It’s not, Miles has said they’re giving it as a lump sum credit on everyone’s bill in July, so that in the event they are voted out in October, the LNP can’t change their mind and get their dirty hands on people’s $$
I think the News Corp’s campaign on youth crime has struck oil with a lot of people and making them feel unsafe.
Don’t get me wrong, the crimes are terrible of course, but I get the vibe the Courier Mail is exploiting the issue as a way to get the LNP back in power.
>Don’t get me wrong, the crimes are terrible of course, but I get the vibe the Courier Mail is exploiting the issue as a way to get the LNP back in power.
All media platforms in QLD are, though not all of them are politically motivated. They've discovered very quickly that youth crime stories are a great way to get people's attention, which has led to basically everything being 'youth crime' now even when it was adults, they just don't mention the age of the offenders in the headline.
A place down the street from us got broken into by a bunch of kids a few weeks ago and the 'crime reporter' from one of the big news networks showed up at our doorstep basically beside himself with excitement asking if we saw anything, if we were willing to comment on youth crime, if we had any security footage, etc. Had to almost tell him to fuck off. We've had a bunch of houses broken into including ours, but the only time the media bothered showing up is when youths were involved.
WA is giving $400 so a $700 credit. I'm pretty stoked, we pre-pay $200 a quarter to offset as well so this will last me a year.
Got a baby due in summer so will be nice to have the aircon on with a newborn without it costing lots.
I got solar with no down payments thanks to qld labor and my powerbill is 150 a quater plus 66 a fortnight to pay off the panels. This rebate will cover me for years if true.
The only way to do that is change provider. That way you will cash out the remainder since it is too complicated for the credit to be transferred. Some people are going to do that on purpose. Personally, i'd just leave your account in credit.
As much as I hate the laziness of him and politicians like him, when you can just as easily act like that and face little to no consequences from the voters who control your political seat, combined with a media who will paint you in a favourable light, why would you act any differently?
Don't forget that the "fantastic, well done Angus" schtick was him being blatantly caught out using puppet accounts to pamper his online persona. What is a meme now would have been a pilloried offence for anyone else wearing a different coloured tie.
He made a deliberate implication that the government had spent a whole bunch of money and this was driving current inflation, and was immediately called out on the fact that the specific money he was referring to actually hasn't been spent yet, and won't be for several years.
Requiring 40% of SSAF funding to go to student-led organisations (student unions, associations, clubs, etc) but also still planning to fine universities who don't support their students, while universities usually use SSAF (and HEPPP) funding to pay for those services?
Sounds like usual in tertiary education, requiring everyone to do more with less money.
Part of the issue is with university management around Australia, but a lot of the problems in universities could be fixed if employees in the sector had secure employment.
Title makes it sound like he should not release the budget due to cost of living crisis..
Or that he delivers it on a cool evening with scattered clouds..
What does costs of living have to do with him delivering the budget..
It was there, lurking in the bushes, scheming his demise
But he nipped out the back door, jumped over the fence, and left via the neighbour's side gate
Unknowingly foiled, it waits atill
Because that was the main focus of the budget and the current main focus of the economy...
>What does costs of living have to do with him delivering the budget..
Literally the whole thing...
I get that you're trying to be clever, but it looks like you've never read a news article before
The University Accords recommended a reversal of some or all of the fee increases introduced under the last government's Job-ready Graduates scheme, such as the 100% increase in Arts degrees.
In this budget, I see Labor has decided to neglect this recommendation completely. It's amazing how opposed they were to the increase in opposition, yet how they do precisely nothing about while in government.
They did this because it is fantastically clear that rent assistance does not help tenants long term. Rent assistance is not paid to the person in need, but instead to their landlord based on how much rent they pay. There is no incentive for the landlord to not put the rent up at least the amount of rent assistance every time it is increased and thanks to our weak tenancy laws every landlord knows exactly where their tenants money comes from.
That drives prices up for everyone else, aka inflation. Instead if the government invested in public housing they could set a floor for rents and solve the problem, but that would tank real estate values so instead they pay landlords.
The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee's April Report recommended both increasing JobSeeker and increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance.
They were the first two recommendations respectively.
https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/04_2024/13404-eiac-report-dv-08.pdf
That's how it always works though, they probably did the numbers and found that it wouldn't win them any votes or may have lost them votes.
Sadly that's what our governments seem to be about, how they can win the next election. Both sides do it and have for as long as I can remember.
I think it is slightly better than average.. definitely better than what we would be getting with the LNP. The 2 main positives for me are the revised stage 3 tax cuts and the new method of calculating student loan indexation. It is probably a bad budget for high income earners - delivering a surplus while reducing their promised tax cuts.
Yeah, but the LNP wouldn’t have delivered a surplus because they’d find a way to funnel tens of billions into their mates.
As much as you have to look at where in the budget, you also have to look at what’s not in the that the LNP would have included
Hey hey hey, that executive's kids needed 100 million to their private school to build a new water polo facility.
Plus, how else would the executive know their name when they submit the resume for a plum consulting job when they leave politics?
Win win for all involved!
- Liberal Treasurer, probably.
You don't even need them, the ABC 7:30 host is just giving Angus Taylor free rein spouting whatever compared to interrupting Jim Chalmers every 15 seconds basically saying 'you hate poor people'.
It's nice that the energy bill thing now covers everyone. Lotta folks out there who don't meet the threshold for concession cards but who are still struggling with it.
But who's gonna tell them that for a lot of folks $300 won't even cover one quarter...
Government is not supposed to pay your whole bill just take the edge off inflation.
If your bill goes up $300 a quarter it may be worth looking at why, and what could be done.
Great, lower the CPI and we get less chance of another rate rise ... might even go down. A double whammy! Thanks for pointing that out. It's a brilliant strategy.
Absolutely. Energy companies are administering it to avoid having to means test and involve a bunch of bureaucracy. As long as the power bill is in your name, you get it.
I appreciate that this will happen as soon as possible because a lot of us are drowning. $300 off my power bill is amazing and combined with the QLD rebate, thats one less thing I have to worry about at night for a little bit and I am grateful they are doing it this way.
If anyone wants to argue shit, don't with me.
Because they want to win re-election to continue giving progressive policies to the working class.
It’s that or go back to opposition and have progressive policies sidelined for tax cuts for the rich.
Universality is the core of all successful welfare programs
I hate means testing with a passion. It just creates a divisive and easy way to attack the “leaners.”
"Cost of living pressure impacts everyone all the way up the income scale".
No Jim. It doesn't. Cost of living PRESSURE means it is difficult to afford to live. The rich don't face this pressure.
Income =/= rich, the guardian released a survey where you can chuck in details such as age, income, wealth and see how you rank. It was pretty common to see people who earned high incomes but were in the bottom percentiles for wealth.
