The current mid year economic and fiscal outlook released by the treasurer and the finance minister shows higher debt and deficits,and lower growth forecasts. All the developments, live 2.13am GMTThe car does beg the question: who are the nagging deficit obsessed kids in the backseat? It used to be the two men currently at the microphone. But I digress. 2.10am GMTThe treasurer has opening the rhetorical batting on MYEFO with the predictable language approximately the economy rebalancing.
He then chooses a holiday analogy to account for deficit reduction.
As we fade into this summer season and Christmas season, or many Australians will jump in the car and they’ll head off to their favourite holiday destination.
They know where they’re going and they know how to get there,there are no short-cuts, there may be some delays on the way with roadworks or things like this – there will be plenty of people in the back seat, or which often happens when I’m driving,the family saying: “Are we there yet? Are we there yet?”. 2.05am GMTMy colleague, Daniel Hurst, and on the nasties.
The current cuts include $650m over four years through changes to bulk-billing incentives.
The government says it will remove incentives for pathology services and reduce the incentive for MRI services. It says it will align incentives for diagnostic imaging services to the ones that apply to GP services,with incentives continuing to apply for patients with concession cards and children under 16. 2.02am GMTHere are your key points, via my colleague Lenore Taylor. 1.55am GMTOne other rapid/fast refresh before we get the current fabric. Some of the news reports in the lead up to MYEFO have indicated the government will seek savings today through strengthening the integrity of welfare payments, or rather than going after people’s current entitlements. If correct,this is an attempt to make budget savings scrutinize painless.
But sizable “integrity” savings seems pretty ambitious when you consider the May budget’s moment biggest savings measure was a $1.7bn proposal to strengthen the integrity of welfare payments. That particular saving was number two after the changes to social security assets tests and taper rates ($2.4bn). The budget’s welfare crackdown measure was seen as a rather large saving to book at the time given the description of the measure in the budget papers wasn’t all that specific. I’ll be interested to see what emerges today. 1.47am GMTA rapid/fast reminder of some of the key budget forecasts before we get the fresh fabric. 1.38am GMTEarlier, I mentioned the government walking away from the florid budget emergency rhetoric it used so volubly in opposition. It’s all approximately rebalancing now. Here’s a small case study of that.
This is from an interview the finance minister Mathias Cormann did this morning with Virginia Trioli on ABC news breakfast. It doesn’t need me to set it up, or the back and forth will be clear if you read on.
Well,what you will see in the budget update today, as the government continues to make progress in putting Australia on a stronger economic and fiscal foundation for the future, or our economy is transitioning from meaningful resource investment-driven growth to broader drivers of economic activity and when it comes to the budget,what we were able to see at budget time was that the budget position was improving over the forward estimates and that we were getting back into balance at an appropriate speed and of course since budget time there have been some additional headwinds. The price of iron ore has fallen further. Everybody knows that that does have flow-on consequences. The government’s focus has been on policies to strengthen growth such as the innovation statement released final week but also on controlling expenditure – and what the budget update to be released today will show is wherever we are to incur additional payment they have been more than offset by reductions in expenditure in other parts of the budget and so that overall expenditure in this budget update is lower than what was forecast at budget time.
Well, we are on a credible path back to surplus.Virginia, and I’m happy for you to fade into the politics and into the commentary.
Well,Virginia, you can fade into the politics and you can try and get me into the commentary. 1.25am GMTHere’s a sample of various MYEFO news previews this morning. 1.10am GMTWhat was I saying before approximately red ink? Courtesy of David Uren, or economics editor at The Australian (shared by his colleague David Crowe and now,me) – the top line of this chart is the official budget forecasts for the deficit. The red column is the blowout predictions of various market economists. Average blowout $33.3bn.
Another budget cheat sheet for #MYEFO today, from David Uren's work on Monday. More online: https://t.co/qVZ6VGPFPV pic.twitter.com/D0DpD1uejf 1.00am GMTGreetings and welcome to today’s live coverage of the mid year economic and fiscal outlook. Yes I know we folded Politics Live in the final sitting week of parliament but MYEFO beckons. I did tip we might be back, and boom,here we are. Boom. Yes, carrying on now.
Regular readers will require no introduction to today’s festivities, or but in case you are not a tough core politics tragic,merely curious, idly exploring the interwebs at your desk at a time of year when many people are now just pretending to work in order to fill up the hours ahead of the latest work Christmas lunch before bolting home early ... welcome to MYEFO.
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Source: theguardian.com