And that is where we are going to end tonight, before we all turn into pumpkins.
But don’t worry, we’ll be back early tomorrow morning for all the fallout. Plus, you know, parliament.
We are itching closer to the election being called, which I am sure you can all feel in your waters now, given the big spending sweetener budget. It’s almost like the budget emergency of 2014 wasn’t actually a thing!
A massive thank you to Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp, Greg Jericho, Gabrielle Chan and Mike Bowers for everything they do. Special mention to Chris Knaus and the rest of the Guardian brains trust for pulling all of this together. It is literally a mission and I don’t think we can ever actually explain what it is like.
We’ll be back in just a few short hours. Thank you for following along with us today – and as always, take care of you.
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Mike Bowers has been out and about:
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Tony Abbott, however, is a fan.
It's been a very important Budget for the people of Warringah and the Northern Beaches. Proud of the work the Liberal Party has done to deliver essential funding for the projects our community needs most. #Budget2019 #BuildingOurEconomy pic.twitter.com/x6F1z9WBI9
— Tony Abbott (@TonyAbbottMHR) April 2, 2019
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It doesn’t seem like Adam Bandt is a fan.
$189m.
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) April 2, 2019
That’s all the gov is spending on its signature climate ‘policy’ over the Budget period.
There’s more new money for the Cairns Ring Road than for climate change.
Turf this mob out.#Budget2019 #Greens
By the way, there is only $400k for an electric car strategy, but $11m in luxury car tax rebates. There is also an extra $1.8 billion in fossil fuel subsidies to Gina Rinehart and her mates.#Greens #Budget2019
— Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) April 2, 2019
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Just want to know what is in the budget (yet to be legislated) for you?
Try this:
The Law Council of Australia chief executive, Arthur Moses, is furious at the lack of money in community legal centres. Community legal services, which provide legal support and advocacy to low-income Australians, are already desperately underfunded.
A 2014 Productivity Commission report on access to justice found legal assistance services were already struggling to meet demand, with overstretched resources.
The Productivity Commission recommended federal and state governments provide an extra $200m each year to help the sector meet demand.
But Tuesday’s budget provided only a $20m increase.
“14% of Australians live below the poverty line, yet only 8% qualify for legal aid,” Moses said.
“You cannot have two classes of justice in this country – one for those who can afford it, and one for those can’t.”
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Aboriginal organisations have expressed frustration with the budget, asking why there are tax cuts while there’s a $129m expansion of the controversial cashless debit card.
Aboriginal health organisations have expressed frustration that there’s $12m in the budget for a Captain Cook memorial, but only $15m to address Indigenous youth suicide.
“We welcome 15m for suicide prevention but that amount is just a starting point, and we have no detail on how it will be allocated,” chair of Naccho (the National Aboriginal community controlled health organisation) Donnella Mills said.
“The treasurer kept on about how we are geared towards surplus. We need to focus on the most vulnerable and marginalised in our community, but this budget does nothing for my mob.
“I don’t need another reminder that colonisation is still living. I don’t need to be reminded of that; we see it every day. I need to be reminded of the Uluru statement from the heart.
“It just shows we have a long way to travel toward real equity and real social justice outcomes.”
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Sally Loane, chief executive officer of the Financial Services Council, welcomed the surplus as well as the increased funding of $550m over four years for the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority and the Australian Securities and Investments Commission.
She alss welcomed the changes to superannuation that allow people aged 65 and 66 to make contributions without meeting the current work test.
“We welcome the fact that older workers do exist in Australia, people are working well into their sixties so they have been given some flexibility in putting more money into superannuation,” Loane said.
Paul Vesteege, of the Combined Pensioners and Superannuants Association, said the “tax cut was the unkindest cut of all”.
“$158bn over ten years will be ripped out of the public purse to give tax cuts to people who are working while Australia’s social services are fraying at the edges – they are threadbare,” he said.
He said the government failed to address aged care, the home care package waiting list, any public dental schemes, affordable housing and ignored the gross inadequacy of Newstart.
Mark Purcell, of the Australian Council for International Development, said the budget confirmed the Australian aid program continues to freefall and Australia’s relations with Asia were at risk because of the decline.
“What’s really worrying is the government’s Pacific step-up seems to be built on a policy of losing Asia,” Purcell said.
“Australia’s aid is not just about alleviating poverty but it’s about investment in good relations in the region.”
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The budget confirms net debt has more than doubled on the Liberals’ watch (up from $175 billion in 2013 to $373.5 billion this year). Net debt under the Liberals amounts to nearly $15,000 for every person in Australia. After doubling the debt, their promise to pay it down is laughable.
The Liberals will say anything over the next six weeks to cover up for six years of cuts and chaos.
Labor will support the tax cuts that begin on 1 July for working and middle class people – this is essentially a copy of what we proposed last year, and they are simply catching up to us.
But the Liberals are so out of touch that they’ve given a much smaller tax cut to two million Australians earning less than $40,000. Labor will fix this and give these working people the tax relief they deserve.
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The official line from the government, as per the press release from Josh Frydenberg and Mathias Cormann, is:
The budget is back in the black, with the Morrison government delivering the first budget surplus in more than a decade.