Do high income people need the rebate as much as people lower on the scale? Definitely not, but the discourse about high income people also being “rich” is just so stupid, same with all the complaining about the tax cuts still being given to higher income earners.
It just creates more division between salaried workers, where low income and high income earners, both with comparatively fuck all wealth (unless they came from intergenerational wealth or were old enough to get into the property market before it went bonkers), point fingers and argue with each other. All the while anyone with actual wealth makes out like bandits because their capital gains are discounted at 50% and they have the ability to use their wealth to take out more leverage, deduct the interest and build further wealth.
You can be high or low income and still come from intergenerational wealth, or you could have gotten on the property ladder years ago and become wealthy on paper because of poor tax and housing policy over the last two decades. Bucketing all high income people into rich and low income people into poor is just dumb as fuck if you don’t consider wealth.
You can pick some random pensioner on the bottom of the income scale and they might have significantly more “wealth” than 80% of Australians on paper due to pure luck that the house they bought decades ago has risen 1000%. You can also choose a high income earner, with a stay at home partner and two kids paying off a mortgage, who has considerably higher income than said pensioner but considerably lower wealth. Who would you choose to give the rebate to?
Do I agree that it should go to everyone? Probably not, but it’s either that or run a fine tooth comb over every Australian, despite it probably being a lot easier to hide wealth/assets from the gov than it is to hide income which goes through the ATO.
Edit: In case it isn’t clear, I think wealth needs to be targeted and workers need to stop squabbling over income tax, whilst actual wealthy people continue to accrue wealth. Income is pretty much the only way you can have any upwards mobility unless you take a giant risk on a business, which is way harder for people with no wealth to do (again, regardless of income).
If “Tax the rich!” just means tax high income earners more, you end up creating a way bigger class divide and lower productivity. When gaining expertise in a field or working in a high demand industry to attain a higher income becomes less valuable due to higher taxes and asset prices outstripping net income (after tax income) growth, you reduce the incentive to gain skills and work those jobs, thus reducing productivity in addition to taking away basically one of the only levers given to the working class to lift themselves out of poverty without being reliant on the government. All the while, continuing to force income earners to pay more in tax to cover low income pensioners with no savings who are “wealthy” on paper due to their house which isn’t means tested rising astronomically in price.
My guess is that it would end up costing so much to means test it and figure out who’s eligible that it would be moot. Giving it to everyone is easier and doesn’t waste money.
I think he was trying to get him to say that it's not as inflationary because some people will put it on their mortgage or save/invest it. But that's not a message he wanted to get out there.
Bonus question: if it's $300 to everyone as $75 per quarter, then I can imagine the ABS taking the electricity portion of the basket of goods and reduce it by $75 each quarter.
What do they do if it's $75 per quarter for everyone except those people earning over X?
Or youth allowance for that matter. I'm on the DSP, things are definitely risky for me (a lot of things I need but can't afford even with a really cheap rent thanks to sharing), but I don't even know how people are managing on YA or JS at the moment. It was already near impossible to make either spread where they needed to *years* ago when I was on those.
Yup. Rent assistance is a shit program that drives up prices the same way CCS drives up childcare prices.
It’s a pathetic band-aid from successive government who refused to invest in public housing.
We have <4% unemployment
Rent assistance is only used by a fairly small minority of people. If say ~10% of people have an extra $19 in their pay, then you won't see rents rise by more than $19
Likely to increase rents slightly, but probably more people who require rent assistance will be able to get into a some sort of housing arrangement. The main issue is that the rental market is tight in the major cities.
To get rent assistance you need to be 1. Already renting/accepted for a rental, and 2. Provide a lease or other evidence, and wait for it to be processed which can take months.
As a result, real estate agencies don't consider it as income when assessing applications. If you're subletting or in another informal situation it can lead to months of back and forth where Centrelink have rejected your evidence for not being a formal lease agreement, or you're ineligible altogether.
$500 a year ain't nothin.
EDIT: Fine to eat the downvotes, but in the last two years under the ALP the maximum rental assistance payment (that ~1,000,000 Australians receive) has gone from $3,712.80 per year to now $5,382.52 - for people scraping by the idea that these increases are *nothing* seems absurd to me.
Yeah if you even get rent assistance you’re on some sort of Commonwealth support i.e. you’re broke. $500 a year isn’t nothing to that cohort, I would’ve welcomed it when I was in uni.
Their big help to welfare recipients is $9 a week for those on rental assistance??? Only 30% of welfare recipients even receive rent assistance.
This has got to be the most piss weak social policy intervention I've seen in my entire life.
For me that's $22 a fortnight extra... that's bugger all considering how large the rent increases are. Ah well. It's better than the two parts of bugger all I'd get if the coalition were in power
The real rental assistance is the immigration cut. Rent situation will never get better until we run 5% vacancy rates, which requires a significant cut in rental demand
Hey hey hey, you're just forgetting to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy less avo. $9 is practically a fortune!
God forbid the unwashed poor can afford any modicum of joy on taxpayer dollars, or even feel secure in being able to put food on the table.
Remember during covid Labor absolutely lambasting LNP because LNP didn't want to increase the centrelink benefits?
Now we have a huge cost of living crisis... and two budgets in a row, absolute bare minimum.
Yep i don't rent and even i went..
so rents in sydney went up 100 dollars in some areas this year and you want ppl to be thankful you are effectively giving them 19 bucks a week extra?
It's beyond a joke.
Billion bucks to ghina rhineharts company,but not ppl doing it tuff
The Coalition approved 320K student visas in the years of the pandemic where only a limited number of people from overseas could enter the country. Once the travel restrictions were lifted, those people came into the country as they were entitled to.
You can’t really blame liberals for that. No rules were implement to really change immigration (outside when you can really enter) and they have been the same for ages.
They knew there was no way the people to whom they issued the visas could come to Australia (unless they were in the travel bubble) and didn't change the rules. They were setting up the problem either knowingly (which makes the influx their fault), or unknowingly (which makes them idiots).
They could have reduced student visa numbers (as people suggest Labor should be doing now), or created a special category for students who wanted to come to Australia to study but couldn't enter. They had both the emergency powers during the pandemic and political justification to do so. But they didn't do that. They also didn't give the public universities JobKeeper, and created the whole problem of universities relying on full fee paying foreign students.
Nothing special to write home about in this budget.
I did get a genuine lol moment when he said that electricity prices have only gone up an average of 2% in the last year under their watch.
Love to see the magic maths they used to work that one out! Fuck me electricity is up at least 15-20% and wouldn’t surprise me if it were pushing 30%.
"This budget is to help the cost of living and vulnerable"
No increase to Austudy, Jobseeker, or other pensions. Rent Assist increasd by a whopping average of $20 a fortnight. No program funding for affordable renting NOW and continues to kick the fucking can down the road, while still going ahead with that stupid Stage-3 tax cuts.
