for you:

 

The Budget forecasts surpluses in each year over the forward estimates, reaching as high as $17.8 billion in 2012-22. 

The Treasurer said he was confident the Budget could buffer economic headwinds hitting other economies, but confirmed there were risks on the horizon. 

"The residential housing market has cooled, credit growth has eased and we are yet to see the full impact of flood and drought on the economy," Mr Frydenberg said. 

"Global trade tensions remain, the Chinese economy has slowed and there has been a loss of momentum in Japan, Europe and other advanced economies." 

The $7.1 billion forecast surplus for next year is up from the $4.1 billion that the Government predicted in its mid-year budget update last December. 

The Coalition heads into an election with $43 million in budgeted but unannounced spending measures for this financial year and more than double that for 2019-20.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-02/federal-budget-2019/10959274

 

Throw Scummo, Frydenberg and their magic pudding out... OUT ! 

 

stale pudding...

Sarah Hanson-Young

 

@sarahinthesen8

 

 

Liberals prove again they can’t be trusted to

protect the ABC. They’ve just locked in

funding cuts for another 3 years.

 

 

#budget2019

joyously going to the death bed...

Welcome to Budget 2019-20, where the future is bright and the horizon is clear of danger – apart from the dangers which the budget papers themselves warn about but bizarrely ignore.

This year’s budget is an odd mix of tax cuts and spending measures targeted to win an election, but with assumptions so joyous and optimistic that you could be forgiven for thinking the Liberal party wants to lose just so it can blame the ALP for not living up to their predictions.

Before we get to the fanciful economics outlook, first the numbers:

Once again we find it’s always easier to deliver a surplus with lots of revenue.

The budget forecasts total revenue to rise to 25.4% of GDP in 2021-22 – the highest level since 2005-06...

 

Read more of this illusionary budgefudge:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2019/apr/02/federal-budget-20...

 

Lucky we've got Greg Jericho to explain the disease, otherwise we'd be taking the budget placebo with fanfarous delusions...

keeping the re-election nightmare alive...


The Frydenberg Dream reads like a campaign map

Tax cuts! The biggest personal tax cuts since the Howard years, the Treasurer told us. Tax cuts amounting to $5.7 billion over the next four years!

True, $4.5 billion of those tax cuts depend on you re-electing the Coalition not once, but twice. But — hush! We've got tonight.

In the Frydenberg Dream, Christmas Island will be closed and not costing a single cent beyond July 1 this year. Why? Because by then the Morrison Government will have been re-elected, the recent medevac legislation repealed, and the Christmas Island detention centre all neatly packed away. How will the Government do all that within six weeks of being re-elected?

Hush! We've got tonight.

In the Frydenberg Dream, rivers of road and infrastructure spending flow forth unto the budgetary horizon, carrying happy GPs to regional areas and watering the gardens of Australia's re-enlivened aged care sector.

The Frydenberg Dream reads like a campaign map. Road spending for every state and territory. Congestion-busting packages for Australia's most congested bits. More doctors and mental health services for the less-congested bits. A million and a half for the Dark Mofo festival in Tasmania (I do hope no-one told Eric Abetz about this). More than $20 million for the Bundanon (arts) Trust in regional NSW. Another $25 million for something called the Harry Butler Environmental Education Centre in WA. There are dozens of such highly campaignable treats strewn through the Budget.

What happens if the Coalition is not elected? Well, presumably you can kiss goodbye to at least some of that stuff, unless Labor can be prevailed upon to keep the measures.

Forecasting into the future feels bizarre

The Frydenberg Dream is a dream kept aloft by a number of material factors, not just implicit trust in the tendency of the nation to vote Coalition when given the choice next month.

Financially, the surplus is powered by some tailwinds, like the increased company tax revenue due to the higher than expected price for iron ore.

According to the Budget papers, this price spike will contribute $2.6 billion toward the 2019/20 surplus, which is good news for us. Not good news for Brazil, where the catastrophic dam collapse that took out the iron ore mines that caused the price spike also killed more than 200 people.

It's powered by the underspend on the NDIS, and on the hope of tickling more money out of multinationals and corporate tax evaders (expected to harvest an impressive $3.6 billion over four years, confirming that ATO tax-busting is that fastest-growing industry in Australia).

Also on some truly heroic estimates — over the next four years, for instance, the Government predicts it will save $28 billion on "parameter variations", which essentially means it will pay $28 billion less on stuff like welfare than earlier expected.

One specific clue to this calculation is provided in the document's largest single cut: $2 billion saved by redesigning the way income support recipients report their income. From July 1 next year, recipients will report income in real time, rather than estimating it and being overpaid and then chased for repayment.

 

Read more: 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-02/federal-budget-annabel-crabb-back...

 

 

Wow! This from Annabel ! Moving down from sitting on the fence-pickets to running on the pitch and taking a straight bat to hit Frydenberg for six! Well done...

an anthem...

Australians all let us revolt

For our government is nuts and bolt

with golden banks and exclusive wealth,

Our home is emprison’d by stealth

Our land abound in Libs’ porkies

with deceit and full-manured parties...