This year will see a surplus of $7.1 billion. A $55.5 billion turnaround from the deficit we inherited six years ago.
In 2020-21, a surplus of $11.0 billion.
In 2021-22, a surplus of $17.8 billion.
In 2022-23, a surplus of $9.2 billion.
A total of $45 billion of surpluses over the next four years.
Surpluses will continue to build toward one per cent of GDP within a decade.
Through disciplined budget management Australia is again well-positioned to respond to challenges both here and abroad.
A strong economy means we can deliver lower taxes, guarantee essential services, invest in congestion‑busting infrastructure and keep Australians safe and secure.
And with the budget moving into surplus, it means the government is strengthening its commitment to pay down debt.
The government is reducing debt, not through higher taxes, but by good budget management and growing the economy.
By paying down debt, the government will put the nation’s finances on a more sustainable footing and reduce the burden on future generations. Net debt is projected to be eliminated by 2029-30.
Reducing debt will ensure that the next generation does not pick up the tab for the last.
In delivering a surplus budget, the government’s economic plan is giving Australians more opportunities, and creating a stronger economy.
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Kelly O’Shanassy, chief executive of the Australian Conservation Foundation, says the budget has comprehensively failed to take action on climate change. She says spending on climate action is still inadequate.
The ACF says the budget spends $4.36 on subsidising polluting activities for every dollar it spent on climate action.
“Since 2013, the Coalition government, for every dollar they have spent on climate action, they’ve spent $2.45 on subsidising climate pollution, mainly through subsidising the use of diesel fuel.
“In this budget tonight, in the next year, for every dollar that the Coalition will spend on climate action, they will spend $4.36 on subsidising climate pollution.”
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The congo line of people waiting to respond to the budget has dissipated.
We’ll bring you the last of those in just a moment.
Foreign aid is going up ... and then it’s going down again, more than it went up.
The budget papers reveal foreign aid expenditure is expected to increase in real terms by 6.6% from this financial year, 2019-20, before decreasing by 11.8% between 2019-20 and 2022-23.
Foreign aid has been a vexed issue among non-government organisations who have criticised successive cuts or cuts to planned increases by successive governments.
This year’s budget revealed the $2bn Australian infrastructure financing facility for the Pacific will be funded out of the aid budget.
The money is being redirected away from Asia to fund Australia’s push in the Pacific, which is now taking an unprecedented 35% of the aid budget.
Pakistan the worst hit with bilateral program more than halved. Bangladesh, Cambodia, Indonesia, Nepal also cut.
— Jonathan Pryke (@jonathan_pryke) April 2, 2019
The government pledged last year to maintain foreign aid spending at $4bn annually, before recommencing indexation in 2022-23.
Chief executive of the Australian Council for International Development, Marc Purcell, told Guardian Australia before the budget he expected a steady overall decline, which would put Australia even further away from international goals to commit 0.7% of gross national income to foreign aid. Some countries, such as the UK, have already achieved the goal but Australia has dropped in the rankings of OECD countries from 13th to 19th.
He said the establishment of projects like the infrastructure facility - which was given an additional $12.7m over the forward estimates in the budget – put us at risk of losing influence in Asia.
The budget said the dramatic changes year-on-year reflected the payment cycles of Australia’s contributions to multilateral funds such as the Asian Development Fund and the World Bank’s International Development Association.
The Department of Foreign affairs’ statements reveal this year had $76.7m in multilateral payments, while the following three years required more than $1.86bn.
Finance minister Matthias Cormann had previously flagged around $80bn in savings from the foreign aid budget between now and 2028-29.
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Greens leader Richard Di Natale has given the budget an F for fail on climate change.
“We are facing an existential threat and the government can’t even bring themselves to commit anything when it comes to tackling the climate challenge.”
He said the $189m committed over four years from the climate fund was an insult to scientists who are trying to understand the changing climate.
“A few bucks on electric vehicles doesn’t make a climate policy. We need to spend billions to modernise our grid to take advantage of renewable energy resources.
“This is a huge failure by the government. There is no plan, no vision.”
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What is this? A BUDGET FOR ANTS? It needs to be at least...three times bigger than this!
The budget has THREE SEPARATE MEASURES dedicated to fighting THREE SEPARATE KINDS OF ANT https://t.co/1mei1VzlYY
— Hannah Ryan (@HannahD15) April 2, 2019
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The Australian Conservation Foundation has responded:
- A 39.7% per cent cut to the environment budget since 2013.
- An overall environment budget of $900 million for 2019-20.
- $40 billion for the diesel fuel tax credit subsidy across the forward estimates, nine times the total budget for the environment.
The Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) said budget 2019-20 fails by devaluing the environment that sustains all Australians, while increasing the climate-damaging diesel subsidy and paving the way for public money to be used to support coal and gas projects.
ACF’s chief executive officer, Kelly O’Shanassy, said since 2013-14 investment in protecting and restoring the environment has been cut by nearly 40 per cent, while the overall federal budget has grown by 17 per cent.
