So, what do you think might be in store for this years budget?

[Dazz]

As with most things, there is of course 2 sides to the story....

It's not a story....it's documented and fully signed off published Govt fact.

There is no room for your political opinion and wishy washy conjecture.

The audited and gazetted Budget papers of years gone past are documented fact.

I bet the fence sitters can't see, or more accurately don't want to see a pattern.....to their eternal shame.

Those huge red bars from the Rudd / Gillard years will take decades of financial prudence to fix. People have no idea how much damage Labor and the Greens caused.

 

[Blueberry]

They say that so they don't have to take the blame. I'm sure they'd be thanking the Labor Party rather than taking the credit themselves if it was a positive situation. You can't have it both ways.

This country is going further down the toilet with every passing year. We pay the same rate of tax as many European nations but get about a tenth of the infrastructure and services. What a scam

In fairness given the size (Land wise) of Australia, it is a lot more expensive to deliver.

 

[D.T.]

They say that so they don't have to take the blame. I'm sure they'd be thanking the Labor Party rather than taking the credit themselves if it was a positive situation.

I'm not sure on that one. The first time Labor leaves us in a positive situation we'll test that theory i guess.

 

[Arnoldus]

Hawke in '83....fair call....the whole country gave Fraser a deserved boot.

Howard in '96....absolutely, Keating not only left the cupboard bare but the door was off it's hinges.

Abbott in '13.....Rudd and Gillard emptied the cupboard, ripped off the door, smashed the shelf and burnt down the house and half the street. Cupboard - what cupboard ??


I noticed you've conveniently forgotten to include Rudd in '07.....when he was handed by Howard and Costello not a cupboard but an upgraded vault, with $ 22 Billion in cash merrily earning at 5% over 1 Billion in interest for the country, with no debt to service.

Doesn't really fit with your argument. Can understand why you left it off your list.

Like I said, the cupboard is bare routine has been done time and time again, '07 wasn't an example of that, hence why I didn't mention it.

 

[MarkB]

It's not a story....it's documented and fully signed off published Govt fact.

There is no room for your political opinion and wishy washy conjecture.

The audited and gazetted Budget papers of years gone past are documented fact.

I bet the fence sitters can't see, or more accurately don't want to see a pattern.....to their eternal shame.

Those huge red bars from the Rudd / Gillard years will take decades of financial prudence to fix. People have no idea how much damage Labor and the Greens caused.

Dazz

Like your crowing last week about the election result - everyone knows what the headline balance of the budget has been.

It's the simplest, most talked about metric that comes out of the budget.

I did economics at university, but even people who didn't, know the (overly simplified) approach to fiscal management.

A brief recap in case people don't know....

Surplus = good.

Deficit = bad.

(Like your graphs so clearly state too, tell me are they official liberal party propaganda graphs? I noticed the labelling "Blue Good / Red Bad" on the first graph. Nevermind, it doesn't matter to me).

But what people may not know (and I know you'll never tell them) is that there is more to a budget than just the headline balance.

There are cyclical and structural elements.

Cyclical -> Related to the overall performance of the economy

Structural -> Discretionary govt spending and policies

Cyclical

Example 1
The Howard Government banked unprecedented amounts of tax because the economy was booming.

Example 2
The Rudd / Gillard Government (notwithstanding one year post GFC where they jumped to ~26% of GDP) kept spending at ~24% of GDP which is the same has Howard/Costello.

As Emma Alberici of the ABC said in the article I quoted -

All things being equal, if Wayne Swan had the revenue today that Peter Costello had in the 2000s, the 2012/13 budget would be in surplus

That's an economic factoid with some context. ****, I'm sorry I used the C word!!

Structural

As Peter Martin of the SMH said:

Australia's most needlessly wasteful spending took place under the John Howard-led Coalition government rather than under the Whitlam, Rudd or Gillard Labor governments, an international [IMF] study has found

But it is true that they had $20 bn left.

Chalk that one down to a lost opportunity to buy the 2007 election.

 

[investor2009]

Cause I had a gigantuan paying job

Why would you base a strategy around tax rather than investment returns?

 

[MarkB]

Again, just to state something... I'm not a member of any political party.

Never have been.

So please don't anyone accuse me of bias.

The simple truth is that few things **** me more than the 1/2 truths told by politicians.