In history's cage let all our rage

Rid off this Australia's despair,

In awful strains then let us sing

“Rid off Australian Libs' scare!”

To kill off this CONserativ' dross,

We'll boil our pots and pans,


To cook this Commonwealth of poors

Renowned for sacking its heir,

Of those who've got glasshouses

We've got Lib'ral pains to bear,

So with courage help us combine

To rid of this Australia's despair,

In joyful strains then let us sing,

“Rid off another Libs' heir!”

 

(Anon.)

unfortunately it's not a spoof...

Dear Patrons, here's the latest Honest Government Ad we've produced together - as part of our ongoing series of election videos.  

The Government just announced the Federal Budget this week. So I figured: perfect opportunity for them to give the nation an honest explanation of their economic policy.

I hope you enjoy this slightly more "explainer" style of HGA? I figured some topics deserve to be explained a bit more clearly - and this is one of them. 

I'm planning to use a similar style for a video about the Preferential Voting system – a hugely requested topic, both by Patrons and general audience. It's another one of those crucial topics more people need to understand. So that's a little hint at what's coming up.

Seen as I’m sharing insider news: we might soon be having our first celebrity cameo! This was an aspect of Rap News which I loved so much (we had cameos with Julian Assange, Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein, Abby Martin, Scott Ludlam…) - a tradition I'm hoping to revive, now that HGAs have earned a strong reputation as a political satire series. Stay tuned :-)

I hope you noticed the new slick animations, in this and our previous HGA about Climate Policy? This is all thanks to you: as our Patreon support has increased I’ve been able to pay for fun things like animations – which opens up a whole new range of creative possibilities. So, welcome to our latest addition to the team: Brent Cataldo - a gun with Adobe After Effects who seems to be able to do anything I ask for – like making a meat pie ooze down Gina Rhinehart’s hand! :-/

Before I hit Send - a house-keeping note: our shit-house Government will soon announce the date of the election, which will be in mid May. I'm aiming to work extra make during the election campaign, so you might receive more than the usual 1 message/video per month. Please bare this in mind especially if you’re in the Previews Club: I don’t want you to feel like we’re spamming you. We’re just switching gears for April/May to hit these mofos as hard as we can; and things will probably return to normal in June.

As always, thank you SO much for making it possible to create Honest Government Ads. If we will have played a small part in getting rid of this Government at the coming election, it will be thanks in great part to you for making it possible to make these videos full-time. 

Take care and catch you (very soon) for the next HGA.

Giordano & fam xo

VIDEO LINKS: 
YouTube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwQkQxvWilk 
Facebook video: https://www.facebook.com/thejuicemedia/videos/2615861128441443 
Twitter video: https://twitter.com/thejuicemedia/status/1113666236297039872 

 

 

Read from top.

no magic pud...

Budgets are no magic pudding no matter what politicians tell us

One day, a politician will emerge who is brave enough to tell the public you can't have it all.

But if such a creature exists, you won't sight them delivering a federal budget just before an election.

Income tax cuts. Business tax cuts. Cash handouts. A "nation-building" splurge on roads and railways. Better schools, hospitals and aged care. And a Budget, in the Treasurer's words, "back in the black … and back on track". Cue ACDC. 

"All without raising taxes," said the Treasurer in his Budget speech. Then again and again. The phrase "without increasing taxes" is mentioned eight times in the speech.

"And lowering taxes", even.

Josh Frydenberg's "back in black" Budget surplus is in fact not yet banked: it's just an estimate, it's wafer-thin, and, as my colleague Ian Verrender observed, it's based on favourable assumptions on just about everything, along with some accounting sleight of hand, as are the projections of growing surpluses in future years.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-04-03/federal-budget-tax-cuts-no-magic-...

 

 

Read from top.

the bar would not pass the pub test...

The bar must be low if the economy's fundamentals are as ‘sound’ as Josh Frydenberg claims

[there] was some rather big economic news on Tuesday that delivered a very sharp poke to the ribs of the government’s economic narrative. It came in the form of a short, relatively undemonstrative line in the latest report on retail trade from the bureau of statistics. It stated that “in volume terms, the trend estimate for Australian turnover was relatively unchanged (0.0%) in the March quarter 2019”.

The actual result was a fall of 0.01%, which may seem rather unremarkable, but it marked just the eighth time since the ABS began compiling retail turnover in 1983 that the volume ... had fallen.

...

Suffice to say this is not a good thing.

And it came a day after the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, in his debate with Chris Bowen at the National Press Club declared that “the fundamentals of the Australian economy are sound”.

Really? Sound?

The fundamental aspect of our economy is that economic growth leads to lower unemployment, which leads to higher wages growth, which leads to stronger consumption, which leads to stronger economic growth, which leads to ...

 

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2019/may/09/the-bar-mus...

 

 

Read from top.

 

Note: Greg Jericho is usually spot on on economics matters, and so is the case here but today, hees spellig hus bin atroicius...