“While Australians live through multiple environmental crises – record-breaking heatwaves, bushfires in forests that were considered too wet to burn, a million fish dead in the Darling River and mass bleaching on the Barrier Reef – the proportion of the overall budget invested in the environment is just 0.2 cents on the dollar,” Ms O’Shanassy said.
“This budget devalues the environment that sustains all Australians, while paving the way for public money to be used to support new coal and gas projects and boosting fossil fuel subsidies. Coal mining companies alone will receive more than $1.5 billion a year in diesel fuel subsidies over the forward estimates.
“In this budget the government plans to spend $4.36 subsidising pollution for every dollar it spends on climate action.
“We welcome new investment in the emissions reduction fund, but the scheme needs an overhaul to get rid of rules that allow payments to big companies to burn more fossil fuels. Renaming it the climate solutions fund is no substitute for substantial policies like regulations, caps and trading schemes. Five years of rising emissions are testament to that.
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Adrian Pisarski, of National Shelter, said while the government was giving away tax cuts, there was no money for new social housing for the 500,000 Australians who need it. “This budget does bugger all for those who need it,” he said.
Ian Yates, chief executive of the Council on the Ageing, said the budget was missing vital action to address the waiting list for home care packages, increase the Newstart rate, support oral dental health or review retirement incomes.
“These are four gaping holes for people who are ageing,” he said.
Michele O’Neil, president of the ACTU, said the Coalition had failed to do anything to address loopholes and rorts.
“We have a tax system which means [of] the very largest companies in this country, one in three of them paid no tax last year. The budget does nothing to address that.
“We also have a tax system where 69 people who earned over a million dollars last year paid $0 tax, not even the Medicare levy.
“It fails to address the fact that we have had stagnant wages for the last six years.” O’Neil said a living wage would set a standard to improve wages, as would an improvement in the bargaining system to allow workers to come together and bargain.
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Christmas Island detention centre to close just weeks after it was opened
The government has announced it is going to close Christmas Island, just weeks after opening it, and before it has received a single refugee or asylum seeker.
And it turns out that, despite the blusterous pronouncements when the medevac bill passed, it’s not costing anywhere near $1.4bn. The government reopened the detention centre earlier this year in reaction to the passing of the medical evacuation bill ensuring refugees and asylum seekers on Manus Island and Nauru could be evacuated to Australia for treatment if required.
The bill sparked furious partisan disagreements over Australia’s medical obligations to those it sent to offshore processing centres, as well as border security and asylum seeker policy.
Tuesday’s budget reiterated the government’s intention to repeal the bill, and also announced it would close the centre before 1 July.
“Any illegal maritime arrivals on Christmas Island will be returned to Nauru and Papua New Guinea, and the… detention centre will be returned to a contingency setting,” it said.
The government’s health contractor, IHMS, has been engaged to provide health workers and specialists on the island – where limited services exist.
At the time the centre was reopened, the government claimed the cost would run to $1.4bn over four years.
But the budget papers revealed the cost of that to be $161.4m this financial year, and $23.7m next financial year – taking into account the plan to close the centre.
The budget includes $178.9m to manage the transfer of people from Nauru and Manus Island to Christmas Island for treatment, $3.2m to increase the presence of Australian federal police on the island, and another $3m to “reinforce” the Operation Sovereign Borders offshore strategic communications campaign.
Buzzfeed reports $106m of the cost is on garrison and welfare services (including healthcare, which isn’t treating anyone yet, and won’t be made available to Christmas Island residents).
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Chris Bowen is now on Sky. He is again talking about the wage growth forecasts. And how they tend to bounce around, but never actually eventuate.
Over on Sky News, David Speers is asking Josh Frydenberg about the $2.7bn of “decisions made but not announced”.
He doesn’t say what it is.
In the budget papers, it is a negative number, which means it was money they were going to spend, but they are now not going to spend. But we just don’t know what they are going to not spend the money on.
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Nadine Flood, head of the main public service union, the Community and Public Sector Union, said the budget “hides job losses across the public service”.
Those job cuts hit the Australian Taxation Office, she said, undermining Josh Frydenberg’s pledge to get tough on multinational tax avoidance. The staffing cap on the NDIA, which critics say has hobbled its ability to provide proper support to participants, remains, she says.
“The Coalition’s staffing cap continues, it means the NDIA is delivering less care plans, less services, and many people are missing out on services they were getting just a year ago,” Flood said.
Wages for 300,000 military and public service workers are staying relatively flat at about 1.6%, Flood said.
Caps on public service staffing are continuing to lead to outsourcing to the big four accounting firms, who Flood said have received $500m in taxpayers money in the last year alone.
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On the forecast budget surplus, Chris Bowen says:
The government has forecast that, it hasn’t delivered that, but it’s forecast that. It’s subject to some questions, particularly around wages.
Would you acknowledge that we have low inflation, low unemployment, we are on track to return to a surplus?
The government has forecast that, it hasn’t delivered that, but it’s forecast that. It’s subject to some questions, particularly around wages. We’ll get back to surplus if we are in office. We have taken the policy decisions to get back to surplus. This government’s policy decisions make the surplus $13 billion lower over the estimates than it otherwise would be.
