Poirot, just confirming we are referring to the same useless M Swan, the same useless person who told us in excess of ome hundred times that we would have a surplus.

Use well, if you think his forecasts were accurate, I feel for you as you have been conned.

Nojh and 579, I agree with dumping the PPS, in my view it's a joke, always has been. In fact, I think it was a bait to catch gullible voters and they took the bait, hook, line and sinker. I say this because even blind Freddie would have known it was unaffordable. Just like the NDIS and Gonski, they are all pipe dreams.

Negative gearing, here we go again.

May I suggest in order to do away with negative gearing, the first step is to secure affordable accommodation for would be renters, because investors are going to pull out of the property market and invest elsewhere. Sought that out first, then you can have a serious look at NG. Of all those who call for an end to NG, including one lead economist, this appears to be one area none of them will respond to. Are you guys going to join that list?

Diesel subsidy
Mining and agriculture are the too larges beneficiaries of this scheme and, with both showing signs of retraction, do you really think taking this away is going to be a positive move?

The whole problem you people simply won't face up to is that prior to 2007, we had ZERO DEBT and $20 BILLION in the bank.

Look where labor left off after just six years.

Dear Mr. Nhoj,

It seems you have learned little from your exit interview (Posted by spindoc, Wednesday, 7 May 2014 11:34:58 AM), and you continue to froth about the forecast “doubling” of the ALP deficit by the LNP.

I’m not sure precisely what it is about this forecast that grieves you so much? It is only valid until the budget comes down anyway, at which point we will have the actual expense and revenue figures, so it remains a “so what” until then.

It could be your “Unicorn” of the week in which case it is fast disappearing over the horizon.

Is it the case that you seek to shift the blame for Australia’s debt and deficit to the LNP by pointing to revised forecasts since December 7, 2013, in order to draw attention away from the last six years of ALP economics which got us into this mess in the first place?

If this is the case then you can take comfort from the fact that you are not to blame because it was not your original thought, the ABC and ALP thought of it first, you just borrowed their opinion.

All the answers you seek are in the link to the ABC that you provided.

The difference between the ALP’s August PEFO and the December 7 MYEFO is that the former was based on ALP assumptions of “no policy change” and the MYEFO was based on the economic assumptions given to treasury by the LNP.

The ABC says; “The first, the Pre-Election Economic and Fiscal Outlook (PEFO), was released in August by Treasury. It was based on a "no policy change" scenario, using assumptions and fiscal rules underpinning medium-term projections adopted by the former Labor government”.

“The second, the Mid-Year Economic and Fiscal Outlook (MYEFO) was released in December by the Government. It was based on assumptions adopted by the Coalition, following advice from Treasury”.

Cont’

We are now nearing 100 billion in the bank but that is not worth mentioning.
Abbott would not give a single cent about renters welfare.
The miners can pay the tax on fuel as well as the mining tax that does not earn any money.
We keep hearing from Joe Hockey we need to "fix the budget". The fact is we left the budget in sound shape. In all of our budgets from 2008-09 onwards, including in the last budget, we faced up to the challenge of finding large savings. Many of our measures designed to protect the strength of the budget – such as means testing the private health rebate which were opposed outright by Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey.

Cont’d

It may not be that obvious to you, but there are a number of reasons for this.

Firstly, the LNP is now in government.
Secondly, The ALP failed to get any of their economic projections right.
Thirdly, the ALP repeatedly failed to deliver their promised surplus.
Fourthly, it was every single flawed “assumption” the ALP applied that made the growing deficit look like a surplus,
Fifthly, the ALP used “frozen” single point indicators to avoid scrutiny of their disastrous upward trend lines,
and lastly, not only did the surpluses fail to eventuate, but every single deficit that replaced these “surpluses” was greater than the last.

Therefore it would seem entirely reasonable that anything to do with ALP economic management (sic.) should be tossed out as quickly as possible.

ABC Fact Check April 8, 2014; “Mr. Hockey’s $123 bn deficit figure comes from last year’s MYEFO.. Mr. Hockey’s $667 bn debt figure comes from Treasury projections for 2023-24, which also appeared in last year’s MYEFO”

It might help if you read your own links rather than emotionally “feeling” them.

I realize you are a new troll to this site however, you should be aware that OLO’ers have become increasingly aware of the application of progressive rhetoric, platitudes and narrative theory as a means of changing reality into palatable fiction. Sadly for the progressives, reality has a nasty bite.

So now that we have “agreed” on the material facts, and how each of these has been derived, what precisely is the case that you are trying to make?

If your case is that the “yet to be evidenced sins” of the LNP even before their first budget, are somehow greater than six years of economic tragedy from the ALP/Greens, then you don’t have long to wait do you?

My guess would be that the shear terror being expressed here on OLO by progressives, is that this budget might just turn out to be a “stop the boats” moment

Alright 579, so if we do all the things that you suggest, we’d save ~45.4billion$ per annum, of which about 25b is a once-off saving and 20b an ongoing annual saving.

Meanwhile, it is costing us in the order of 80b pa to duplicate basic infrastructure for new residents, which mostly come from our absurdly high immigration intake.

As Divergence says:

<< the upfront infrastructure costs of our massive 1.8% population growth rate are enormous. >>

Perhaps now we can appreciate just how enormous.

579, you wrote:

<< If we really are in a "budgetary emergency", if debt, government spending and government waste really are our gravest challenges at this time, then surely the above can fall by the wayside until you fulfil your primary election 'mandate' to fix the country's finances? >>

How about a big reduction in immigration? Halving it would save in the order of 30b pa.

If we really are in a budget emergency, then the MOST IMPORTANT thing that can be done is to significantly reduce immigration and thus greatly reduce the demand for government / taxpayer expenditure.

And the really great thing about it is that it can be done very very easily.... a million times more easily than for anything else of similar magnitude! The tough measures that you mentioned all added together would be of similar magnitude, and just imagine how difficult it would be to get them all implemented!

And what’s more; it would be very well supported by the general community, which really is not in favour of the current immigration policy.

Abbott has an agenda, and that does not include saving money, he just wants people to pay for his agenda.
The states are to sell everything they have access to but no money is to go for debt reduction.
QLD is 85 billion in debt, the only state to show a surplus is Victoria.
Abbott's spending is over and above debt, all the budgetary changes will do is make the deficit less. Would be far better to raise the GST, instead of playing around with hospitals and education and taxes which are not taxes. Giving money back to miners is absolute crap.
Abbott loosened the strings on 457 visas, so i don,t think your immigration policy is in the pipeline at all. Are you happy with all that red tape being cut.