paulry

Sounds ominous:

KEVIN Rudd has warned next week's budget will spark "howls of protest" as the Reserve Bank has revealed an unprecedented collapse in national income has thrust the nation into a recession that will last at least a year.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au...013871,00.html

Amazulu

And all those people thought they were getting a $900 handout.......

northernlights

Recession will last a year or so, Government debt will last a decade and we will all pay for it in one way or another.

Vash the Stampede

Glad to hear it. The last thing I want is a government that tries to pretend nothing's wrong and they'll never have to make a difficult decision.

Loch Lomond

But they did pretend nothing was wrong. The Rudd Gov't kept telling Australia they wouldn't be affected. And when we were it was played down.

Vash the Stampede

Got a source for that?

Rudd was forecasting doom and gloom for the Australian economy as early as August 2008:
Source.

That's "pretending that nothing was wrong", is it?

Got a source for that?

On the contrary, they correctly pointed out that Australia wouldn't be as badly affected as places like the UK. Which is precisely what international commentators have been saying.

brendarover

http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegrap...001030,00.html

DON'T believe the Robin Hood hype: this Budget is not really about robbing the rich and giving to the poor.

Kevin Rudd and his Government would like Australians to believe that Tuesday's Budget will make wealthy people pay to protect low- and middle-income earners from hardship in the looming recession.

The truth is, we will all be hit - and you're about to pay back that $900 stimulus cheque, with interest.

Today, The Sunday Telegraph reveals that the Government will use the Budget to crack down on a loophole that allows high-income earners to avoid paying tax on foreign-earned income, provided they spend at least 90 days overseas each year.

Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says Cabinet is applying "forensic" sweat to ensuring "the pain will mostly be felt by people who are reasonably well off".

But there's a sting in the tax-haven story that, in the broader picture of pre-Budget publicity, the Government is attempting to manage so carefully. Nobody will escape: this Budget will involve changes to payments and benefits that ordinary Australians have enjoyed for several years.

The child-care tax rebate of 50 per cent is likely to be limited to people earning less than $150,000 and the baby bonus will likely be adjusted, in preparation for future maternity leave.

There will be tweaking of the first-home owner's grant. Family Tax Benefits A and B will be curtailed. Taxes on alcohol and cigarettes - for which low-income earners pay a higher proportion of their income - will rise.

Charities will lose the benefit of fringe benefits tax breaks and parents who use obstetricians and IVF clinics will lose Medicare rebates.

Farmers will suffer from a likely rise in export charges, cuts to regional aid schemes and drought assistance.

Reforms to help farmers prepare for future droughts will be delayed. Land and Water Australia, which conducts research on that very topic, will be disbanded.

There is pain for the wealthy, too. High-income earners face a halving in the amount of money they can divert into superannuation at a low tax rate.

The private health insurance rebate will be scaled back for some and abolished for singles earning more than $120,000 and couples on more than $240,000.

This is a blatant breach of a promise Kevin Rudd made before his election, but the Government is attempting to cushion any backlash by scheduling the change for July, 2010, a year after the same workers benefit from their share of ongoing tax cuts: marginal tax rates for those on $80,000 to $100,000 will fall from 40 to 37 per cent.

It will also be about 14 months before the next federal election - a period the Government hopes will be long enough to save it from losing crucial marginal electorates.

Is all this pain warranted? To an extent, the Government has no choice: with a deficit of up to $70 billion and predicted shrinkage in the economy of 0.5 per cent this year, Australia faces a $200 billion fall in tax revenue.

Despite that, the Government can't escape some urgent spending, such as raising pensions by up to $30 a week, which could cost more than $4 billion a year.

So far, Australians have had a pretty good recession. Our rates of joblessness, exports and growth are better than those in the rest of the world, and we keep getting cheques from Kevin and Wayne.

But this week, we will all feel the pain

MartinLuther

I remember them saying at the beginning that it would affect Australia.

They've made no secret that the stimulus payments are to help lessen the size and impact of the recession.

Not sure what papers you've been reading but they sound like crap.

Centurion

Or boost the revenue of the pokies machines operators for a month or two and continue to pay for it for years to come. Whichever way you look at it

MartinLuther

I saw some preliminary results a while back and most of it went into paying back debt.

I know they're racking up a debt and it has to be paid for but I also know that prior to the crash they were running a surplus and didn't know how to hand it back. (This was happening during the Howard years and early Rudd years.) They were being cautious on tax rebates because they didn't want to fuel inflation so they were sticking as much as they could into future and infrastructure funds. But even then they still had more than they knew what to do with. Given the likelihood that the government will have the same "problem" in a couple of years time, I don't see the debt as a huge problem. I don't reckon we'll be paying for it as long as some other countries.

ABCDiamond

Maternity leave will totally replace the Maternity bonus, no tweaking to the bonus needed, it will just go... They will NOT pay both.

lastone

Are they setting up anything to replace this organisation, because if not that's short-term planning comedy gold in the extreme in this country.

sr71

This is a Labour government with plenty of British, New Labour advisors and links between the two organisations.

He is going to screw over the decent, hard-working middle classes in a big way.

Petals

The recession and deficit has been brought about by too much private debt, in the end the governments of the world always have to pick up the pieces.

As this problem has been unfolding of the last few years oh and I have had many discussions that it does not matter who owes the money, government or private we all have to pay in the end. That is what is happening now and will be happening for a while to come.

If we want to retain a decent standard of living the government has to pick up the pieces and spend its nest egg after all what are nest eggs for they are to help in down times. What is the point of keeping the money whilst people are losing homes, jobs and their lifestyle due to greed.

Middle class welfare has to be cut back, its ridiculous paying people to have children, children should not be seen in monetary terms. People have never been so well off and they bleat for more help. Get rid of the four wheel drive, buy a smaller house.

Get rid of the private health subsidy and let it be private health or make people use it instead of keeping it for those operations they need and others have to wait for. If the subsidy went maybe we would have some competition in the industry instead of them all being the same with hand held out.

Its ridiculous paying private health and allowing it and then fronting up at the public hospital and being looked after under medicare. I know the argument we pay the levy,well so do the others who have less money and cannot afford private health insurance.

We have to get used to this and stop moaning and get on with it.

lastone

You could not be more wrong, you could try, but there would be no point.

This has been brought about by greedy Yank financiers trying to make more money and shafting poor people.
Admittedly the debt hasn't helped, but it certainly was not the cause.