Liveblogging the Budget
May 13, 2008 by Tim Norton
Tonight’s the night that the Rudd Government deliver their first federal budget, and the Greens are currently in lock-up, pouring over every detail and analysing every last line.
Keep an eye on this spot - after 7:30 tonight, when the doors open, we’ll have more details live blogged here.
7:35pm Swan is telling us ‘the proceeds of the boom have not benefited working families’ Yes that’s right Swan. Now tel us what you’re going to do about it.
The Government are going to reduce income tax by $47 billion over 10 years
A raising of the childcare rebate from 30% to 50%, and change payments to quarterly
Which will cost a total of $1.6b over 4 years
Housing affordability (which we’ve been outspoken about), has a $2.2b budget, but the 1st home owners grants remain the same
There are good changes to the First Home Savers accounts - these are no longer set by how much you earn. That should make it a little fairer.
The baby bonus is now means tested
A large amount of Swan’s budget is just election promises. Nothing shockingly new, particularly given what they have leaked and released in the last week or so
Swan has said his piece.
Too much excitement for me , Tim!!!!!
well come on, we’re almost half way through!
Christine’s response is here.
Real increases in defence spending, already 40 times that of climate change spending, can only be to blow the climate change refugees out of the rising waters before they attempt to land on our drying soils.
I was so unhappy with the fact that there’s a $21billion budget surplus with only a few hundred million allocated to renewables.
So does anyone know how the 2.3B for “climate” will be spent?
I have no idea after listening to the speech. I’m confused!
I don’t fully understand how limiting the baby bonus to people who’s income is less than $100,000 p.a. (I might have this wrong) is meaningful means testing.
Someone around the blogs has been harping on about welfare and the size that it consumes of public spending. I don’t know the exact numbers, but I think the mean wage is around $50,000 with the median being around $35,000, that is it is skewed to the lower values.
Really I think these things should all be done away with. It gives a financial incentive for people to do things that shouldn’t primarily be a financial decision.
I was so dissapointed in the Renewables spent and for that fact the miserly amount spent on our fantastic environment. It was a joke. Thank god for the Greens and a party that actually has a policy on environmental issues and a strong focus on Australias imediate needs. There was no money to focus on the Murray Darling basin and Salinity and the protection of old growth forests. This government is no better than John Howard.
Peter Costello was right though on one point. Wayne Swan is the luckiest Treasurer this country has ever had.
To breed or not to breed? That is the question.
Are the baby bonus payments going into ‘intervention’ areas/communities quarantined too?
Jeffery@6, I don’t know, but here’s an sceptics guess. More than half will go on fossil fuel carbon emissions reduction programs. About half of what remains will be spent on energy consumption reduction measures which includes fossil fuels, and of the less than a quarter that remains will be spent on ‘renewables’ which may include a nuclear feasibility study. I wait in anticipation of being underwhelmed.
Its pretty clear this Rudd government isn’t serious enough about tackling climate change. So nothing sufficiently radical will happen this term.
So what must be done (by good and serious folk) is to mobilise enough senate votes to ensure it can’t happen again.
It won’t be enough to rely on a grassroots voter campaign like GetUp. The candidates also need to do their bit, it is no longer enough to be passionate.
This means the candidates need to figure out why they aren’t getting enough senate votes to be able to influence policy like the budget to where it needs to be.
The candidates have two and bit years to examine the question:
“What is it about my policy platform and electoral messages that stops people voting for me.”
A famous definition of stupidity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
Time for some “spring cleaning” I’d say.
Actually maybe the best possible thing is a bifurcation in the Greens movement to create two parties who trade preferences.
The people who want to align with all the historical Green agenda in one party and the climate “progressives” in another. That climate “progressive” movement has the chance to capture the votes that will never go to the current Green party brand.
That could feasibly increase the capture of votes by maybe 20% and firmly secure those elusive extra seats to create a balance of power “green” coalition (at least for climate issues).
Its pretty obvious that the steps to bifurcate the climate movement began at the last election, although those steps were in their infancy. Maybe this new movement foreshadows a driver of increased Green senate vote.
The choice for the Greens is to either:
a) coopt that movement into the Green brand somehow by to some extent reinventing the Green brand, or
b) to allow that movement to grow and hope to pick up the preference allocations from it.
As above doing the same old thing and expecting a different result isn’t clever.
David
Whilst I agree that climate change has recently and radically become a much bigger issue in the wider population, the Greens remain the only party in Parliament who are outspoken on the topic.
Yes, there was a shift at the last election, with the newly formed Climate Change Coalition and other parties, but in comparison to the votes achieved by the Greens, I don’t think it’s at the point where a merger is on the cards.
The ‘historical’ Green movement you speak about has always involved a strong climate change component, and it’s something that Christine Milne has been working tirelessly on in Parliament. Have a read of her budget responses on climate change here, and here.
David,
I think the Greens have to be very careful of any talk of joining and dancing around the idea of creating 2 parties. I think electorally we are making progress. It will be a generational change that takes time. I admit I am the first one to jump up and down when the Greens think they are doing well in their eyes, but in others have gone 2 steps forward and 1 step back.
Australia is not Europe. Australia is not as progressive. These things take time. I think the Greens need to really be clear communicate to the broader community somehow & definatly dont consider caving in on any principles that we have. If we do we turn into the Australian Democrats and look where they are now. Something else to remember.
Daniel do you think we can afford to wait a generation for business as usual to get us the action we need? That is a terrifying prospect, all the more terrifying since it comes from someone who is apparently believes they are “strong on climate”.
The historical Green will have the bigger following for a good while yet, but my feeling is the Green party has alienated heaps of potential voters who will steadfastly vote major over Green until an alternative arrives.
I am not quite so disaffected, I am more a reluctant Green voter. But I seriously hope a climate progressive party without baggage shows up soon, thats would I’ll vote for ahead of the current Greens every time.
If, as seems evident in comments above, the historical Greens can’t see the benefit of learning, evolving, reinventing and growing as new things are understood then we need someone new on the scene.
Also you can’t make good plans looking in the rear view mirror. You need to plan by thinking how the electoral landscape will be, not how it is or was.
There was another environmental party contesting the last federal election who were progressive on climate change issues yet weren’t born of the “historical” green movement. They swapped preferences with the Greens in an attempt to get at least one of them elected and have managed in the past to capture the vote of those who can’t bring themselves to vote Green.
Unfortunately, the Democrats failed to win a Senate seat at the election.
Democrats … no baggage … *chuckles*
Jeffrey,
I think on this issue we will have to agree to disagree. I belive in the Australian Greens have been a member for over 6 years. I go to the odd Rally (even though I dont think this makes a scrap of difference) and I pay my membership every year and contribute. I agree the wheels turn slowly but thats how things are in Australia. The Greens MP’s work very hard and struggle with there workloads and need to be commended. In the end as I have always known politics is a numbers game and until the Greens have the numbers the Australian political landscape wont change greatly to combat Global warming. The Greens are doing there best. With Education and further getting the Australian Greens message out into the public space the Greens will one day become a political force to be reckoned with.
We need to carry on the good fight. We need to be a united left force in all levels of Australian government. Talking of splitting any party and dissecting will not advance any Environmental or social justice cause.