Leigh Sales: “Can I ask to be totally clear, if Labor is elected next month, will the treasurer, will Labor deliver a budget surplus in 2019-20.”
Bowen: “We’ll budget for a surplus. We have made tough decisions.”
Sales: “From that first year?”
Bowen: “Yes and based on the figures we have seen, we’ll deliver a better budget line than the government has and we can say that because we have made the policy decisions. Their policy decisions have made the budget bottom line worse not better.”
Sales: “They would say that you’re getting to that because you are higher taxing?”
Bowen: “The tax to GDP has gone up under them. Revenue to GDP has gone up 2% at their time in office. We have a range of policies. Tax, for example, they’ve finally caught up with us on tax cuts for low- and middle-income earners. Twelve months ago, Bill Shorten and I and the Labor party announced tax cuts for ten million Australian earners. They caught up today. They haven’t caught up with us for the two million Australian who earn $40,000 or less. This is a government which never misses an opportunity to treat the lowest income earners in our society with great contempt.”
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Chris Bowen is now on 7.30. His first take on the budget?
Well, if this is a re-election pitch, it’s a very underwhelming document. In fact, this is a budget by a government which has given up governing.
The budget itself forecasts lower wages growth, lower economic growth, lower consumption growth, and has no plan to do anything about it. As for the surplus, Leigh, I mean nearly a quarter of it comes from spending less on people, the rest comes from highly heroic wages assumptions.
This budget again downgrades as every other Liberal budget has done. It jumps up then like a magic bean stalk assumed to return to higher levels to underpin a surplus and the rest comes from a higher tax revenue and high commodity prices which are nothing to do with Canberra or federal government.
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The Australian Industry Group chief executive Innes Willox has given the budget ticks for its impact on small business, particularly the instant asset write-off.
He says the budget will encourage business to spend and invest more which is “very important for an economy which is quite clearly slowing and in some parts of the economy stagnating” with declining business and consumer confidence.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry chief executive James Pearson was similarly very positive about the “boost for business” provided, labelling it a “shot in the arm”.
People with Disability Australia are delighted that the disability royal commission got a $527m allocation.
Per Capita fellow John Falzon was less positive – noting the budget did nothing for Newstart and in fact “rubbed salt into the wound” by excluding those on unemployment benefits from the one-off energy payment, which at $1.45 a week “wouldn’t buy a hot apple pie at McDonalds let alone keep the heating on”.
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Rural doctors are happy with the budget. Particularly, they are thrilled with $62.2m in initial funding for the national rural generalist pathway, a program designed to get more generalist doctors into the bush.
Adam Coltzau, the Rural Doctors Association of Australia president, said the funding was critical to addressing doctor shortages in rural and remote Australia.
“Labor have backed the national rural generalist pathway, and said they would equal or match the funding should they be elected. We really welcome this guarantee of funding for the national rural generalist pathway going forward into the future.”
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Josh Frydenberg finishes his interview with this:
What I would say to the voters of Australia tonight is that, when we came to government, growth was lower, unemployment was higher, business investment was in free fall and the budget was firmly in the red. We have turned that around and it is no accident. It’s been the product of disciplined decision making and an economic plan that is working.
Your listeners know that this budget will ease their cost of living. Your listeners and viewers should know that this is going to bust congestion in the cities and unlock the potential of our regions and your viewers should know we are providing more funding for hospitals, schools, aged care in this budget.
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Ken Morrison, chief executive of the Property Council of Australia, has warned the current instability of the housing market threatens to pose an “economic wildcard” for government.
He has urged the major parties not to change negative gearing or capital gains tax given the current instability.
“Behind every number, behind every forecast is the uncertain impact of Australia’s housing downturn,” he said.
“While the headlines of return to surplus, the big infrastructure investment are very welcome, clearly housing is Treasury’s big economic wildcard. What it means is that whoever is in government come June has to have a laser-like focus on the housing market.
“The first rule of public policy is do no harm, this is not the time to risk big changes to negative gearing and capital gains tax.”
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But couldn’t voters view this cash splash with a dose of cynicism, given it is five minutes to election midnight?
Frydenberg:
It’s not at all. What has happened last year in the budget is we announced a $530 tax offset. We have more than doubled that to $1,080. If you have a two-income family, let’s say a teacher and tradie both earning $50,000 or $60,000 a year, in 13 weeks’ time, they will get $2,160 additional into their pocket. That’s money that will go to the quarterly energy bill, the yearly car insurance. This is real money to real people and it’s rewarding their effort.
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No. What they are going to judge us on is the economic record which has seen 1.2 million jobs created, a record number of women in the work force, young people, a record number of Australians in a job. As a result, the number of working-age Australians on welfare is the lowest in 30 years. Government spending growth is now the lowest in 50 years. We haves spent – committed to $100 billion infrastructure to bust the congestion in our city, to get people to work sooner and get them home sooner. That’s what we’re doing.
