Graham,

Your article is not coming up; neither is the one below it.

I agree with the little bit I can read. It is a Labor budget that will appeal to the gimme groups. However, it will encourage Labor to be even more reckless with our money, and borrow more, when they get the chance again. It also seems that Morrison intends to steadily increase taxes to gain the surplus has has 'predicited' for 2021 or whatever.

The Coalition has dropped all pretence of small government and and conservatism in finance. Cory Bernadi has described it as a “winner for Labor” who will now feel more able to offer more spending at the next election. The Libs have “shown no constraint”, he says, and believes that the new Australian Conservatives are our only chance for redemption.

What happened to the old conservatives, they blew them selves to bits. The coalition never had a chance in the world of winning another election the way of the far right.
Besides Morrison giving up on robbing money from here to put it somewhere else. it's all to hard.
A shift to the Left is what was needed and sounds quite good. Turnbull being a centrist i believe would be a good PM without the interference of the far right.
Australia does not need austerity measures it needs stimulus to get things moving and create employment. We were not going anywhere but stagnating this budget just may put some confidence back into business. Abbotts hard line far right politics needs seperation from the liberal party. Those that want to vote conservative good luck to them. Conservative should not be part of liberal.

Yes Graham and has left Labor stumbling around looking for an issue that works for them. That said, we could have done so much better on energy policy, if all options, and I do mean all options were on the table. And if we ever find the testicular fortitude to do real tax reform.

Which to my mind will look like a flat tax of around 15% everybody pays, once crossing the threshold in any one financial year, of say $50,000.00.

With it removed, by a cooperative banking sector, protecting valuable licences, as PAYG-E, with very severe fiscal penalties for not complying, via an illegal black economy, as say a doubling trebling of your tax liability . Even to the point where all your assets here or abroad could be confiscated?

And fair, given the effective tax rate with all tax compliance costs rendered null and void, would be around 8%. And plenty, given company tax is reportedly varies between 1-4% for most of our corporate citizens, 95% who've offshored their operations to minimize their tax liabilities, with 40% of our guest multinationals paying no company tax to anyone, allegedly.

Fixing that will require a modest tax nobody can avoid after they cross a generous threshold. This simple measure kills both bracket creep and the destiny of demography stone dead, with revenue allowed to grow as fast as a genuinely turbo charged economy!

And there are some off budget nation building water projects that beckon as well as long over due rapid rail, with what's proposed just the opening salvo?

Ideally, freight moved on double decker trains that hit the rails at 120 klicks minimum. Giving rationalized road transport no way to compete save as CNG powered B doubles, and road trains, in areas not served by cheaper faster rail.

We need to get back to a nation that builds stuff and self sufficient independence. And in so doing, grow a turbocharged economy, which allows all else will virtually take care of itself, including generous social justice, leaving others, with nothing save confected mendacity, to get back?
Alan B.

While I disagree with much of the budget, I believe that the coalition was caught between a rock and a hard place, with Labor and the greens steadfastly blocking the removal of their new welfare hand out measures, and the unfunded NDIS and Gonski plans, the Hobson's choice was greater taxes or greater debt.

Given that due to Labor's profligacy Aus was about to lose the AAA that Howard worked so hard, with costs and consequences that certainly in the short term would outweigh the impact of higher taxes.

That the budget deflated Labor's whinging and gave the banks a well deserved kick in the backside are just bonuses.

The populous want NDIS and Gonski, that put the coalition in a very awkward position, the far right would not have a bar of that. Morrison by raising taxes is the way to go, instead of making funding thinner, and getting nowhere.
We need a price on carbon and a mining tax.
Turnbull has acted like a PM for a change instead of being directed by the backbench. He may come back into fashion with directives like that.
With Abbott still lurking in the background, will cause apprehension among business. He should go and disrupt the conservative party and stay out of Liberal politics.
Austerity and cost cutting should be done in good times, stimulus is needed in bad times, to create an even playing field. Abbotts’ idea of poke a stick at the little people when the economy is down only creates more reluctance to consume any goods and services, allowing us to slip further down the chain. Hopefully there will be an uplift in the community to pull us out of the doldrums.

SM,

In all fairness, we cannot continue blaming Labor. Spending, debt and taxes have increased since Labor was defeated two elections back. It would be fairer now to say that we have two socialist parties and it is up to the electorate to reject that, or not, at the next election. If there is not a correction soon, there is no hope for Australia.

Like it or not, the damage is done and no amount of taxing or shifting will fix the problem. Essenially, our only hope of recovery was the Abbott budget, but no one wants to do the heavy lifting, esspecially the late' society, the ones who happlily pay up to $50 per Lt for thier warmed milk, yet say they cant afford a house.

As for taxing the banks, governments seem to forget that they dont have to be here as they can simply vacate their four walls and do business elsewhere, leaving little more than a hole in the wall and a call centre in the middle of who knows where for you to vent your frustration.

The truth is we waste billions on welfare, billions on trying to educate kids who really dont care, and we give hundreds of millions to other countries BEFORE WE PAY OUR OWN BILLS.

My bed time wish is for Abbott to join forces with Binardi and Lathum and lead what could be a fresh new face in our political scene.

Bernadi and Latham and Abbott. What a trio. Good luck with that one butch.
Three cheers for bill, laid it on the line good and proper. With the coalition shifting to the left i would say they have played right into the hands of Labor.
The Abbott supporters still can not see daylight, Morrison never had a hope in hell in doing anything, shifting money from here and giving there, it done absolutely nothing.
In times of downturn you need stimulus. The coalition can not understand that. If things had of kept going like that there would be nothing left.
Butch liked Abbott's budget, that is not what we were promised from his election campaign. Not one of the Abbott worshipers can bring themselves to say Abbott done the wrong thing. They are still in love with Abbott no matter what. Now the whole party has fallen from grace and gone by way of Labor.