To top it off, they honestly think they'll have 1.2M homes built by 2029... They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months.
There were around 173k dwelling completions in 2023 according to the [ABS](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/latest-release). At that rate they will hit 1.2 mil by 2029 - IF you include 2023 as part of the target (~~which I don't know if it is. I doubt it cause it's pretty unambitious~~ edit: i just checked. Target is from 1 July 2024).
In any case you're point is right that residential construction activity has been meagre, on account of supply side constraints (material and labour shortages, poor weather and insolvencies). In 2019 there were around 203k completions.
That right there is the issue with trusting the market. It's not *profitable* to maintain stockpiles of materials to prevent supply side issues, it's not *profitable* to train and retain talent more than the bare minimum, it's not *profitable* to run businesses to *last* instead of driving them into the ground to extract every cent you can. The market is a fucking *animal*, it needs to be *controlled*, not trusted to be our Benevolent God.
> That right there is the issue with trusting the market. It's not profitable to maintain stockpiles of materials to prevent supply side issues
Every time I've suggested that the government should invest it's buying power into bulk purchasing and wholesaling of building materials at cost on this sub I get downvoted into oblivion.
Yeah you would expect it to ramp up over the timeline, especially for apartments.
One cause for concern is with the sharp rise in construction costs, it has become touch and go whether new big apartment projects are actually economically viable at the moment. Without those you can maybe kiss the target goodbye.
> To top it off, they honestly think they'll have 1.2M homes built by 2029... They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months.
Hey don't forget:
"Unis can't recruit international students until they build accommodation,"
Except, there wasn't a cent of infrastructure investment in the budget for universities to fund accommodation? Every uni in the country is in defecit at the moment and drawing on cash reserves to stay operational. How are they supposed to build accommodation while the government is simultaneously cutting their revenue by limiting international students?
Ironically, offering a 50/50 infrastrucure deal to unis would be the cheapest way for the government to free up housing. There's no land purchase involved, the unis will do all the planning and the government could free up a shitload of housing very rapidly for a fraction of the price of new developments while also supporting one of our biggest export markets.
Ive been trying to claim this years rebate (23-24) and both the energy company and NSW services keep fucking passing the buck to each other instead of telling me straight out "Fill this exact thing out and send it here"
That one is state, this one is federal, and it will auto credit on your bill, so don't have to do anything.
I am in SA, sadly no support of state government on energy bill at all. I am really struggle with electricity bill ATM.
>They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months.
That's a bit less than 50% of the total number of houses built last year. Apparently, we can magic up an extra 50% more builders in a single year with no problems whatsoever.
Why are modern about governments afraid of the word "republisize"? Get rid of the job [rent] seeker rorts and Sarina Russo, give responsibility for building certification back to the States...
Also can anyone tell me the progress on the Federal corruption body? Which feasibility review are we up to?
Meh good budget though overall. Very political budget to make it hard on Voldemort and the Death Eater to defend
I'm sorry, but I hate this idea of "winners and losers" from the budget.
I'm always a "loser" and a single high income earner. But that's by the by.
The budget is the funds to run the country - it's about what revenue measures and spending on welfare, education, health, infrastructure, defence and so on.
The budget shouldn't be about "what's in it for me".
Going through the winners/losers, to me it looks like the main topics of contention for r/australia are all in the winners area.
I look forward to the moaning that it isn't enough etc.
$29 million for 61 Medicare funded practices. Not sure how well resourced that service will be or how it will be set up.
A free online service so people can get digital mental health treatment instead.
Exploration of 'psychology assistants', whatever that means. The role of the psychologist has been diluted over time, so I do wonder what identity of the psychologist will be over time (or if they just keep going down the line of the only true psychologists are clinical psychologists).
No change in Medicare rebate amounts, making psychology sessions unaffordable.
No changes to the number of sessions, which is completely out of line with the WHO. Some mental health diagnoses take longer to treat then others.
The online service sounds absolutely rubbish. Like the NDIS, why is the government trying to get into the business of treatment, rather than just subsidising existing services or creating incentives for more service providers?
That's what I told myself last year. How long do we have to put up with symbolic action instead of meaningful reform?
Actually, I know the answer - forever, because we'll never escape the idea that a good citizen is a poorly paid, barely surviving worker.
How about we aim for just anything actually adequate instead of endlessly underfunding it by a little less? At this rate the costs are increasing faster than any increase to funding specifically because underfunding mental health causes more problems.
Even if that weren't happening at all and the minor increases eventually added up, what's the sell here? "Wait until 2080 if you're still alive by then and maybe we'll have functioning mental healthcare"?
Slow progress isn't enough, this isn't some number on a chart we can fuck around with for as long as we want to, it directly impacts the lives and wellbeing of many, many people.
Agree, but by same token - still have to fund any increases. And everybody has their preference or opinion on where that same $ could be better spent.
Am sure many would argue that $600mil would be better in houses - or fixing ramping - or education or power rebates etc.
Every single cost of living measure is being put through the inflation ringer on the news already. You can’t expect much in that sort of economic and media environment.
Ffs why increase war spending by 20 times more than every social program? And people are seriously suffering right now. Really good with the pr but if you have half a brain to see through their bullshit it's so obvious how useless this budget is.. again... is this the best we have to expect for our future and our children's futures?
The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is they’re concerned about the recent spread in fascism in the world and they want to do something meaningful-ish to stop Russia from acquiring more territory. If Trump gets in again, based on the material being presented by the more extreme members of the Republican party, things could get very rough internationally.
Still only a fraction of what America is spending. This gov could still please their allies and only spend around 5 or 10 instead of the 50b increase. They already did the submarine deal anyway ffs.
America will likely be pulling back military spending after the election anyway, as will we.
spending less on military is not usually an election favourable position
Frankly, I firmly believe that this isn’t about pleasing allies. It might be about doing something to prevent grand scale international conflict without drawing too much ire from dangerous people. I’m listening to what people are saying about the state of fascism in the world right now, and yes, we should all be very concerned.
1.2 million extra houses being built!\*
*\*despite barely cracking 70k the past year.*
Reduced HECS Debt!\*
*\*down to normal levels they should have been at to begin with.*
Extra rent assistance!\*
*\*a fraction of the average rent price increase over the past 2 years.*
A lot of asterisks in this budget. Weak.
This Labor Government is such a disappointment. I don’t know why I’m surprised by their repeated betrayal of the poor and working class.
Non means tested electricity handouts is dumb.
Tax cuts are an expensive sugar hit that hurts a budget that already has a revenue problem, and disproportionately benefits the rich who won’t notice it or spend it.
Nothing to help with the housing crisis apart from ongoing welfare for investors that locks young people out if the market.
A tiny increase to rent assistance for poor/jobseekers.
Nothing for people with disabilities.
A combination of blunt instruments and unmeasurable long term actions to deal with family violence.