 

[Dazz]

That's an economic factoid with some context.

You're using some left wing ABC reporter with a completely unrealistic and impossible to test "if - then" loop and a left wing SMH reporter as your sources of information, calling them factoids......these have no basis in authority.

Next you'll be using reliable "facts" quoted from ex-ABC reporter Maxine McKew and Bob Hogg's (ALP national president's wife) as the Labor member for Bennelong, or perhaps ex-ABC reporters Russell Woolf and Verity James who directed all preferences straight to the ALP during the Senate re-election here in WA.

I see you've chosen to ignore the published and gazetted Government figures that have passed every scrutiny the Federal Parliament has to offer.

Instead of quoting all of these journalists....why not hear the painful facts from the man who ran the show.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xQLUQKZQ9o

 

[MarkB]

You're using some left wing ABC reporter with a completely unrealistic and impossible to test "if - then" loop and a left wing SMH reporter as your sources of information, calling them factoids......these have no basis in authority.

Firstly, not everyone who disagrees with you is left wing.

Secondly, the first report (Alberici) simply highlights how cyclical revenues exascerbated the headline balance of the budget. Howard and Costello never experienced the pain of the GFC both in terms of a fall in revenues and the need to stimulate the economy.

Thirdly, the last report refers to an IMF report (is the IMF a stooge for left wing governments?) which said that (and I am paraphrasing) Howard and Costello spent like drunken sailors for the last 4 years they were in power.

Next you'll be using reliable "facts" quoted from ex-ABC reporter Maxine McKew and Bob Hogg's (ALP national president's wife) as the Labor member for Bennelong, or perhaps ex-ABC reporters Russell Woolf and Verity James who directed all preferences straight to the ALP during the Senate re-election here in WA..

You lost me in the middle of that political diatribe....

I see you've chosen to ignore the published and gazetted Government figures that have passed every scrutiny the Federal Parliament has to offer. The graphs are mine, but the data is straight from published Government papers over the past 20 years. No party waffle. No journo spin. No NGO agenda.

I haven't ignored them. The figures are what they are. That's boring to me as an economist.

So I have put them in context.

People who look at things objectively (and happen to be educated and experienced in the field) can do that.

I don't buy for a second your proclaimed 'fence sitter' status. Having spoken to over 10,000 Labor voters over the past 12 months, I can smell them a mile off.

I am a swing voter.

If I had voted at the last election I would have voted Rudd out.

Mind you, I never would have voted him in back in 2007 either.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xQLUQKZQ9o

Oh, my former boss (granted, a few times removed).

Small world, eh?

Greatest Treasurer we have ever had? Yeah, I would actually say he is. (There you go Dazz!)

[PC is a man with a razor sharp intellect. Shame Hockey is such a muppet.]

But, to put his performance as Treasurer in context...... [nah, I won't do that to you]

You my friend, are not a fence sitter.

Is that an indication that you don't take my posts personally?

You're right, I'm not on the fence. I know exactly where I stand. As I have said, I dislike all politicians equally.

 

[underdev]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4xQLUQKZQ9o

That man is by far the best treasurer Australia has ever had, If only we had Peter as PM during the last 6 years. We would be in 100's of billions of surplus.

Ah well Joe Hockey and Tony are of no comparison, hopefully Peter is steering things behind the scenes

 

[MarkB]

A Warning to Dazz

This post contains apparently pro-Liberal party content.

Your head may explode on reading it.

That man is by far the best treasurer Australia has ever had, If only we had Peter as PM during the last 6 years. We would be in 100's of billions of surplus.

Said it before and I will say it again.

If Howard had stepped down in favour of Costello 1/2 way through their 4th term, there is every chance we would have been spared the clown that was Rudd.

Ah well Joe Hockey and Tony are of no comparison, hopefully Peter is steering things behind the scenes

And we get these two as well...

Mr Unelectable.

And a muppet.

 

[random]

This is always such a surprising topic in a place like this considering everyone's suppose to be extreme money savvy investors - right !

So Howard had the biggest mining boom ever, right!
He sold Telstra , right ! How much did he get for that again ?
He even kicked war veterans of their pensions and forced invalids to go and work , didn't he !
Didn't we run outa doctors , tradies and were being told the lucky country couldn't have those little things anymore, right !
He brought in the gst which we still paid for now and will be paying for for the rest of our lives,right !
And Peter - "things will begin to get cheaper immediately" - remember that statement !
Well, we actually became one of the dearest and many say the dearest country in the world from about that statement on , right !
And did l not read somewhere , Howard was actually our highest taxing gov in history.