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Josh Frydenberg is on 7.30. Asked about the budget surpluses:
It is the credible trajectory over the next four years which has been the product of disciplined decision making over the last six years. When we came to government, we inherited a budget that was out of control. Spending was around – growing at about 4% per annum. We have reduced that to half of that now and we are now seeing the product of that disciplined decision-making with a budget surplus of $7.1bn and surpluses in the years ahead.
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Mission Australia:
Mission Australia CEO James Toomey questioned the Commonwealth Government’s blatant neglect of the needs of thousands of people experiencing homelessness and rental stress in Australia.
“Year on year, Mission Australia has staunchly advocated for a national plan to end homelessness and long-term investment to address the critical shortage of social and affordable homes and increase rent assistance for those on the lowest incomes. Once again, the Government has blatantly neglected the needs of thousands of people who are homeless and those who are experiencing rental stress.
“This must be tackled as a priority, particularly while the Budget is in surplus. The essential social infrastructure of housing has been ignored, despite a boost in infrastructure spending.
“This is a national responsibility and a good Budget must prioritise ensuring that everyone has a safe, secure place to call home.
“Australia’s housing system remains broken and in urgent need of repair and investment. A safe, secure home provides the foundation from which Australians can access work, education, healthcare and connect with their communities. Sadly, the radio silence on the housing and homelessness front in this year’s Budget shows the Government is failing to address what is sorely needed.
“We urgently need a commitment to at least 500,000 new social and affordable homes by 2030. So that the thousands of people and families who simply can’t afford private rent aren’t pushed into vicarious and unsafe living situations.
“The Federal Budget was also a wasted opportunity to provide increased rent assistance for those of us who rent, to make homes more affordable, accessible and permanent.
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This is a budget by a government which has given up governing. No vision. Some catching up with Labor on tax cuts, but too little to late. As an election launch, it is an underwhelming effort. No plan on wages growth, no plan on climate change. 6 years of cuts and chaos continues
— Chris Bowen (@Bowenchris) April 2, 2019
Coreena Haythorpe, federal president of the Australian Education Union, said the budget delivers nothing for school funding and she accused Scott Morrison of failing to reverse the $14bn cuts.
“This budget tonight has failed the fairness test for public education. We have travelled across the country and we that parents are telling us about the importance of having a strong public education system,” Haythorpe said.
She said the announcement $525m for skills and apprenticeships was a “bandaid for a very bad situation”.
Haythorpe said the government should have created a permanent stream of funding for preschools rather than just rolling over funding for one more year.
President of the National Farmers Federation Fiona Simson welcomed initiatives in the budget, including $34m for environmental stewardship pilot programs which trials the concept of paying for farmers to enhance biodiversity on farms.
She also welcomed the $30m to enhance market access through agricultural trade.
Cassandra Goldie, chief executive officer of Australian Council of Social Services, said the budget turns its back on those with the lowest income in the country and sets Australians up for cuts to essential services.
“This is a budget that sets a vision of cuts, we have the largest tax cut package that we have seen for two decades.
“When that is fully implemented, let’s be clear, the bulk of the value of those cuts are going to go to people on the highest incomes who don’t need them … and then guaranteed cuts to essential services for people who do.”
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The Federal Budget again leaves almost 350,000 job seekers older than 45 years out in the cold by failing to increased Newstart payments and excluding job seekers from the energy rebate, Australia’s leading seniors’ advocacy organisation, COTA Australia, said today.
COTA CEO Ian Yates called on the government to increase Newstart by $75 a week and make sure all Newstart recipients can access the government’s energy supplement the same as people receiving the aged pension.
Yates said there are 183,000 people older than 50 on Newstart who have been on it for longer than 12 months. Research shows if you’re unemployed longer than 12 months after age 50, you might not ever return to the workforce, in a large part because of ageist attitudes of employers.
“There are more unemployed workers between 55 and 64 than any other group of Australians and they receive Newstart income support payments longer than any other group as well,” Yates said.
“Older workers face chronic age discrimination in the our workforce, which means finding work after 50 far more difficult, particularly in industries where workforce needs have changed over the decades.
“$40 a day – or $15,000 a year - is just not enough to survive on while people are actively seeking to return to the workforce. If people don’t have enough to cover the basics, people will be dealing with financial stress rather than working to build a future.”
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The Business Council of Australia’s chief executive Jennifer Westacott said:
This is the payoff for the community from spending discipline and hard work.
Business has continued to do the heavy-lifting in this budget – which again is proof that when business thrives, Australia thrives.
Revenues from business have underpinned the government’s ability to pay for the announcements made tonight with growing company tax collections projected to reach almost half a trillion over the next five years.
Returning to a serious and credible surplus matters enormously to meeting the cost of the future such as the $100 billion earmarked for much needed infrastructure and sustaining high living standards.
The personal tax cuts for low and middle-income earners will provide relief for families to meet cost of living pressures.
We have got to keep the focus on growing the economy, so these tax cuts and spending promises can be sustained.
As the budget itself warns, Australia cannot afford to be complacent and must better prepare for the global headwinds from a slowdown in China and domestic challenges.