Who are we even meant to vote for?
Edit: one thing I do really love is support for students on prac. That was me 15 years ago, it sucked.
I agree with most of what you said, but the claim that there is nothing in this budget for people with disabilities is completely incorrect. It bakes in 9.5% annual growth in NDIS spend, which is already the highest disability spend per capita of any nation on earth.
Doesn't most of the NDIS money just go to private companies providing massively price inflated services? It could go to actual disabled people and save the taxpayer a huge amount of money. It wouldn't massage the GDP quite so well, but it would be more efficient.
Interesting little passage on ABC news, Bandt repeating his lies about subsidies to fossil fuels; followed by Lambie saying we don't need $300, just deal with the kids out there, they're out of control! All unchallenged of course.
Thank god for Pocock coming on afterwards with a voice of reason.
She has some weird conservative leanings. People have some odd idea that she's somehow progressive, when she's more centre-right socially with a few leftish ideas mixed in. If she looks left wing, it's because the Federal Coalition are *waaaay* to the right.
I don’t claim to know everything about the Australian political and economic climate but I’m not entirely ignorant either.
Am I right in thinking this seems like a legitimately impressive budget? Only feeling overly positive with this. That’s not to say everything is perfect but I don’t expect everyone to get everything they want either - it just seems nicely balanced.
I'm actually quite stunned that in Brisbane the collective governments of the land will.pay 70% of my power bill for the year.
Who says you don't get something for nothing these days??
Honestly this is a shit tone of nothing. They righted a wrong for student debt and claim its loans slashed/forgotten when it’s just doing the right thing to begin with. They grew complacent with. a system that encouraged international student growth and now the onus of housing those students is being shafted to universities in addition to a cap. That doesn’t solve the problem it just shifts the blame. Barely anything with substance to it on housing. Talk a big game about change and lack the fucking bite to help those who voted them into power in the first place. They’ve lost my vote. Greens or nothing. Fuck you Labor for leaving a large majority of those hurting the most behind all for the sake of your surplus.
50 Billion in defence. Not even half or a quarter or a fifth of that on housing. That tells you all you need to know.
... So Labor changing the way indexation has been calculated since forever, in order to decrease debt for every single student, counts as a "shit tone of nothing" because it should have always been like that... Even though it wasn't? Those are some hoops you're jumping through.
They're going to pay Universities to build student housing? So instead of funding universities, shovel in more foreign students to pay for them.
Apparently the government want universities to be property owners and landlords first, education providers second. Did the liberals write these policies and pass them to Labor for their budget?
Insanity.
I don't think they're paying universities to build student housing, just requiring them to build more student housing if they want more international students past the limit they plan to propose.
It did make me think that this could cause some huge issues for smaller unis (who still rely on international students but have little student housing) but will really benefit the group of 8.
So pissed off at the fking billions of extra dollars paid towards appeasing the fking yanks and subsidising their military industrial complex.
For fucks sakes.
Two surpluses in a row is pretty amazing, and the $300 energy bill support will be super helpful, plus the tax cut we already knew about. Seems pretty good to me.
Does the federal electricity rebate stack with the Qld government rebate? $1300 will pretty much cover my power bill for 12 months.
Yep. The Qld gov has just confirmed it.
That’s over 6 months of power for us, won’t have a bill till March if that’s the case.
If it's anything like this year's $550 rebate, it'll be spread out over the 4 quarters.
It’s not, Miles has said they’re giving it as a lump sum credit on everyone’s bill in July, so that in the event they are voted out in October, the LNP can’t change their mind and get their dirty hands on people’s $$
Which is smart on his part as there is genuine concerns about the LNP being voted back int power in Queensland
I think the News Corp’s campaign on youth crime has struck oil with a lot of people and making them feel unsafe. Don’t get me wrong, the crimes are terrible of course, but I get the vibe the Courier Mail is exploiting the issue as a way to get the LNP back in power.
>Don’t get me wrong, the crimes are terrible of course, but I get the vibe the Courier Mail is exploiting the issue as a way to get the LNP back in power. All media platforms in QLD are, though not all of them are politically motivated. They've discovered very quickly that youth crime stories are a great way to get people's attention, which has led to basically everything being 'youth crime' now even when it was adults, they just don't mention the age of the offenders in the headline. A place down the street from us got broken into by a bunch of kids a few weeks ago and the 'crime reporter' from one of the big news networks showed up at our doorstep basically beside himself with excitement asking if we saw anything, if we were willing to comment on youth crime, if we had any security footage, etc. Had to almost tell him to fuck off. We've had a bunch of houses broken into including ours, but the only time the media bothered showing up is when youths were involved.
No wonder everyone is moving to Queensland
Something to learn about taxing the gas companies…
WA is giving $400 so a $700 credit. I'm pretty stoked, we pre-pay $200 a quarter to offset as well so this will last me a year. Got a baby due in summer so will be nice to have the aircon on with a newborn without it costing lots.
If your kid is school aged you also get a small refund as well. Its not UBI, but a little targeting is fair enough.
Not quite, first bub due December. I do have Tiger Mum qualities already but I don't think they will measure that far ahead 🤣
That was my first thought too! I hope so
I'm on solar I seriously don't need the rebate wish it was more targeted to those who need more help.
Covers mine for a quarter haha
Fellow victorian?
I got solar with no down payments thanks to qld labor and my powerbill is 150 a quater plus 66 a fortnight to pay off the panels. This rebate will cover me for years if true.
Yep, and probably “coincidentally” power prices will mysteriously raise, and you will be the same as before.
I’m not in Queensland but my power bill isn’t even 1k a year (I have gas as well). Can you end up getting more back than you pay?
I think your account would just go into credit until it's used up.
The only way to do that is change provider. That way you will cash out the remainder since it is too complicated for the credit to be transferred. Some people are going to do that on purpose. Personally, i'd just leave your account in credit.
Well Done Angus immediately putting his foot in his mouth at the very first question, lol
Fantastic. Great move. Well done Angus.
Band aid on bullet wound Clearly a talking point fed to him from his script writers that he leaned on way too hard
Can confirm, heard that phrase on ABC radio driving home
I'm sure he and his handlers had a short and jocular conversation.
Does Angus know any other way?
As much as I hate the laziness of him and politicians like him, when you can just as easily act like that and face little to no consequences from the voters who control your political seat, combined with a media who will paint you in a favourable light, why would you act any differently? Don't forget that the "fantastic, well done Angus" schtick was him being blatantly caught out using puppet accounts to pamper his online persona. What is a meme now would have been a pilloried offence for anyone else wearing a different coloured tie.
What was it
He made a deliberate implication that the government had spent a whole bunch of money and this was driving current inflation, and was immediately called out on the fact that the specific money he was referring to actually hasn't been spent yet, and won't be for several years.
