BUDGET 2008 - predictions

[Miner]

My guess is other than having luxury tax they are going to have some sort of innovative surcharge on high income bracket, some discount on environmental free machines / cars/ recycle program, will remove work for dole scheme and make it easy to get dole. No smart technique as Wayne needs two more budgets to learn

 

[2020hindsight]

With WA way out in front of the rest of us ..
maybe a "special east-west equaliser" export tax on iron ore (?)
might bring the blighters back to the rest of the field

 

[2020hindsight]

Hell, why say you can save $2 million per year - when you can equally say you can save $20 million per decade !!? (or $8mill per 4 years etc etc )

PS how is it they can promise cuts (or spending) over 5 years? or 8 years or whatever? - when the electoral period is only 3?

 

[2020hindsight]

well Alan Kohler seems pretty impressed anyway

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/05/13/2243742.htm

Alan Kohler: Nip, cut, slash and put it in the bank
By Alan Kohler

Posted 1 hour 1 minute ago
Updated 33 minutes ago

When the former Treasurer Peter Costello said at a remarkable doorstop press conference this morning that Wayne Swan was the luckiest new Treasurer in history, he was absolutely right - but not for the reason he meant. It's because there was so much fat left in Government expenditures that could be painlessly cut away.

The Government, meanwhile, is playing down the centrepiece of its first Budget. It is not mentioned at all in Wayne Swan's Budget speech; he just sums up all the nice things that have previously been announced.

The core of the Budget - what it's really all about - is contained at the back of Budget paper No 2 - from pages 361 to 427. Here you will find 66 pages detailing 134 new savings measures, on top of the 46 cuts announced during the election campaign, totalling $1.6 billion in 2008-09.

The new savings total $5.7 billion in 2008-09, 11 dozen of them - big ones, small ones: nip, cut, slash.

The big picture of this Budget is that the Rudd Government has announced $5.3 billion worth of new spending for 2008-09 leading up to it, and has now announced savings of $7.3 billion, increasing the surplus by $2 billion.

In addition there are a total of $5.4 billion in unexpected increases in tax receipts and other windfalls since the pre-election fiscal outlook (PEFO) that was issued by Treasury during the election campaign last year.

As a result the $14.3 billion surplus forecast in the PEFO has now turned into a $21.7 billion surplus ($14.3 billion plus $2 billion plus $5.4 billion).

So whereas the Howard Government spent every cent of the commodities boom windfall, the new Government has so far put it all into the bank, and added another $2 billion to it by cancelling some of its predecessor's spending.

 

[Julia]

Did anyone see Malcolm Turnbull interviewed by Kerry O'Brien this evening following the Budget presentation?

If that's the best Mr Turnbull can do, then we'd best give up on him as the saviour of the Libs.

 

[wayneL]

Did anyone see Malcolm Turnbull interviewed by Kerry O'Brien this evening following the Budget presentation?

If that's the best Mr Turnbull can do, then we'd best give up on him as the saviour of the Libs.

I know he is roundly despised, but Costello will be sorely missed by the Libs. A shame fro the Libs I reckon.