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The Forum > Article Comments > The Budget - summed up > Comments

The Budget - summed up : Comments

By Saul Eslake, published 15/5/2008

This is an appropriate Budget for challenging economic circumstances. It doesn’t add pressure on inflation and interest rates, nor does it take undue risks.

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What a crying shame the new ‘Building Australia Fund’ wasn’t called the ‘Building a Sustainable Australia Fund’.

What an absolute pity this budget has cemented, presumably for the life of the Rudd government, the same old maximum-expansion antisustainability paradigm.

Somewhere along the line we have got to wean ourselves off of the absurdity of having our whole society premised on a rapidly increasing population and economic turnover. It should have happened at the start of the Howard era, if not earlier. We sure as hell cannot wait for it to happen with the next new government.

“In sum, this is an appropriate Budget for challenging economic circumstances.”

Sorry Saul, this time I have to emphatically disagree with you.
Posted by Ludwig, Thursday, 15 May 2008 10:01:56 AM
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You can just hear the CFMEU and the ETU rubbing their hands together with glee at the notion of the Building Australia Fund... Talk about pork barrelling to your constituents!

That's just a simple example of how skewed this budget is to keeping the "core" Labor group happy.
Posted by BN, Thursday, 15 May 2008 11:02:05 AM
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This fund, that fund... Blank cheques anyone?
Posted by Usual Suspect, Thursday, 15 May 2008 11:04:46 AM
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US, BN.

These 'funds' may well be used as slush funds. We don't know yet. The fact of the matter is, they couldn't be spent now, as massive infrastructure projects would put further pressure on inflation, and tax cuts would do the same.

They couldn't spend the cash now. At least, they can wait until the economy slows, and there will be cash to hand. In fact, these funds can be used to kickstart the economy, in a similar manner that war manufacturing and infrastructure projects lifted the US out of the great depression.

So to fault the government for making these funds, in my opinion, is foolish - it was very clearly the most responsible thing to do, given the circumstances.

But only time will tell as to whether it is used responsibly.
Posted by TurnRightThenLeft, Thursday, 15 May 2008 9:51:45 PM
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I don't know Saul's history, but it's hard to know what rock or large wad of cash he was living under while producing this analysis.

This budget is anything but appropriate: the single most urgent priority facing our country, and indeed the world, has been swept under the carpet yet again, and again after a slew of rhetoric about how important the issue really is. Climate change and the solutions thereof have received a pittance of funding, 40 times less than the defense budget. Meanwhile subsidies for the cause of the problem, fossil fuels, remain far higher than those for renewable energy.

A CSIRO report from 20 years ago found that renewable energy technologies could power all of Australia for little extra cost. That was 20 years ago. Prices are now at the point where if the subsidies going to fossil fuels were removed they'd be equivalent in price, let alone if the subsidies were switched to renewable technologies. And more over, if Australia took this path we could be a significant exporter in the increasingly lucrative renewable energy industry, rather than the irresponsible and inevitably doomed coal export industry.

All in all this budgets lack of vision and topsy-turvy priorities is not only inappropriate and economically bad for us in the long run, it's incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.
Posted by Oliver C, Friday, 16 May 2008 7:27:39 AM
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Oliver, it certainly is incredibly dangerous and irresponsible.

The need to switch to renewable energy sources is of the UTMOST importance. Not for climate-change reasons, but for something much more urgent; preventing a massive upheaval in our society due to changing economics as one of our most fundamental resources rapidly and continuously increases in price and takes the price just about everything else up with it.

Our dependence on oil and hence our vulnerability to its ever-rising price should be Rudd’s number one priority.

Nothing is having a greater impact on inflation and soon; rising unemployment.

And yet, I heard not a mention of peak oil, or the energy crunch, in anything to do with the budget….from either side of politics.

All I heard was Nelson’s desire to reduce fuel excise by 13%, in order to make fuel more affordable by about 5 cents a litre, and his strong criticism of Swan for not having done so!

Talk about hopeless!
Posted by Ludwig, Friday, 16 May 2008 7:47:40 AM
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