We welcome treasurer Josh Frydenberg’s pledge to pay down the nation’s debt. Both major parties must show the discipline to actually do it. One of the single biggest items in tonight’s budget was the $11 billion net interest bill on that debt – money that could be better spent on the services Australians need and deserve.
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The reaction is starting to roll in.
From the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance:
“Tax breaks for Australian small businesses, an extra $55 a year in the pockets of those earning less than $37,000, and up to $547 more a year for those earning between $37,000 and $126,000 through expanding planned tax offsets, are well-earned rewards for hardworking Australians.,” said Satya Marar, ATA director of policy. “But this isn’t the full story.
“The ratio of taxes paid to household incomes continues to climb. A failure to permanently index income tax brackets to inflation each year also means that millions of us are likely to pay more in the future with no increase in our real incomes. Much of the planned relief is scheduled for years into the future under unpredictable political conditions, premised on optimistic predictions about real wage growth and global economic growth which is already slowing down. Treasurer Frydenberg must bring tax relief for individuals and businesses even further forward to support his claim that the coalition are a low-taxing government.
“The government’s commitment to keep tax as a portion of GDP under 23.8 percent is also set to fail by 2020-21 under their own projections of tax revenue to be accrued. This figure is the highest ratio of tax to GDP since right before the Global Financial Crisis.
“Taxpayers also deserve better than the government’s practice of describing all new infrastructure spending, set to rise to $100 billion from $75 billion committed last year, as an equity investment regardless of profitability. The National Broadband Network keeps punishing taxpayers with losses, and the government’s $2 billion Victorian fast-rail project is set for similar results.”
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There are hugs all round. Christopher Pyne, Peter Dutton, Christian Porter, they all go in for the handshake hug and everyone stands and claps.
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Mr Speaker, the Australian people can trust that, under the Coalition, the economy will always be stronger, allowing you and your family to get ahead. That under the Coalition, our borders will always be more secure.
That under theCoalition, there will always be more jobs and lower taxes.
And that, under the Coalition, essential services will always be guaranteed. Mr Speaker, tonight we have set the course for an even better and brighter Australia. I commend this Budget to the House.
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Josh Frydenberg:
Mr Speaker, the fundamentals of the Australian economy are sound. But there are genuine and clear risks emerging both at home and abroad. The residential housing market has cooled, credit growth has eased and we are yet to see the full impact of flood and drought on the economy.
Global trade tensions remain, the Chinese economy has slowed and there has been a loss of momentum in Japan, Europe and other advanced economies. Not withstanding these challenges, it is a testament to the strength of the Australian economy that it is in the 28th year of consecutive economic growth.
Our economic plan will see this continue. GDP growth is expected to pick up to 2.75% in 2019-20. We have delivered ahead of schedule on our promise to create more than 1 million new jobs.
We now commit to creating another 1.25 million new jobs over the next five years.
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Remember Harry Butler – the naturalist who used to pull small furry creatures and lizards from underneath rocks for the amusement of Australian TV audiences in the 1970s?
One of the centrepieces of the Morrison government’s spending on the environment in the 2019-20 budget is $25m over five years for the Harry Butler Environmental Education Centre.
It has also allocated $137m for “practical environmental restoration”. This includes $100m for an environment restoration fund and $37m that will enable community groups to rehabilitate their local environment.
There is also $9.2m to eradicate yellow crazy ants from the wet tropics of Queensland and $18.3m to help fight red imported fire ants threatening Queensland’s environment.
On the elephant in the room – climate change – the Morrison government had already revealed its hand before the budget was delivered.
It will put $2bn into the Climate Solutions Fund, which follows on from the Direct Action approach known previously as the Emissions Reduction Fund. This involves large companies bidding for funding to reduce their emissions, in a kind of reverse auction.
The government said Australia was on target to exceed our 2020 target under the Kyoto protocol. The $3.5bn investment in a Climate Solutions package would deliver on Australia’s Paris commitment to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% below 2005 levels by 2030.
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REGIONAL VOTERS, WE LOVE YOU!
There was a very fat blue book included in the budget papers called Building Stronger Regional Communities.
It contains all the good stuff for rural and regional Australia across all departments and the hard part is sorting the new from the old. Obviously the regions benefit from tax cuts, infrastructure spending, education and health initiatives covered in the main stories.
As to rural specific items, as far as I can tell, the new stuff is:
There is $160m for two more rounds to address mobile blackspots, $60m to address internet and mobile access and a $70m grant round for regional tourism.
- $29.4m to enhance agricultural exports and trade
- $4.2m to improve and maintain the National Drought Map
- $3.1m to exempt net income raised from selling down stock when the government is assessing the Farm Household Allowance. That is the means-tested “food on the table” payment that farmers get during drought.
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Some standouts for regional areas include much needed funding for north Queensland flood recovery, but much of the relief measures have already been announced. On the back of up to seven years of drought, northern graziers were hit by extensive flooding, wiping out a large percentage of their herds.
The Coalition is offering up to $1.75bn for interest rate relief and to support new loans for eligible flood effected producers. Most of these would be sheep and cattle producers.
