All these ranting and raving is amusing, and the budget isn't out yet.

For the 6 years of wild Labor spending you were told it had to be paid for. I wonder how many supported Labor when they got the $900 cheque and all the failed 'green' schemes, fuel watch, grocery watch, the school halls, pink bats and all the other things Labor wasted money on. Notice that nothing was implemented to generate income or build infrastructure. Well kids the time is now that it all has to be paid for. At least a start on repayments.

This government was elected to curb the excesses and stupid spending of the previous Labor mob and it appears they intend to do that. The money has to come from somewhere, so suck it up kids.

Except for Ludwig, no one is suggesting where savings can be made. Ludwig is right, but it won't happen, neither will a saving of $41 million on maulticulturalism.

I won't speculate, just wait until the budget is out, then evaluate.

Butch still banging on about carbon tax on power generators. The power generators do pay carbon tax but they can not pass it on. Electricity is market based and you have to bid to buy power from the pool. With declining power consumption over four years straight. All due to the take up of solar. Coal fired power stations are battling to pay for the cost of coal recovery to feed the boilers. They will move away from a market based buying of wholesale power and go to a set rate for wholesale electricity. That way they can pass on the carbon tax plus some more.

Banjo,

"For the 6 years of wild Labor spending you were told it had to be paid for. I wonder how many supported Labor when they got the $900 cheque and all the failed 'green' schemes, fuel watch, grocery watch, the school halls, pink bats and all the other things Labor wasted money on. Notice that nothing was implemented to generate income or build infrastructure. Well kids the time is now that it all has to be paid for. At least a start on repayments."

Abso-jolly-lutely!

It would have been much better to go into recession, just like all the countries that practiced austerity instead of stimulus.

And it would have dudded Eleventy Joe (he of the MYEFO fiction paper) of the chance to spin his craft of deceit and fiscal fairy tales.

You're been taken to the cleaners by this fake...and yet you defend it!

It's a bit of laugh to see all the business men up in arms because now Tony's mooted " debt tax" is creeping its miasma into the realms of the well-heeled...his support base.

Double Lol!

12 billion for airoplanes to be paid for. Plus Hockeys 68 billion in six months. They have been sitting on a piece of paper for months, apparently it is to shocking for us to see, or they are correcting a few mistakes. What ever way it is Joe will spin a line that no one can refuse.

It just keeps coming.

http://www.smh.com.au/comment/smh-editorial/tony-abbotts-deficit-levy-will-make-a-taxing-issue-even-worse-20140430-zr1va.html

"Let there be no bones about it. A levy, temporary or otherwise, is a tax, and if the Abbott government goes ahead with such a measure on middle- and high-income earners, it will be a shoddy way of trying to repair the budget, and will do little to improve the productivity of our economy.

The political hypocrisy of Prime Minister Tony Abbott contemplating such a tax, after explicit promises of no new taxes and three years of lashing Julia Gillard over her broken carbon tax pledge, is breathtaking. But it is more serious than this.

The Australian Industry Group and other business leaders are already warning that lifting tax rates will slow the economy."

"But to argue it is an urgent crisis is hyperbole. A comparison of Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries with Australia shows we are in the relatively luxurious position of enjoying stable, if slightly below-trend, growth and relatively low net government debt to gross domestic product.

According to the International Monetary Fund's World Economic Outlook released this month, Australia's general government net debt as a percentage of GDP stood at 13 per cent last year, and will rise to just under 20 per cent by 2019 on a do-nothing basis. Compare this with Germany, which has net debt as a percentage of GDP of 53 per cent, the United Kingdom 84.5 per cent, the USA 82 per cent and Canada at 39 per cent. And Japan and many EU countries have net debt well over 100 per cent of GDP."

Do all you Chicken Littles get the idea?

Want to see loads of quotes of Abbott decrying tax increases?

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-05-01/fact-file-what-has-tony-abbott-promised-on-tax/5420226

Sensible comment, Bazz

Perhaps Suzeonline would like to tell us why the rest of the world isn't penalising Japan, which really does have close to a zero immigration policy and doesn't take refugees. Currently, zero net immigration, which is what Ludwig is asking for, would mean around 80,000 immigrants a year from ABS figures.

The people who are ignorant are those who suppose that our mass migration program has big per capita economic benefits. The Productivity Commission says otherwise (see p. 6)

http://www.pc.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0016/113407/annual-report-2010-11.pdf

Michael Reddell of the Reserve Bank of New Zealand has written a paper showing that New Zealanders would have been better off without the high immigration of the past few decades, largely due to the high infrastructure costs mentioned by Ludwig.

"Internationally, there is no evidence over the last century that countries with faster population growth, or greater inward migration, have achieved faster income or productivity growth than other countries."

http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2014/04/rbnz-slams-the-population-ponzi/

We are getting the enormous numbers, not because it is good for us, but because high immigration gives Big Business bigger domestic markets, rentier profits from ownership and financing of real estate and other necessities, and a cheap, compliant work force as the labour market is oversupplied.

Perhaps Graham should require that posters accusing other posters of racism to present evidence of such with reference to previous posts. I don't recall Ludwig ever calling for any sort of discrimination in our migrant intake.