And hell , l'm not even smart

Rudd , well yeah , the guy was a disaster of sorts for sure but hey - Has anybody round here thought of where their property would be now, if he didn't spend that money exactly when he did ?
We'd just come out of our biggest boom ever and our property prices were the highest in the world according to some - another Howard gift .
Well , we were about to join the States , so where would we have been now ?
This debt is what saved your bacon a few years back and kept things moving instead of going down the toilet - right !

 

[dan c]

You're using some left wing ABC reporter with a completely unrealistic and impossible to test "if - then" loop and a left wing SMH reporter as your sources of information, calling them factoids......these have no basis in authority.

They were both referring to the IMF report. Is the IMF a left wing propaganda vehicle too?

For someone who wants to look at only facts, there are a lot of opinions and 'playing the man' in your post. Even poor ol' Maxine McKew cops a driveby!

 

[random]

Didn't everything under Howard in this country become so expensive that for the first time in our history , both hubby and wife had to work.

No average couple could afford not to both work by the end of his run.
l actually remember them slowly brainwashing the whole country into excepting mum and dad both work now . They were literally openly forcing women out of the home the way l remember it.
The reason l just brought this up was because of a clip right then 5 mins ago ,on Abbot starting the push once again to get more women out into the workforce. = more tax revenue.

To me l think there's something seriously wrong with the way a country is being run when a family can't get by on one wage any more if they'd like to .

 

[Aaron_C]

To me l think there's something seriously wrong with the way a country is being run when a family can't get by on one wage any more if they'd like to .

My emphasis. What is your expectation? I have been a single income family for a while and we manage just fine.

 

[HomePage]

We have a large growing debt?!

Yet.... We spend 12 Billion on aircraft that the US has stated are flawed!

The decision to buy these planes was made over a decade ago, by another government, under different economic conditions, and likely based on classified threat and capability information that neither you nor I are privy to. In other words, the link between this "extravagant" aircraft purchase and this year's tough budget is tenuous at best.

 

[sanj]

They say that so they don't have to take the blame. I'm sure they'd be thanking the Labor Party rather than taking the credit themselves if it was a positive situation. You can't have it both ways.

This country is going further down the toilet with every passing year. We pay the same rate of tax as many European nations but get about a tenth of the infrastructure and services. What a scam

A tenth of the infrastructure and services?? Exaggeration much?

 

[Ed Barton]

The simple truth is that few things **** me more than the 1/2 truths told by politicians.

How about this 1/32 truth...

But Mr Abbott told Fairfax radio on Tuesday that only a permanent increase would represent a broken election pledge.
?I think if there was a permanent increase in taxation that would certainly be inconsistent with the sort of things that were said before the election,? he said.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-polit...tony-abbott-20140429-zr13c.html#ixzz30KwQPOIX

Would Dazz be the only person on earth who thinks that a tax increase is not a broken promise to not increase taxes?

First we had the core and non core promises. Then we had the gospel truth. Now an increase is not an increase because it's only going to be around for a few years.

 

[HotRod]

I think Abbott has dug a big hole for himself.

He said there'd be no new taxes, but the budget needs to be clawed back into the black.

So, he either has to raise government income/taxes (which will be political suicide, exactly the same a Gillard with the carbon tax) or he lowers spending.

Lowering spending will hit the economy whilst trying to raise revenue (through god knows what, taxing big business again) will be his downfall.

Gawd, does anyone think they'll be another PM within this term of government??? At least a new PM could then legitimately raise taxes, because he didn't promise it.

 

[CHAOS]

It's not popular politics but they are doing what has to be done. Look at it this way, to avoid a recession Rudd gave everyone $1000. Now that times are a little better Abbott is taking that $1000 back.

Rudd did not give everyone $1000. He gave a select group of people $1000. And those who will be paying the $1000 in debt tax are not those who received.

I didn't care back then that I didn't get $1000 for a plasma. I. Did think it unfair that a friend received $5k out of that package as there was something like $1000 for each kid. This debt tax is a slap in the face for those who have made sacrifices somewhere in their journey to be on the coin they are on.