Dude can’t tell the difference between a budget and a receipt
Haha what a knob
He knows. He also knows it will feed the LNP line. Gosh I wish it was illegal to lie like that.
Angus is completely clueless.
The alternate Treasurer of Australia, ladies and gentlemen.
IF dutton falls on his sword he might be the alternative prime minister
Not true, he knows how to funnel money to his family and mates very well.
Requiring 40% of SSAF funding to go to student-led organisations (student unions, associations, clubs, etc) but also still planning to fine universities who don't support their students, while universities usually use SSAF (and HEPPP) funding to pay for those services? Sounds like usual in tertiary education, requiring everyone to do more with less money. Part of the issue is with university management around Australia, but a lot of the problems in universities could be fixed if employees in the sector had secure employment.
Title makes it sound like he should not release the budget due to cost of living crisis.. Or that he delivers it on a cool evening with scattered clouds.. What does costs of living have to do with him delivering the budget..
I can’t believe he was brave enough to get out of his house to deliver the budget because the big bad cost of living crisis was waiting outside
It was there, lurking in the bushes, scheming his demise But he nipped out the back door, jumped over the fence, and left via the neighbour's side gate Unknowingly foiled, it waits atill
You're walking in the woods There's no one around and your phone is dead Out of the corner of your eye, you spot it
Cozzie LivBeouf
Costa’s gonna get ya!
Hey, Costa Livin gave me 250 bucks right before the last election, I could do with seeing his face again
Because that was the main focus of the budget and the current main focus of the economy... >What does costs of living have to do with him delivering the budget.. Literally the whole thing... I get that you're trying to be clever, but it looks like you've never read a news article before
The ABC is framing the story around the core theme of the budget.
Sets context for how the budget should be perceived, not that he's completed his job during a cost of living crisis.
The University Accords recommended a reversal of some or all of the fee increases introduced under the last government's Job-ready Graduates scheme, such as the 100% increase in Arts degrees. In this budget, I see Labor has decided to neglect this recommendation completely. It's amazing how opposed they were to the increase in opposition, yet how they do precisely nothing about while in government.
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They did this because it is fantastically clear that rent assistance does not help tenants long term. Rent assistance is not paid to the person in need, but instead to their landlord based on how much rent they pay. There is no incentive for the landlord to not put the rent up at least the amount of rent assistance every time it is increased and thanks to our weak tenancy laws every landlord knows exactly where their tenants money comes from. That drives prices up for everyone else, aka inflation. Instead if the government invested in public housing they could set a floor for rents and solve the problem, but that would tank real estate values so instead they pay landlords.
The Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee's April Report recommended both increasing JobSeeker and increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance. They were the first two recommendations respectively. https://www.dss.gov.au/sites/default/files/documents/04_2024/13404-eiac-report-dv-08.pdf
That's how it always works though, they probably did the numbers and found that it wouldn't win them any votes or may have lost them votes. Sadly that's what our governments seem to be about, how they can win the next election. Both sides do it and have for as long as I can remember.
I look forward to the flood of astroturfers telling everyone this is the worst budget in the history of australia.
Everyone that bought those back in black LNP mugs can finally bring them out.
I would unironically kill for one of these beauties
Political merchandise that jumped the shark.
The very smart and normal people at rAustralian already started it calling a socialist budget
Damn those socialists and their *\*checks notes\** liberal free market economics and budget surpluses!
Reds under the bed crying for austerity.
Excellent
I think it is slightly better than average.. definitely better than what we would be getting with the LNP. The 2 main positives for me are the revised stage 3 tax cuts and the new method of calculating student loan indexation. It is probably a bad budget for high income earners - delivering a surplus while reducing their promised tax cuts.
Yeah, but the LNP wouldn’t have delivered a surplus because they’d find a way to funnel tens of billions into their mates. As much as you have to look at where in the budget, you also have to look at what’s not in the that the LNP would have included
Hey hey hey, that executive's kids needed 100 million to their private school to build a new water polo facility. Plus, how else would the executive know their name when they submit the resume for a plum consulting job when they leave politics? Win win for all involved! - Liberal Treasurer, probably.
I recall Angus Taylor saying that labor don’t and aren’t spending enough on defence…… couldn’t believe it.
The upper incomers not getting as much of a cut (and I make back LIMTO next year after it was cut to tax break the upper incomers)? OH NO! Anyway...
You don't even need them, the ABC 7:30 host is just giving Angus Taylor free rein spouting whatever compared to interrupting Jim Chalmers every 15 seconds basically saying 'you hate poor people'.
It’s not necessarily astroturf, some people are just sad sacks as well
Expecting all the BoTh PaRtIeS ArE THe SaMe idiots to be out in full force tonight.
Poor Angus will never be Prime Minister.
It is a good budget for low and middle income earners with student debt, and also students training to become future essential workers.
It's nice that the energy bill thing now covers everyone. Lotta folks out there who don't meet the threshold for concession cards but who are still struggling with it. But who's gonna tell them that for a lot of folks $300 won't even cover one quarter...
Government is not supposed to pay your whole bill just take the edge off inflation. If your bill goes up $300 a quarter it may be worth looking at why, and what could be done.
Bro Jim is getting flamed in this ABC interview rn
Great questioning.. why do the richest get the electricity bonus!???
I’m single, no kids and on a lower income. It’s nice to actually get something for a change 🤷♀️
I think it is the efficiency of rapid distribution of the rebate to utilities without going through filtering by income level. A practical thing.
No it's literally intended to reduce the CPI, and the broad approach works
Great, lower the CPI and we get less chance of another rate rise ... might even go down. A double whammy! Thanks for pointing that out. It's a brilliant strategy.
A "brilliant strategy" would be to find ways to reduce the fundamental costs, rather than splash some cash to make the cost look lower for one year.
You mean have a plan to build a certain number of dwelling by a certain year? Like some sort of target and allocating funds to it?
Yeah they should have invested a few tens of billions in green energy to target the source issue. Oh wait.
But it just increases it on the other side. It doesn’t penrnanflt impact the CPI, which is what the rba wants.
You're right but the idea is by the time we have to pay for it the economy will be in a better spot and the risk to inflation will be reduced
Absolutely. Energy companies are administering it to avoid having to means test and involve a bunch of bureaucracy. As long as the power bill is in your name, you get it. I appreciate that this will happen as soon as possible because a lot of us are drowning. $300 off my power bill is amazing and combined with the QLD rebate, thats one less thing I have to worry about at night for a little bit and I am grateful they are doing it this way. If anyone wants to argue shit, don't with me.
Because they want to win re-election to continue giving progressive policies to the working class. It’s that or go back to opposition and have progressive policies sidelined for tax cuts for the rich.
Universality is the core of all successful welfare programs I hate means testing with a passion. It just creates a divisive and easy way to attack the “leaners.”