The government will provide $33m to establish the North Queensland Livestock Industry Recovery Agency in the prime minister and cabinet office to coordinate the effort for communities and administer the loan facility.
The Regional Investment Corporation will get $1bn for loans to assist farmers restocking, replanting and refinancing existing debt and there is $300m in grants with an interim cap of $400,000 to rebuild businesses.
The grants would cover things such as replacing damaged crops, transport costs and replacing farm infrastructure.
There is also $4m for north Queensland schools affected by disaster to ensure ongoing viability and a one off payment of $1,000 per student for isolated families already receiving support through the Isolated Children scheme or Abstudy.
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Also catching my eye?
The shiny budget brochures which explain the government measures in the best possible terms (read the headlines and ignore the details!) is even more woke than usual.
There are the standard stock photos of couples, individuals and families, but it’s not just Barb and Bob with Shaz, Daz and Dwayne. Oh no.
Now those happy shiny people include a same sex couple. That’s how far we’ve come. Guy and Alex not only have a perfect relationship – they also get a tax break. Congratulations Guy and Alex!
That’s how you know we are no longer in Abbott’s Australia.
There are also quite a few minorities featured, multi-racial families and what looks to be a child with an amber necklace, whose parents must be “hard working” despite their sea-change to Byron Bay.
The tote bags all the budget papers come in, complete with the Australia coat-of-arms, is made in China.
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In keeping with Paul Fletcher’s sparkling personality, the minister for families and social services went with “guaranteeing essential social services Australians rely on”, which is government speak for, we are spending money on some of the most disadvantaged and vulnerable people in our society and you’re welcome.
Christopher Pyne took a break from his busy shirt ironing schedule (see his instagram if you don’t believe me) to put together a release with Linda Reynolds for “safer Australia, budget 2019-20 defence overview” which is exactly what it says. You will not be shocked to learn the government is still spending money on defence – $38.7bn in fact, jumping to $175.8bn in 2022-23.
Dan Tehan went with “record funding for education” which is always true, because like health, that part of the budget always grows. This year, it’s $21.4bn.
Karen Andrews decided “further boost for Australian jobs and the economy” was the best sell for the (already announced) $19.5m national space agency infrastructure fund, bringing that particular sector to $73.2m.
In “supporting a better future for Indigenous Australians through investments in education, employment and safer communities”, Nigel Scullion kinda gives away the plot.
But it is mostly just an extension of existing programs.
Mitch Fifield wanted you to notice the “boosting support for communications, music, media and cultural institutions” which is full of stuff like $30.9m to “amplify” Australia’s music industry (geddit?!) and $220m to improve communications outside the cities.
Kelly O’Dwyer was back with the 2019-20 “Women’s snapshot” a battle she won after Tony Abbott, the greatest minister for women Australia may ever have, scrapped it.
But it is again, mostly old announcements.
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While the speech continues, let’s head back to some of the other bits and pieces:
The budget lock up is like walking into an exam for a subject you forgot you were taking. It’s a crash course in deciphering Orwellian language, looking for what is not there, and trying to find the hidden meanings.
This budget though, is a lot of wick and no dynamite. A lot we already knew. It’s just a bit bigger than we had been told. The infrastructure spend is bigger. The tax cuts/rebates are bigger. Victoria and Queensland do very well. But everything else?
There are the things the government wants you to concentrate on, at least according to the press releases its ministers have put out to accompany the budget papers. The ‘look over here’ pile, if you will.
My favourite is the infrastructure press release from Michael McCormack, Bridget McKenzie and Alan Tudge, titled “building our future: delivering the right infrastructure for a growing nation”, which didn’t come out until about 5.30pm (lock up started at 1.30pm) and is less of a press release and more of a UBD of every road in Australia. $100b is a lot of roads, I’ll say that – how much of that is new? *insert shrug emoji* It was not clear in the budget papers, or in the encyclopaedia that was the press release.
That was a recurring theme.
There is $3.8b for the climate and environment, but from my quick perusal, only $100m seems new. That’s for the ‘practical environment restoration fund’. The rest though has already been announced or are just continuations of existing programs. In fact, Melissa Price needed to put in the ‘this is what we’ve done since 2013’ paragraphs, which is never the best of signs.
Angus Taylor wants you to look at the $1.88b to “reduce power bills and keep the lights on” but again, most of the initiatives included in that figure have already been announced.
Peter Dutton went with “a safer and more secure Australia” in his release. That included letting you know that there had been seven terror attacks in the last five years, and another 15 operations to disrupt terror attacks. 93 people have been charged with terror-related offences. So over the next four years, law enforcement and security agencies will get another $381m. Dutton also gets to announce the $3.9b Emergency Response Fund under his portfolio umbrella.
Marise Payne and Simon Birmingham went with really fancy paper in their release. The Pacific spending features most prominently, which is, as expected.
Kelly O’Dwyer wants you to look at the “significant reforms to boost Australian jobs”, which includes the job seeker changes already announced, and $24.1m in incentives to convince more Australians to do seasonal work – basically, fruit picking.
David Littleproud went with the headline “investing in our farmers and agriculture sector”.
