The intergenerational report (IGR) produced by the government is another fraud like the “Budget Emergency” (which they seem far less panicked about since they doubled the deficit – which if you have read the main page you will realise means little). The prospect of not achieving a surplus is merely because their ideology prevents it, not because it’s unachievable. It is beyond their ideological capacity of thinking of retracting the massive subsidies to Mining, huge defence spending, huge “subsidies” to Super, huge “subsidies” to investors but not beyond them to cut subsidies to tuition in Universities. Instead, there were the cuts suffered by everything from the ABC, CSIRO, Trade Cadetships, Health, Hospital, Climate management, ATO, and even our children’s education (i.e. Gonski). Then the removal of major revenue streams (mining & carbon taxes – minimally over 6.5 billion), the 8.8 Billion Hockey gave away to the Reserve Bank – they said they didn’t need – and let’s also include the failure to collect taxes from 30% of the country’s largest companies. If achieving a surplus was such an urgent consideration, there are billions recoverable from the list above which would result in Australia having that (were it even an important factor in our economy). Add to this the fraudulent nature of our claiming national poverty for the 14 wealthiest nation (regarding gross domestic product per capita in IMF$,) in the world (Yes, Australia) with the third lowest gross debt to GDP of any country in the OECD.
If a deficit is supposedly a measure of financial progress in a sovereign economy (which it isn’t) then doubling that Deficit under Joe’s administration surely is a poor indicator. If anything it merely exemplifies that what Australia can not afford is to continue to subsidise our wealthiest individuals and companies. It is purely about “political will” to act to redistribute the economy fairly, not an incapacity to bring in revenue.
The IGR has no allocation for disaster relief because of increasing natural disasters triggered by Climate change, in fact, Climate change is only mentioned in relation to the Direct Action policy (which a long list of experts believe will be completely ineffective anyhow). A slow economic growth (consistent with current) will result in a budget shortfall for Hockey alone. [Note: the mining boom contributed nothing/zero/zip/nada to economic growth in the last quarter – dropping from 5.6% in 6 mths – and professional/scientific/technical contracted by 1% – (ABS stats – look them up yourself)]. As jobs growth contracts and unemployment expands [i.e. as jobs disappeared from mining the expected pickup in Construction has not occurred and has fallen from 7.9% contribution to GDP to 5.6% in 6 mths], our prospects are grim. A ratio of jobs to the unemployed is 1:5 – although moving thru to 1:6 and that is only if you accept Govt Stats on employment & unemployment. (If you look at more realistic stats such as Roy Morgans then the prospect is far worse at 1:8.) ACOSS has noted that the IGR report is silent on what poverty would result by full implementation of government policies. No indicator of the Gini coefficient (an standard reporting indicator for the socio-economic impact of policies) has been provided. I wonder why Hockey forgot that? The value of the all ordinaries on the Australian Stock Exchange has fallen, consumer & business confidence is collapsing, the Aussie dollar is at the lowest level since 2010 and inflation went up from 2.4% to 3.0% last year. (Yes, it has fallen this year, along with everything else too.) BUT the Adults are in Charge of our economy! Bejesus, Hockey, give us a break!