I can agree with most of this Graham, and note that subsidized super will soon eclipse, as lost revenue, what we pay as pensions!

And this really is stealing from the past, present and the future!

I also note that many of the intended reforms are blocked in the senate and only possible due to the fact we are too stupid to reform the electoral system?

And as simple as moving to optional preferencing, or non-preferenced proportional representation!

The Greens in their own right only represent 7-10% of the electorate, and were that accurately reflected in the polls, they would be left with at most three Senate places and nothing in the house of reps?

Similarly New labor relies heavily on green and minor party preferences for their (gerrymander) numbers; and indeed, recent results in state politics!

As you say and I agree, the family home must be included in the assets test!

If this forces a few to sell up, buy a few houses in the country, (live in one and live off the income generated in the others) where Ambulance, Hospitals and Doctors are far closer, a good result all round.

Mum had a couple of serious heart attacks before she went, and had she lived in somewhere as crowed as Sydney, the emergency response could have been measured in hours?

However, in our little regional town, it only took a life saving two minutes!

Rates are vastly cheaper and almost everything is in comfortable walking distance!

Now if we still had a train?

I also believe we need vast simplification and tax reform!

Given genuine tax reform would make cheating on all the other honest tax payers impossible; and indeed, make paying tax compliance, which rips a reported average of 7% from the bottom line, a thing of the past!?

All that's missing in any part of this, is genuine fair-mindedness, (trumped by rank political expediency) and or, the political will!?
Rhrosty.

I've seen enough budgets handed down to be totally be bored by them. I agree with Graham
on who is going to pay, but that is the way when governments are merely buying votes for the next election, and this budget is a typical example of Abbott and Co. pleading to be reinstated next time. It's all about them, not about us or the country.

We remain in debt, continue to spend borrowed money, and the absurdly low interest rates clearly indicate that our economy is kaput.

Rhrosty, the Greens got twice as many primary votes as the National party did, hell even Clive's "team" got more votes.
Whatever you may think of them 9 and some of their idea are really silly) they have a legitimate right to represent their voters in the government.

2% growth is not enough, and we need a fiscal stimulus to keep us out of recession.

And the statement that "Those payers are not the current generation, but future generations who will have to pay the debt back at some stage either through cash or inflation" is rather disingenuous. If it were payed back "through inflation" then it would be the current generation that would lose out, not the future generations who aren't the ones with the money. But it's a moot point anyway, as money supply increase is not the same as inflation.

If we really want to help future generations, we the best thing we can do is ensure that their options are never closed off due to lack of money. This requires heavy investment in education (including in early childhood) and however much you hate it, social security spending is also a major requirement.

Another thing we should be doing for future generations is building infrastructure properly, not wasting money on things like FTTN which future generations will soon have to replace.

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Rhosty, if the Greens in their own right only represent 7-10% of the electorate, that's one it ten to fourteen votes. They have less than that proportion of seats, so why the whinging?

The successful blocking of bad legislation means the Senate is doing its job.

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ttbn, our interest rates are this low because there's not enough borrowing. A sensible response would be for the government to borrow more.

Yes Graham, I think you are right.

They obviously want to be re-elected, & equally obviously, with the reaction to last years mild budget, would not have any chance of re-election, if they actually did anything as tough as we really do need.

I suppose they can rationalise this change as necessary for the good of the country. It is not hard to argue that a change back to Labor would be disastrous for spending, & load future generations with much greater debt.

I can see where you're coming from Rhrosty, it doesn't seem right for the taxpayer, & future generations to have to subsidise us oldies, so we can preserve our major asset, our homes, to pass to our kids. However the other plan, of us living off them, in which I have believed previously, is starting to annoy me today.

I have had a great deal of my earnings go to support bludgers. This bludger element is growing rapidly, both home grown, & imported with the refugee programs. I am becoming increasingly unhappy with supporting, with my asset after I stop earning, those who have never bothered to support themselves.

So if we are to continue to give the pension to these bludgers, I can see no reason why I should have to pay for it.

As for moving to the country, yes it makes sense to live where houses cost $150,000, rather than $1,000 000, but I wouldn't use ambulance services as an asset. I live less than 25 kilometres from no less than 5 ambulance stations. No one with any experience expects to get an ambulance in less than 40 minutes. In a couple of smaller towns, if the 2 ambulances are on a call, it can take an hour. I drove myself to the hospital with my second heart attack, & would be dead if I had not.

Lucky for you has that you were still conscious and able to drive Has!

I suspect what you had was old mate very treatable coronary thrombosis, which though painful, not the same as heart failure or fibrillation!

Cobber, simply because you believe the greens blocked bad legislation, doesn't make it so!

Just compare us with places with no upper house, who are doing so much better, or the time when the greens governed in their own right; and very nearly crippled the economic engine house of Europe, Germany!