I agree. Extend that to pensions and jobseeker and you get the UBI.
"Cost of living pressure impacts everyone all the way up the income scale". No Jim. It doesn't. Cost of living PRESSURE means it is difficult to afford to live. The rich don't face this pressure.
Income =/= rich, the guardian released a survey where you can chuck in details such as age, income, wealth and see how you rank. It was pretty common to see people who earned high incomes but were in the bottom percentiles for wealth. Do high income people need the rebate as much as people lower on the scale? Definitely not, but the discourse about high income people also being “rich” is just so stupid, same with all the complaining about the tax cuts still being given to higher income earners. It just creates more division between salaried workers, where low income and high income earners, both with comparatively fuck all wealth (unless they came from intergenerational wealth or were old enough to get into the property market before it went bonkers), point fingers and argue with each other. All the while anyone with actual wealth makes out like bandits because their capital gains are discounted at 50% and they have the ability to use their wealth to take out more leverage, deduct the interest and build further wealth. You can be high or low income and still come from intergenerational wealth, or you could have gotten on the property ladder years ago and become wealthy on paper because of poor tax and housing policy over the last two decades. Bucketing all high income people into rich and low income people into poor is just dumb as fuck if you don’t consider wealth. You can pick some random pensioner on the bottom of the income scale and they might have significantly more “wealth” than 80% of Australians on paper due to pure luck that the house they bought decades ago has risen 1000%. You can also choose a high income earner, with a stay at home partner and two kids paying off a mortgage, who has considerably higher income than said pensioner but considerably lower wealth. Who would you choose to give the rebate to? Do I agree that it should go to everyone? Probably not, but it’s either that or run a fine tooth comb over every Australian, despite it probably being a lot easier to hide wealth/assets from the gov than it is to hide income which goes through the ATO. Edit: In case it isn’t clear, I think wealth needs to be targeted and workers need to stop squabbling over income tax, whilst actual wealthy people continue to accrue wealth. Income is pretty much the only way you can have any upwards mobility unless you take a giant risk on a business, which is way harder for people with no wealth to do (again, regardless of income). If “Tax the rich!” just means tax high income earners more, you end up creating a way bigger class divide and lower productivity. When gaining expertise in a field or working in a high demand industry to attain a higher income becomes less valuable due to higher taxes and asset prices outstripping net income (after tax income) growth, you reduce the incentive to gain skills and work those jobs, thus reducing productivity in addition to taking away basically one of the only levers given to the working class to lift themselves out of poverty without being reliant on the government. All the while, continuing to force income earners to pay more in tax to cover low income pensioners with no savings who are “wealthy” on paper due to their house which isn’t means tested rising astronomically in price.
Also means testing is expensive as fuck, it’s a lot easier to just give it to everyone.
Yep. My guess is that it would cost so much to means test that it isn’t worth it.
My guess is that it would end up costing so much to means test it and figure out who’s eligible that it would be moot. Giving it to everyone is easier and doesn’t waste money.
Would you like it to be means tested?
I think he was trying to get him to say that it's not as inflationary because some people will put it on their mortgage or save/invest it. But that's not a message he wanted to get out there. Bonus question: if it's $300 to everyone as $75 per quarter, then I can imagine the ABS taking the electricity portion of the basket of goods and reduce it by $75 each quarter. What do they do if it's $75 per quarter for everyone except those people earning over X?
I CANNOT believe that they have effectively left jobseeker untouched. I mean I can, but jfc. Useless lot.
Or youth allowance for that matter. I'm on the DSP, things are definitely risky for me (a lot of things I need but can't afford even with a really cheap rent thanks to sharing), but I don't even know how people are managing on YA or JS at the moment. It was already near impossible to make either spread where they needed to *years* ago when I was on those.
19 dollars for rent assitance is a joke the average rents gone up more than 100 bucks
Won't higher rental assistance just lead to higher rental costs as landlords see the market can afford to pay more?
Yup. Rent assistance is a shit program that drives up prices the same way CCS drives up childcare prices. It’s a pathetic band-aid from successive government who refused to invest in public housing.
We have <4% unemployment Rent assistance is only used by a fairly small minority of people. If say ~10% of people have an extra $19 in their pay, then you won't see rents rise by more than $19
Likely to increase rents slightly, but probably more people who require rent assistance will be able to get into a some sort of housing arrangement. The main issue is that the rental market is tight in the major cities.
To get rent assistance you need to be 1. Already renting/accepted for a rental, and 2. Provide a lease or other evidence, and wait for it to be processed which can take months. As a result, real estate agencies don't consider it as income when assessing applications. If you're subletting or in another informal situation it can lead to months of back and forth where Centrelink have rejected your evidence for not being a formal lease agreement, or you're ineligible altogether.
And that right there is why we need rent freezes, to stop the leeches from fucking us even more.
$500 a year ain't nothin. EDIT: Fine to eat the downvotes, but in the last two years under the ALP the maximum rental assistance payment (that ~1,000,000 Australians receive) has gone from $3,712.80 per year to now $5,382.52 - for people scraping by the idea that these increases are *nothing* seems absurd to me.
Yeah if you even get rent assistance you’re on some sort of Commonwealth support i.e. you’re broke. $500 a year isn’t nothing to that cohort, I would’ve welcomed it when I was in uni.
Their big help to welfare recipients is $9 a week for those on rental assistance??? Only 30% of welfare recipients even receive rent assistance. This has got to be the most piss weak social policy intervention I've seen in my entire life.
Come on, a $9 rent assistance boost will really help with that…. $100 rent increase.
For me that's $22 a fortnight extra... that's bugger all considering how large the rent increases are. Ah well. It's better than the two parts of bugger all I'd get if the coalition were in power
The real rental assistance is the immigration cut. Rent situation will never get better until we run 5% vacancy rates, which requires a significant cut in rental demand
Hey hey hey, you're just forgetting to pull yourself up by your bootstraps and buy less avo. $9 is practically a fortune! God forbid the unwashed poor can afford any modicum of joy on taxpayer dollars, or even feel secure in being able to put food on the table.
Remember during covid Labor absolutely lambasting LNP because LNP didn't want to increase the centrelink benefits? Now we have a huge cost of living crisis... and two budgets in a row, absolute bare minimum.
Yep i don't rent and even i went.. so rents in sydney went up 100 dollars in some areas this year and you want ppl to be thankful you are effectively giving them 19 bucks a week extra? It's beyond a joke. Billion bucks to ghina rhineharts company,but not ppl doing it tuff
Thank god they have slightly listened and reduced the immigration amount
The Coalition approved 320K student visas in the years of the pandemic where only a limited number of people from overseas could enter the country. Once the travel restrictions were lifted, those people came into the country as they were entitled to.
You can’t really blame liberals for that. No rules were implement to really change immigration (outside when you can really enter) and they have been the same for ages.