Graham you must be careful not to deceive yourself with wishful thinking.

Turnbull is never going to be any better than KRudd or Gillard, as long as his backside points to the ground. He is too stupid to know which way is up, too arrogant to ever listen to good advice & too slippery to ever be trusted. Wishing him otherwise is totally futile.

Wishing he was otherwise & trying to believe it is a recipe for a knife in the back. It has been patently obvious since the republic debate that he was in the wrong party. With his character & ethics he would be much more at home in the Labor party.

The article demonstates the usual conservative blinkered ideology. Taxes bad, government provision of goods and services bad.

The real problem with the housing market is high population growth rates and speculation by 'investors'. Allowing first home buyers to use super funds to purchase a house is demented. That would bid up house prices even more and erode the superannuation system. The main beneficiaries would the rentiers who infest the housing market, ie contributors to and supporters of the Coalition.

Whatever happened to the debt crisis?

Don't worry mac, the debt crisis is still there, & getting worse by the day, trying to fund the NDIS & Gonski.

However with a Labor lite twit in the chair, just like Labor, they have decided trying to get elected, or re-elected is more important than trying to fix previous mistakes.

There was just one little bump in our downhill slide since Howard, & there is now nothing left to even slow us down in our chase of Greece, Spain & Ireland.

Hold on tight, the crash at the bottom is going to be breathtaking.

Hasbeen,

The real debt crisis is not public but private, the country is nowhere near a Greece style catastrophe.The Banks have borrowed billions from foreign investors to speculate on the real estate market. When the housing bubble bursts and the proud owners of Mc Mansions discover that the houses are worth half their mortgages the voters will finally learn the hard way. Also Coalition politicians, because of their neoliberal ideology are intrinsically incapable of slowing down the bubble. Of course the government in power at the time will get the blame.

WA is a preview of the impending national disaster.

I agree that the crash at the bottom will be 'breathtaking', our own miniature GFC.

Mac, just how is the housing market going to halve in value?

The renters will still be there and the demand will keep increasing so long as we keep allowing so many in who soak up our over generous welfare.

while i can see a downturn, i cant see a complete crash as per your prediction.

There are two essential ingredients to affordable housing.
First, one require a disposable income. Second, buyers then have to shop in a market that is affordable to that income. It truely is that simple.

Late' sippers happily fork out $50 per litre for warm milk, then complain because they cant afford a house. Then there are those of regular incomes, ecpecting to buy thier first home for $600K. They are in lar lar land.

There is no such thing as a housing affordabillity crisis if one looks in a market that is applicable to thier incomes and, if their incomes are too low, then work longer or gain a better set of skills.

As a butchers we comonly worked 70+ hours a week and had to do this if we wanted an income in keeping with prefessionals who made similar dollars in a normal week. It's called life!

Im sick to death of people expecting others to fix their problems.

Morrison has got the debt fixed, you just cut it in half, good debt and bad debt. So the debt is a claytons'debt is it there or is it not. No doubt this will result in more user pay toll roads. That will be good debt. So not counted as debt, all you have to do is pay the borrowing costs. That is where Morrisons bad debt is. So we have no debt.
The only debt we have is how much interest we pay on debt we dont have. When our interest payments out weigh our GDP income we will be broke.

rehctub,

(1) "just how is the housing market going to halve in value?"

That's an understatement, the market fell by a greater percentage in some European countries and the US during the GFC.

(2) "..while i can see a downturn, i cant see a complete crash as per your prediction."

That's a reasonable comment, I'm just more pessimistic, only time will tell.

(3) "There are two essential ingredients to affordable housing.

"First, one require a disposable income. Second, buyers then have to shop in a market that is affordable to that income. It truely is that simple.'

No, it isn't, it's more complicated. Relatively high population growth rates and the encouragement of rentier 'investors' have forced up house prices. For many people,there is often no segment of the market that is "applicable to their incomes". The ratio of median house prices to yearly incomes is much greater now than for earlier generations.

The budget has a revenue problem which is compounded by the tax cuts the Coalition has allowed to business. I don't know of any evidence that supports the myth that tax cuts encourage investment. Multinationals are experts at tax avoidance, so far little has been achieved to remedy the situation.

(4) "Im sick to death of people expecting others to fix their problems."

Often those problems are not caused by the people who are in economic distress but by inept government policy. The solution to the housing crisis is simple, reduce immigration and keep the parasitic rentiers out of the market.

As I commented earlier, the country's "Sword of Damocles" is not public but private debt.

Australia is too diverse to have a collapse. Housing prices are out of control in sydney and melbourne. Perth has a population shift to contend with.
What you will see is a gigantic amount of bankruptcies in the overpriced areas. That will be caused by interest rate shift and not the cost of housing. People will be out on their ear with out a credit rating. It in turn will cause marriage breakdowns and possibly suicide.
It is ok to say we have a free market and it's their own fault. On the other hand it is a govt policy fault, not being able to intervene, being a Liberal govt.
You would have more hope of a stable housing market if we had a Labor govt.
The run away prices in Melbourne and Sydney should have been regulated with interest rate specific zones [which goes against liberal policy]
When interest rates do rise it will be a disaster for the people involved in low interest borrowings. If people can not handle an interest rate of 6.5 7.5 % they should not be allowed borrowings. But that is something for a labor govt.