America is now surging ahead, and only because unlike us, they had the good sense not to lock away their greatest source of wealth, portable energy.

And the stuff we've locked away, thanks to completely intractable greens, produces four times less carbon form wellhead to exhaust pipe, that the fully imported variety, completely rigid green, tail wagging the dog intransigence forces us to import?

And you say, that your support base is significantly larger than that of the Nats/Clive?

Well then adopt my recommendations and get out into the bush to take some of their seats from them, and you could if some of your policies were pragmatic, and actually welded to genuine environmental concern!

Instead, genuine environmentalists like Peter Andrews gets howled off the planet, as does accessing our own indigenous fuels, wherever they lay, and only because that's is arguably the only real way to bring down traffic emission!

Electric cars? Sure why not, and for most households that will mean an overnight charge exclusively using ever more expensive dirty carbon rich coal fired energy!

Given, both the major parties are in favor of electoral reform; and if that cuts you parliamentary influence in half, you will need to champion change via persuasion!

Why even as I pen these lines, we could have had a well established ETS reducing carbon here; and the fact we don't have one, down to the greens and their so called blocking of bad policy!

Talk about frivolous and or vacuous argument Cobber?
Rhrosty.

For those wanting some austerity - we still have $80 billion in state health and education budget cuts coming our way in 2017.

"They obviously want to be re-elected, & equally obviously, with the reaction to last years mild budget, would not have any chance of re-election, if they actually did anything as tough as we really do need."

You're right on the button there, Hasbeen.

This puts it even better....

http://www.theshovel.com.au/2015/05/13/hockey-postpones-budget-emergency-until-next-labor-government/

"Hockey Postpones Budget Emergency Until Next Labor Government"

"The Budget Emergency that has wreaked havoc on the Australian economy over the past eight years has been put on hold and will not be brought back until the Coalition is next in opposition.

“The Emergency has done a great job over these past few years, but we’ve come to a point where there’s no longer a need for it, at least not right now,” Treasurer Joe Hockey explained.

He said that while he could not find a place for the Emergency in this year’s budget, he had made allowances for its return in the future. “The Budget Emergency is there in the forward estimates,” he said.

Mr Hockey said the Budget Emergency had served the Government well. “I’d like to thank the Budget Emergency for the work it has done to date, and I look forward to working with it again in the future”."

Dear Graham,

I can certainly understand your consternation. This is a stimulus budget and if a large part of your mantra in opposition was about the waste of the last stimulus then I'm not sure where the 'wedded on' are going to hang their hat.

If you really think there is no place for stimulus spending now then I'm afraid you do not have much of a handle on the underlying small business economy, it is bloody bleak out there.

Whatever you think of the decision by the Coalition to so dramatically remove support for manufacturing in this country there is no denying it has not only served to feed the unemployment rate but also to trash business confidence. I have a fair bit to do with a diverse range of separate small businesses and it will be interesting to hear their take over the next few weeks. My suspicion is they will welcome the immediate asset write-off amount increasing to $20,000 (it should be noted that Hockey slashed it from Labour's stimulus amount of $5,000 back to $1,000 but now it seems it is back in flavour). They will also have a bit of time for a tax cut to small businesses but since so many are sailing very close to the wind at the moment it will not be a game changer.

I am in an area where several large manufacturing companies have shut down and several others are on borrowed time. As their workers tighten up trying to save as much as they can before the tap on the shoulder the squeeze it has put on small businesses in this neck of the woods is dramatic.

But you are right there is a difference between Rudd/Swann and Abbott/Gillard. The former did what they did in the belief that the GFC was going to wreak havoc on this country knowing, according to Bob Katter, it was probably going to end their political careers. The latter are doing it to save theirs.

Good luck.

No Rhrosty, it was a full blown heart attack. They had put one stent in after the first, opening up an artery that was 95% closed. I was lucky enough to be in town for that one, & just minutes from the hospital.

They had not put a stent in another that was 55% closed, as they thought it would be OK. I should not have waited 25 minutes for the ambulance before jumping in the car, as this was the one that did the damage. 20 minutes in the car would have been about 35 in the lumbering great 4 ton vans they are using today, & perhaps too long.

The doctor said another 10 minutes & I might not have made it at all. As it is now, a hundred meters walk is like a mile race for me today.

Abbott/Hockey, claimed to be a pair of economic gurus in opposition, but have proven themselves to be nothing more than economic gubers in government. The sad fact is these no ideas men have no plan, no direction, nothing what so ever mapped out for Australia's future. As Ross Gittins said in yesterdays SMH; "This is the budget of a badly rattled government that has put self-preservation ahead of economic responsibility".
Even the most sycophantic Abbott Government supporter must by now realise they were conned into voting for these ideologically driven conservatives, who if allowed to remain in office long term, can only reap even more havoc on Australia.