Are state and federal budget deficits inevitable, and does that matter? Can, or should, we pull back into surplus, and who should bear the cost?

Yes, they are.

In simple terms Australia is living beyond it's means.



While we overspend on non-productives such as:-
* paid parental leave
* supporting those that choose not to work
* obscene wages/benefits for upper echelon public servants
* obscene wages/benefits for corporate executives (driving cost of services/goods up)
we simply won't be able to drag ourselves out of the defect hole.

Neither of the major parties have policies to address these issues. If anything, their polices will make matters worse.

Yes, it does matter.
After all government commitments to the value of the deficit can only
be met by borrowing the difference between income and spending.
Is it suggested that can go on forever ?
Is it suggested that the loans be made to disappear by transmitting
pixel money to all in sundry ?

Maybe that is the solution, cheat the creditors by inflating the debt away.
Then again Australia was one of the G20 countries that agreed to the
scheme that was applied for the first time in Cyprus.
Just take the deposits in the banks and give them to the creditors.
Very simple way to fix the problem of deficits.

It matters, always.
And far more in other parts of the world.
Who face far bigger troubles.
Wise men know staying within a budget can be a help, if or is it when, another GFC opens up under us.

Neither of the major parties have policies to address these issues. If anything, their polices will make matters worse
Lmcsp,
Most people are aware that Australia is living way beyond its means but the bulk of those who use up most of OUR resources are safely tucked away in the public service. Thank you Labor & thank you all other parties who did nothing to object or reject the last pay rises.
I hope Clive Palmer will address this somewhat before the election. His party is literally Australia's only hope.

ask the 75% youth unemloyed in Greece if it matters. The Labour/Greens are doing their best to display the same economic competence as the Greeks.

I just heard on tonight's news that Peter Slipper might be joining Clive Palmer's party. If that's the case all my support will go out the window. I suppose I'll have to go back to the lesser of the two evils.
It's just one downer after another in this country. What the hell is wrong with people here ?

Kind of proves my post on another thread.

You have to stand back for a while, [a few years], & watch what any new party is prepared to do to get a raft of candidates.

Clive has certainly blown it, in wanting to get his party registered, in a hurry, the easy way.

On the deficit, this proves we can't afford a NBN, which is not included in there, or the NDIS, or Gonski wild education spending, not in yet either. Bung that lot into the figures, & without overruns we're looking at another 29 billion a year borrowings.

Hell we can't pay for now, let alone all these fool money pits.

Lmscp, a major factor in this sort budgetary analysis just gets left out all the time. This is the ever-increasing demand for everything that is generated by very high population growth.

With a stable population or a much lower rate of growth, we might just have some chance of actually…

…getting some net improvements from all the enormous expense on services, infrastructure, etc…

…and at the same time coming a lot closer to being able to balance the books!

Hasbeen "On the deficit, this proves we can't afford a NBN, which is not included in there, or the NDIS, or Gonski wild education spending..."

We can't afford not to afford these things for our future. Swan's budget lacks only one thing, higher taxes to take us back to the Howard years level so we can afford these things without/with less borrowings. It would also be helpful if Treasury could forecast better (oh, that's right, Treasury is a pawn of Government right?). As it is, any borrowing necessary (i.e. to pay for the forecast budget deficits) will not put Oz into anything resembling a catastrophe.

I comfortably owe 20 percent of my annual income in interest on 12 percent of the value of my assets. What's the big deal with Government investing prudently in ensuring a stronger taxable national income stream in the future? Do we have to revert to years of low infrastructure spending as we did under the Howard Government only to have to make up the shortfall some time in the future as we have had to do?

The only real difference between ALP and LNP approaches are timing, priorities (how quickly to reduce a deficit, where to spend money) and who gets the cream (capital or labour). All tugging about over income/expenditure evolves from this.

Australia's economy is the envy of the world while we scare ourselves over relatively minor details when compared with most other countries.

Garbage Luciferase, the only effect Gonski will have is to put more money in the education unions pocket. How can you say even one damn kid will be better educated, when they have no idea of what they want to do.

The NBN is all ready starting to look like a white elephant, & a money pit at that, & this is before recent announcements of research successes tell us fiber will be obsolete, even before this lot of numskulls hired to build the thing, get it finished.

As for the NDIS, they don't even know what they want to do with the money. Doesn't matter to Julia & co of course, once it has bought a few votes they don't care.

Of course, just like more money for the disadvantaged suddenly generated a whole lot more so called disadvantaged, the NDIS will have a whole lot more disabled coming out of the woodwork, with their hand well out.

Heard Clive Palmer say that he put in a membership list of over 700
members but the application was knocked back because he did not submit
500 members !
Apparently he reduced it to 500 with an extension of time.
Sounds like a bit of burocratese attempt to keep him out.

Garbage back to you Hasbeen. You have a right to your own opinion, but not to your own facts.

So, fibre has been superseded, by what? Please don't spout about wireless, that's a total furphy. Is there something I've missed, apart from Turnbull's fatuous claim about copper delivering 80 Mb/s to us all on the NBN he's not going to build?

Nice to think that in life's lottery those with a child born disabled will not be left to cope alone, as you would prefer they do. Nice also that we are going to try to ensure every child has equitable access to becoming educated, but you don't care for that either (this is not entirely a money issue, but money is a part of it).

Just what do you care about, Hasbeen? All I have read from you is spend nothing and tax nothing. Have you thought of living as a hermit on a small island (with broadband access, of course)?

Luciferase,
Fibre will probably never be superseded by anything.
However, that is not the point. Radio should not be used for the
internet, except for mobile only applications.
It would be a criminal waste of spectrum to use radio for general internet usage.
Many will be disappointing with their NBN 100 Mbit performance when
they realise the requested web pages have the same pauses during
loading that they experience here and now.
It is all a big joke, it is just that very few have seen it yet.

Do come off the grass Luciferase.

We have seen this lot spend 10s of billions, & get not a single damn thing worth a brass razoo for it.

Just what makes you think any other damn fool new red herring, dragged across the media by the red W will be any more use.

Some of you people are too naive to be allowed out alone.

We do not have to have deficits or surpluses. Surely we should budget to balance expenditure with income and stop the nonsense of a budget that looks 4 or 6 years ahead. It is a budget for one year.

It is we the people of Australia for whom this money is being spent, so if we don't want it spent we need to tell ALL the polilticians that. Then they will stop spending so much. But there are needs. A valid question is whether the tax system has moved to being a system for re-distribution of wealth or one that provides services. What do you think?