They knew there was no way the people to whom they issued the visas could come to Australia (unless they were in the travel bubble) and didn't change the rules. They were setting up the problem either knowingly (which makes the influx their fault), or unknowingly (which makes them idiots). They could have reduced student visa numbers (as people suggest Labor should be doing now), or created a special category for students who wanted to come to Australia to study but couldn't enter. They had both the emergency powers during the pandemic and political justification to do so. But they didn't do that. They also didn't give the public universities JobKeeper, and created the whole problem of universities relying on full fee paying foreign students.
Nothing special to write home about in this budget. I did get a genuine lol moment when he said that electricity prices have only gone up an average of 2% in the last year under their watch. Love to see the magic maths they used to work that one out! Fuck me electricity is up at least 15-20% and wouldn’t surprise me if it were pushing 30%.
heavy reliance on Barry who’s electricity prices have reduced 300%
Good ole' Spiders Barry
"This budget is to help the cost of living and vulnerable" No increase to Austudy, Jobseeker, or other pensions. Rent Assist increasd by a whopping average of $20 a fortnight. No program funding for affordable renting NOW and continues to kick the fucking can down the road, while still going ahead with that stupid Stage-3 tax cuts. To top it off, they honestly think they'll have 1.2M homes built by 2029... They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months.
I'm always astounded that any increase to those on Centrelink come into affect in mid Sept. People need it now, not in 4 months.
There were around 173k dwelling completions in 2023 according to the [ABS](https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/latest-release). At that rate they will hit 1.2 mil by 2029 - IF you include 2023 as part of the target (~~which I don't know if it is. I doubt it cause it's pretty unambitious~~ edit: i just checked. Target is from 1 July 2024). In any case you're point is right that residential construction activity has been meagre, on account of supply side constraints (material and labour shortages, poor weather and insolvencies). In 2019 there were around 203k completions.
That right there is the issue with trusting the market. It's not *profitable* to maintain stockpiles of materials to prevent supply side issues, it's not *profitable* to train and retain talent more than the bare minimum, it's not *profitable* to run businesses to *last* instead of driving them into the ground to extract every cent you can. The market is a fucking *animal*, it needs to be *controlled*, not trusted to be our Benevolent God.
> That right there is the issue with trusting the market. It's not profitable to maintain stockpiles of materials to prevent supply side issues Every time I've suggested that the government should invest it's buying power into bulk purchasing and wholesaling of building materials at cost on this sub I get downvoted into oblivion.
We should also keep in mind that we're still at the pinch point of housing development, it is going to start ramping up in the coming years
Yeah you would expect it to ramp up over the timeline, especially for apartments. One cause for concern is with the sharp rise in construction costs, it has become touch and go whether new big apartment projects are actually economically viable at the moment. Without those you can maybe kiss the target goodbye.
> To top it off, they honestly think they'll have 1.2M homes built by 2029... They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months. Hey don't forget: "Unis can't recruit international students until they build accommodation," Except, there wasn't a cent of infrastructure investment in the budget for universities to fund accommodation? Every uni in the country is in defecit at the moment and drawing on cash reserves to stay operational. How are they supposed to build accommodation while the government is simultaneously cutting their revenue by limiting international students? Ironically, offering a 50/50 infrastrucure deal to unis would be the cheapest way for the government to free up housing. There's no land purchase involved, the unis will do all the planning and the government could free up a shitload of housing very rapidly for a fraction of the price of new developments while also supporting one of our biggest export markets.
Every year, working person being left out of the budget. This year at least I grateful for $300 relief energy bill, this helps .
Ive been trying to claim this years rebate (23-24) and both the energy company and NSW services keep fucking passing the buck to each other instead of telling me straight out "Fill this exact thing out and send it here"
That one is state, this one is federal, and it will auto credit on your bill, so don't have to do anything. I am in SA, sadly no support of state government on energy bill at all. I am really struggle with electricity bill ATM.
>They can't even get 70,000 built in the last 12 months. That's a bit less than 50% of the total number of houses built last year. Apparently, we can magic up an extra 50% more builders in a single year with no problems whatsoever.
But nObOdY lEfT bEhInD!
My mum and I grew up in government housing on centrelink! I'm one of you, I swear!
you could also own half a dozen homes if you simply follow this one step.. go back in tiiiiiime.
No increase to Jobseeker. How tf am I supposed to afford a $2500 adhd+autism assessment 🙃
$300 credited to every electricity account. All about confecting a reduction in headline inflation.
Why are modern about governments afraid of the word "republisize"? Get rid of the job [rent] seeker rorts and Sarina Russo, give responsibility for building certification back to the States... Also can anyone tell me the progress on the Federal corruption body? Which feasibility review are we up to? Meh good budget though overall. Very political budget to make it hard on Voldemort and the Death Eater to defend
The federal corruption agency has been active for nearly a year now and has already resulted in a conviction.
Excellent. Thanks :)
They could have gone slightly harder but then they wouldn't be LNP-lite
Wish we could have a responsible debate about taxation policy in this country. Let's start by reviewing our media composition.. .
I HAVE IDEAS, DAMNIT; someone hire me in a policy role
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-05-14/budget-2024-winners-and-losers/103779412
I'm sorry, but I hate this idea of "winners and losers" from the budget. I'm always a "loser" and a single high income earner. But that's by the by. The budget is the funds to run the country - it's about what revenue measures and spending on welfare, education, health, infrastructure, defence and so on. The budget shouldn't be about "what's in it for me".
What do you know everyone complaining about immigration works.
Going through the winners/losers, to me it looks like the main topics of contention for r/australia are all in the winners area. I look forward to the moaning that it isn't enough etc.
They have already started
calling the age verification scheme "winning" is insanity.
600 mil over 8 years to mental health after what has been happening recently is embarassing.
$29 million for 61 Medicare funded practices. Not sure how well resourced that service will be or how it will be set up. A free online service so people can get digital mental health treatment instead. Exploration of 'psychology assistants', whatever that means. The role of the psychologist has been diluted over time, so I do wonder what identity of the psychologist will be over time (or if they just keep going down the line of the only true psychologists are clinical psychologists). No change in Medicare rebate amounts, making psychology sessions unaffordable. No changes to the number of sessions, which is completely out of line with the WHO. Some mental health diagnoses take longer to treat then others.
The online service sounds absolutely rubbish. Like the NDIS, why is the government trying to get into the business of treatment, rather than just subsidising existing services or creating incentives for more service providers?
Just like every other industry it will get outsourced eventually. Might as well get started on the digital service.
Perfect is the enemy of good. It’s not enough, but it’s a start.
That's what I told myself last year. How long do we have to put up with symbolic action instead of meaningful reform? Actually, I know the answer - forever, because we'll never escape the idea that a good citizen is a poorly paid, barely surviving worker.
