Welcome to another week and this one is all about the Federal Budget, which will be handed down tomorrow night. Let’s have a quick look at what we can expect from the Coalition government in this one...
1. Self-congratulation: expect the Coalition to take credit for just about every good piece of data the economy has to offer. (They can’t, and shouldn’t, but they will anyway.)
2. Deflection: Anything bad going on will be attributed to the pandemic, recent flooding, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It won’t be that we weren’t prepared for those things; didn’t respond well; or that things weren’t great beforehand.
3. Grand promises: the economic indicators into the future will all be magically better than ever before, and, despite never eventuating we’ll act as though this time they will. Wgaes growth! Low interest rates! Falling unemployment! GDP growth! All coming, we promise!
4. Tax cuts and economic growth: All that good news means we can spend big and still cut taxes, even more. Stage 3 tax-cuts will be re-announced; the LMIO will be extended; one off bribes - ‘payments’ - as well...
… and we’ll be asked to ignore the fact, once more, that tax cuts for high income earners do not lead to greater economic growth, more jobs, or wages growth. It will be presented as a law of nature, though.
5. You get a car park! And you get a car park! EVERYBODY GETS A CAR PARK!
Well, maybe not a car park per se, but there’ll be a lot of money going to fund community projects in marginal seats. And I mean *a lot*. The government has set aside at least $16bn for buying votes.
Well, maybe not a car park per se, but there’ll be a lot of money going to fund community projects in marginal seats. And I mean *a lot*. The government has set aside at least $16bn for buying votes.
6. Women’s business: In the midst of a lot of gaslighting about how much the Coalition has done for women, there’ll be a plethora of announcements aimed to sound like a lot but really represent a pittance. Last year $250-odd million went to issues specific to women.
7. Re-announcements: It can be difficult to recognise it real time, but a lot of what gets announced will sound familiar - because it is. The Coalition has a habit of re-announcing things they’ve already announced; sometimes three or four times.
Take for example last week’s announcement of funding for endometriosis research - it was announced in 2019, 2020, and skipped in 2021 to set up another ‘Big Announcement’ tomorrow...
8. Small potatoes: speaking of a pittance, instead of investing the $$billions needed to seriously tackle our carbon emissions, expect a lot of piss and dribble instead. A few million here; a few million there. Enough to tick off the item from a list, but not achieve much.
9. No interest group left behind: there’s an election coming, so you can guarantee there’ll be something for everyone, although the big money will go - rest assured - where we’d list like it: fossil fuels and the military.
10. Wild Card: The government will announce funding for a Federal Integrity Commission. Not because they have any intention of delivering one, but so that no-one can say they aren’t.
11. (I missed one): Long Time Frames: announcements that wrap 10 years worth of funding up into a single number, making it seem much bigger than it is. Infrastructure, Aged Care being two examples. This Budget covers a few years at most; the rest are lies.
12. Record spending! (Sorry, but I can't leave this one off...) Expect the Treasurer to claim credit for record levels of expenditure on items that are indexed to inflation or paid per capita on a growing population.
And finally (really this time) a PSA: Do Not Use 'Mr Speaker' as the basis for a drinking game.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
