Aust not in midst of budget crisis: Labor

Date
    April 24, 2014
    The Age

Labor has dismissed Treasurer Joe Hockey's warnings about the spiralling costs of welfare, health and other government spending.      

In a speech in Sydney on Wednesday night, Mr Hockey unveiled some details from the soon-to-be-released commission of audit, which shows government spending has almost tripled in the past 40 years.

Over the medium term, the commission expects the 15 largest and fastest growing programs to be welfare, health, education and defence - in most cases growing considerably faster than the economy.

Mr Hockey flagged cuts across the board in the May budget, adding that a greater reliance on means testing and co-payments could be on the way.

Opposition finance spokesman Tony Burke rubbished the treasurer's bleak portrait of the budget.

"Countries that have triple-A credit ratings are not in the midst of a budget crisis," Mr Burke told ABC Radio on Thursday.

"None of the information that Joe Hockey's referring to there is new. They're wanting to pretend that they've just realised this through the commission of audit."

In his speech, Mr Hockey made particular mention of the pension, following speculation the government would increase the retirement age to 70.           

The $40 billion spent annually on the aged pension was more than that given to defence, hospitals or schools, Mr Hockey said.

Mr Burke said the government was simply laying the groundwork for changes to the aged pension, breaking an election promise.      

The commission of audit is due to be released next week.

It report makes 86 recommendations, but Mr Hockey says he will not automatically accept all them.

"Some can be actioned in the short term, others require further consideration and some will be rejected outright," he said in his speech on Wednesday.

Shadow assistant treasurer Andrew Leigh accused Mr Hockey of playing political games with the budget, after blocking the previous Labor government's savings measures when in opposition.      

The treasurer should acknowledge the fiscal impact of coalition decisions to scrap measures such as the mining and carbon taxes, he said.

"What we've got now from Joe Hockey is really the shadow treasurer in drag," Dr Leigh told ABC Radio.

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it is that kind of stupidity and blatant lies that make you look so stupid.

perceptions_now wrote on Apr 24^th, 2014 at 11:53am:


That's because actually advocating something different goes against the rhetoric fed to the majority of fairness and equality, it would be political suicide. All this shows is that they don't have the balls to lead the country. This is the problem with big government, it will never accept a downsize.

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Exactly, either they bite the bullet and make some hard choices people will hate or they continue to spit rhetoric into the eyes of the people in the hopes they keep eating it up. I really think they're playing hot potato with a bomb, hoping to get the most advantage they can and pass the bomb off to the other party before it explodes and they're blamed for it.

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Sadly we can't tax our way to prosperity, if you "tax the rich" it doesn't tax the rich it either hurts that business which hurts us all or it's passed on to employees/consumers or in the worst case they take their investments elsewhere.


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Here here!
Don't forget the housing and debt bubbles though.

Isn't it interesting that theses intellectuals in power pay no price for being wrong, we do. Thomas Sowell was right.

One of those additional Demographic issues, is the sliding Worker to Retiree ratio, which has been on the decline everywhere and in the USA it has gone from 7/1 in 1950, to around 4/1 now, on its way to around 3.5/1 in 2050

Kat wrote on Apr 24^th, 2014 at 9:00am:


quite the contrary.  The problem is that you see everything thru the one biased eye in your head.  If someone supports a policy position you disagree with you then assume thy disagree with you on everything.  That is why you are so mocked on here. 

If you had half a brain you would have seen SATIRE in my response.

John Smith wrote on Apr 24^th, 2014 at 4:41pm:


What is your opinion on the myriad of alternatives to this debate of cutting welfare VS taxing business?

For example:
Take the entire Welfare Budget $138.1 Billion, completely get rid of centre link and job service providers (lol), swap to a negative income tax that would see all of those without an income (Newstart/Disability/Aged Pension etc) all getting more say from 500/600/700 per fortnight to a straight 800 per fortnight each, they'd have their dignity back instead of being interrogated by two different groups every fortnight and they'd be given incentive to work. Then saving all of those Billions to reduce the deficit and provide tax cuts to all?

(ignoring for a moment those cut from public employment - their transition into the private sector would be a different topic)

Just out of curiosity.

John Smith wrote on Apr 24^th, 2014 at 4:41pm:


What is your opinion on the myriad of alternatives to this debate of cutting welfare VS taxing business?

For example:
Take the entire Welfare Budget $138.1 Billion, completely get rid of centre link and job service providers (lol), swap to a negative income tax that would see all of those without an income (Newstart/Disability/Aged Pension etc) all getting more say from 500/600/700 per fortnight to a straight 800 per fortnight each, they'd have their dignity back instead of being interrogated by two different groups every fortnight and they'd be given incentive to work. Then saving all of those Billions to reduce the deficit and provide tax cuts to all?

(ignoring for a moment those cut from public employment - their transition into the private sector would be a different topic)

Just out of curiosity.