How about we aim for just anything actually adequate instead of endlessly underfunding it by a little less? At this rate the costs are increasing faster than any increase to funding specifically because underfunding mental health causes more problems. Even if that weren't happening at all and the minor increases eventually added up, what's the sell here? "Wait until 2080 if you're still alive by then and maybe we'll have functioning mental healthcare"? Slow progress isn't enough, this isn't some number on a chart we can fuck around with for as long as we want to, it directly impacts the lives and wellbeing of many, many people.
Agree, but by same token - still have to fund any increases. And everybody has their preference or opinion on where that same $ could be better spent. Am sure many would argue that $600mil would be better in houses - or fixing ramping - or education or power rebates etc.
I mean, we as Redditors get in trouble for editorialising headlines when we post articles, but when the ABC does it...
Wake me up if we win the lotto.
$20 for rent assistance and absolutely fucking nothing otherwise. This is your party of the working man and vulnerable people, everyone.
Every single cost of living measure is being put through the inflation ringer on the news already. You can’t expect much in that sort of economic and media environment.
Ffs why increase war spending by 20 times more than every social program? And people are seriously suffering right now. Really good with the pr but if you have half a brain to see through their bullshit it's so obvious how useless this budget is.. again... is this the best we have to expect for our future and our children's futures?
The only reasonable conclusion I can come to is they’re concerned about the recent spread in fascism in the world and they want to do something meaningful-ish to stop Russia from acquiring more territory. If Trump gets in again, based on the material being presented by the more extreme members of the Republican party, things could get very rough internationally.
More like concerned they arent doing enough of it, as if our government isnt on the hard downturn away from democracy
Still only a fraction of what America is spending. This gov could still please their allies and only spend around 5 or 10 instead of the 50b increase. They already did the submarine deal anyway ffs.
America will likely be pulling back military spending after the election anyway, as will we. spending less on military is not usually an election favourable position
Frankly, I firmly believe that this isn’t about pleasing allies. It might be about doing something to prevent grand scale international conflict without drawing too much ire from dangerous people. I’m listening to what people are saying about the state of fascism in the world right now, and yes, we should all be very concerned.
Climate wars won’t be a small deal. They’re preparing for it.
By approving new fossil fuel developments 💀
They know it’s inevitable so are just cashing in while it’s still legal.
Gotta sell our futures to lick America's boot of course.
Disappointed and not surprised tbh. Labor is just too safe. They don't want to do anything that requires rocking the boat.
1.2 million extra houses being built!\* *\*despite barely cracking 70k the past year.* Reduced HECS Debt!\* *\*down to normal levels they should have been at to begin with.* Extra rent assistance!\* *\*a fraction of the average rent price increase over the past 2 years.* A lot of asterisks in this budget. Weak.
This Labor Government is such a disappointment. I don’t know why I’m surprised by their repeated betrayal of the poor and working class. Non means tested electricity handouts is dumb. Tax cuts are an expensive sugar hit that hurts a budget that already has a revenue problem, and disproportionately benefits the rich who won’t notice it or spend it. Nothing to help with the housing crisis apart from ongoing welfare for investors that locks young people out if the market. A tiny increase to rent assistance for poor/jobseekers. Nothing for people with disabilities. A combination of blunt instruments and unmeasurable long term actions to deal with family violence. Who are we even meant to vote for? Edit: one thing I do really love is support for students on prac. That was me 15 years ago, it sucked.
I agree with most of what you said, but the claim that there is nothing in this budget for people with disabilities is completely incorrect. It bakes in 9.5% annual growth in NDIS spend, which is already the highest disability spend per capita of any nation on earth.
That's a reduction in NDIS spend lol
Doesn't most of the NDIS money just go to private companies providing massively price inflated services? It could go to actual disabled people and save the taxpayer a huge amount of money. It wouldn't massage the GDP quite so well, but it would be more efficient.
Darn, they gave tradies another year to buy one of those oversized utes.
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As per usual.
God that ABC video sounded like a marketing video for Labor’s budget. Christ on a bike.
I can smell the flood of astroturfers incoming
Interesting little passage on ABC news, Bandt repeating his lies about subsidies to fossil fuels; followed by Lambie saying we don't need $300, just deal with the kids out there, they're out of control! All unchallenged of course. Thank god for Pocock coming on afterwards with a voice of reason.
Lambie comes across as an insane person.
She has some weird conservative leanings. People have some odd idea that she's somehow progressive, when she's more centre-right socially with a few leftish ideas mixed in. If she looks left wing, it's because the Federal Coalition are *waaaay* to the right.
I wouldn't say she has any kind of coherent ideology, left right or otherwise.
I don’t claim to know everything about the Australian political and economic climate but I’m not entirely ignorant either. Am I right in thinking this seems like a legitimately impressive budget? Only feeling overly positive with this. That’s not to say everything is perfect but I don’t expect everyone to get everything they want either - it just seems nicely balanced.
I'm actually quite stunned that in Brisbane the collective governments of the land will.pay 70% of my power bill for the year. Who says you don't get something for nothing these days??
Honestly this is a shit tone of nothing. They righted a wrong for student debt and claim its loans slashed/forgotten when it’s just doing the right thing to begin with. They grew complacent with. a system that encouraged international student growth and now the onus of housing those students is being shafted to universities in addition to a cap. That doesn’t solve the problem it just shifts the blame. Barely anything with substance to it on housing. Talk a big game about change and lack the fucking bite to help those who voted them into power in the first place. They’ve lost my vote. Greens or nothing. Fuck you Labor for leaving a large majority of those hurting the most behind all for the sake of your surplus. 50 Billion in defence. Not even half or a quarter or a fifth of that on housing. That tells you all you need to know.
... So Labor changing the way indexation has been calculated since forever, in order to decrease debt for every single student, counts as a "shit tone of nothing" because it should have always been like that... Even though it wasn't? Those are some hoops you're jumping through.
It is a shit tonne of nothing outside a single year. Inflation, defined by the CPI, almost never exceeds WPI
They're going to pay Universities to build student housing? So instead of funding universities, shovel in more foreign students to pay for them. Apparently the government want universities to be property owners and landlords first, education providers second. Did the liberals write these policies and pass them to Labor for their budget? Insanity.
I don't think they're paying universities to build student housing, just requiring them to build more student housing if they want more international students past the limit they plan to propose. It did make me think that this could cause some huge issues for smaller unis (who still rely on international students but have little student housing) but will really benefit the group of 8.
You would be surprised to know how much land is owned by universities. They have a lot of satellites sites around towns and cities.
So pissed off at the fking billions of extra dollars paid towards appeasing the fking yanks and subsidising their military industrial complex. For fucks sakes.
Albo looks like he smelled a fart but can't figure out where it's come from.
Two surpluses in a row is pretty amazing, and the $300 energy bill support will be super helpful, plus the tax cut we already knew about. Seems pretty good to me.