You wouldn’t read my blog for any kind of comprehensive analysis of course, but here are my initial impressions:
Means tested baby bonus for incomes over $150K; extra tax on cars more than $57K? Excellent! Dunno why some are complaining about hitting the rich. The rich can afford it. Welfare should be reserved for those who are struggling.
I get a tax cut. I didn’t really need it, but naturally, I’m not complaining.
Lots of money for roads. A pittance for PT… but it’s not for actual construction, only studies. Marginally better than nothing (which is what the Coalition did for PT), but FELLAS, have you noticed petrol and oil prices recently? It ain’t getting any better, neither are transport emissions, and building more roads doesn’t help. They shouldn’t have promised them in the first place, but unfortunately they are still under the delusion that road expansion helps traffic congestion.
Some cutting back on fringe benefits lurks, which is good, but they haven’t yet pulled back on company car FBT, which costs $1.5 billion a year while encouraging more driving. Maybe that’ll come out in the tax review. Some other stuff towards fighting climate change, but nowhere near enough, and the roads spending doesn’t help. More funding for health and education is good.
Overall, not outstanding, not terrible. Could do better.
8 replies on “Wayne’s first budget”
“Could do better.” I concur. In fact, must do better. There doesn’t seem to be any sense of urgency at any level of government.
Must do better is spot on, Josh.
It’s like they’re all asleep hoping that hole in the sand in which they’ve stuck their heads will make the problems disappear!
Good points, Daniel. I think we ought to demolish the baby bonus since it’s about as useful as a car with square wheels in terms of increasing the population…speaking of which, it doesn’t need increasing.
My latest post deals with the budget in detail. Click on ‘Reuben van Bemmel’ hyperlink to see the post.
The rich can afford it?
Classic answer. Ever wonder why they are rich?
Since when is the baby bonus welfare?
I thought the idea was to encourage people to have children.
All the time, MeMock. Not least because they can inherit wealth.
Does the luxury tax covers 4WDs? Are 4WDs classed as ‘cars’? I hope so – because if I was rich and didn’t give a stuff about the environment, instead of buying a fancy car, I’d buy a fancy 4WD.
The baby bonus was initially the Have A Baby for Johnny payment that was there to win over middle Australia votes. I know this because I worked in welfare for many years and the timing of the announcements of the one off payments (not only baby bonus) was impeccable to an upcoming election. In that era I saw the faces of our customers go from genuine to middle Australia. Social engineering at it’s best & hooking people into the welfare system that really, shouldn’t have been there. It’s amazing how many people that are earning well over 100,000k were getting vpo before this budget that might miss out on the baby bonus. Don’t get me started lol.