With perhaps the exception of those big banks, the business community does not appear too unhappy with the Turnbull Government’s latest budget provisions, however letters sections in newspapers yesterday tell a different story when it comes to the average voter……
Australian Financial Review, 10 May 2017:
Surplus? Tell 'em they're dreaming
Based on nine years of irrefutable data, one can confidently make the following predictions after seeing Scott Morrison's budget.
There will be no surplus in 2020/21 or thereafter, and debt will just keep growing. Treasury has yet again overestimated government revenue, underestimated expenditure, continuing a remarkably long run of consistently getting it wrong.
The tragedy is that they, and their political masters, don't seem to learn anything, persisting with flawed models, theories and policies, that promise much but deliver the opposite.
Wayne Swan set the standard with his promise that deficits would end in 2012/13. Scott Morrison has just raised the bar.
Mark Engelbrecht Floreat, WA
The Sydney Morning Herald, 10 May 2017, p.18:
PM's talk of fairness fails global shame test
The Prime Minister speaks of "fairness, opportunity and security" but the Australian government is continuing its selective vision of entitlement. It is not just that cutting aid adds to the push factors for refugees, it is the maintenance of a philosophy that the haves will grasp ever more tightly to protect their lifestyle at the expense of those who have nothing. The failure of successive Australian governments to meet their millennium goal commitments is yet another in the list of shameful failures by our nation to act as a responsible global citizen.
Philip Cooney Wentworth Falls
Liberals will always be cheaper: Looks like this might be the only believable claim from ScoMo and Turnbull, cheap, not cheerful and false economy. Are all options really on the table? Must health, education, pensions, welfare, housing affordability really be sacrificed, to prioritise keeping the pedlars of spies, submarines and jet fighters in the style to which they're accustomed? Their plans, values and fundamental morality sure is cheap.
Bernie McComb Phillip Island (Vic)
The Daily Telegraph, 10 May 2017, p.20:
Pay off all debt and be frugal
The federal Budget has been presented and everyone is asking, "What's in it for me?" The invisible elephant in the room is asking, "Where is the money coming from?" We are already on the road to owing half a trillion dollars, paying more than a billion dollars a month in interest alone. We are going to lumber our children with the sins of today and turn this great country into a third world nation, just so our current crop of politicians can appease as many voters as they need to stay in power. While there are a great many of wonderful ideas that need funding, can we afford them now? It is time we reined in expenditure, cut back on bloated bureaucracy and consultants, and tell politicians they need to live more frugally. The Titanic, too, was doing quite well until it shook hands with the iceberg.
Jim Stamell, Sylvania
Be fair towards the less privileged in society
Scott Morrison wants to bash the unemployed (again) while striving to achieve "fairness" in the Budget ("No licence to skive", 9/5).
Instead of finding more cruel and unusual ways to punish the unemployed, why doesn't he show true fairness and increase the Newstart Allowance from its current $35 a day -- a rate that hasn't changed since 1990 -- to a rate where a human being in Sydney can actually use it to survive rather than be way under the poverty line? All stick and no carrot is absolutely not fair.
Alex, Woy Woy
The Twitterverse is also less than enthusiastic……
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