It’s mostly $6.3b in concessional loans for drought affected farmers and $3.3b for those affected by the floods. He also included “fun facts”, but spoiler, they were not fun.
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Josh Frydenberg raises his voice to excitement mode:
Mr Speaker, a strong economy requires lower taxes. A strong economy depends on small business.And a stronger economy needs ongoing investment in roads, rail, bridges, dams and ports.
Tonight, I can announce that the Coalition government is boosting our infrastructure spending to $100 billion over the decade!
All without increasing taxes. Cranes, hard hats and heavy machinery will be seen across the country as we build Australia for current and future generations. We will deliver new infrastructure projects to ease congestion in our cities, to unlock the potential of our regions, to better manage population growth, and to improve safety on our roads. We know you want to be there for the school drop-off, to help the kids with their homework, and to spend more time together at the dinner table.
We want small business to prosper and we are backing them to do so, cutting their taxes to 25%, increasing their access to finance with a new $2bn fund, ensuring small business is paid on time, both by government and big business, and from tonight the instant asset write-off will be increased and expanded.
It will be increased from $25,000 to $30,000, and it can be used every time an asset under that amount is purchased. Allowing a cafe to get a new fridge or grill. A plumber to buy new tools. Or a courier to buy a new van. The instant asset write-off will also be expanded to businesses with a turnover of up to $50 million. This will cover an additional 22,000 businesses, employing 1.7 million Australians.
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A big thank you to Chris for filling in for me while I descended into the lamest of Dante’s circles.
But we are back.
Josh Frydenberg is still delivering the speech – he is talking on all those tax cuts I mentioned a post or so ago – the ones which are not going to be legislated before the election.
These are the largest personal income tax cuts since the Howard government. The government is more than doubling the low- and middle-income tax offset from 2018-19. Taxpayers earning up to $126,000 a year, including teachers, tradies and nurses, will receive a tax cut. For a single-income family, this means $1,080 in your pocket per year.
And for families on a dual income, this is up to $2,160 per year in your pocket. This is money that could go towards the monthly mortgage payment. This is money that could go towards the quarterly energy bill. And this is money that could go towards the yearly car insurance.
More than 10 million taxpayers will benefit with 4.5 million receiving the full amount. This relief will flow quickly and be available to Australians after tax returns for the 2018-19 year are submitted in just 13 weeks’ time.
This tax relief will lift household incomes, ease cost of living pressures and boost spending at local businesses. The second change I announce tonight delivers long-term, structural reform by lowering the 32.5% tax rate to 30% from 1 July 2024. This will cover all taxpayers earning between $45,000 and $200,000, and will mean that 94% of all taxpayers will pay no more than 30 cents in the dollar.
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Frydenberg says of the surplus:
In 2021, a surplus of $11 billion. In 2021-22, a surplus of $17.8 billion. In 2022-23, a surplus of $9.2 billion. A total of $45 billion of surpluses over the next four years.
I am pleased to announce a Budget surplus of $7.1 billion.
— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) April 2, 2019
A $55 billion turnaround from the deficit we inherited six years ago.
We are reaching our goal of eliminating Commonwealth debt by 2030. #Budget2019
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Frydenberg continues in the lower house. He announces a surplus of $7.1bn in 2019/20.
Our commitment to fairness means the next generation not having to pick up the tab for the last. This requires budget discipline and this much, at least, we owe our children. So, tonight, I am pleased to announce a budget surplus of $7.1 billion!
The announcement is met with thunderous applause from the Coalition benches.
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What to say, what to say.
In terms of election platforms, you can see why the government was so excited. Every voter group it deems important gets something shiny that under siege government MPs can point to in the coming election fight.
Infrastructure? You’ve got it. $100b over 10 years! Tax cuts? You betcha. Even more than before. It was $144b – now its $158b! That’s $14b more for all those pesky voters looking to vote else where. The tax rebate won’t come in until after the election, but it’s something to point to. It’s only 13 weeks away! Not only is the low and middle income tax rebate increasing from $530 to $1,080 for those earning up to $126,000, but anyone on the 32.5% tax bracket will see that drop down to 30% from July 2024! As Scott Morrison will probably say “how good is that?”
Except while low and middle income earners benefit in this cycle, it’s this budget cycle only. After that, anyone earning less than $85,000 won’t get anything more than a 2.5% cut, compared to a 5.8% cut for those earning $200,000. Which is the reason those tax cuts only come into effect once the forwards of this budget are over – they don’t count if they are off in the never-never, right?
Not that any of it even really counts, at least not for the immediate, immediate future, because the government isn’t even going to try to legislate these tax changes until after the election. If it wins. So that means getting the appropriation bill through and the appropriation bill only. Anything else is, effectively a campaign promise.
As Mathias Cormann said “We are not prepared to haggle with the Senate for the remaining 24 hours”. Which, potentially means the election could be called for as early as Thursday, but Sunday is still looking more likely.
In terms of an economic policy, well, the budget story is a little more complicated. Because, of course it is.
If the budget was an old titled family, it would be the one where everything in the ancestral pile has been sold, except the family portraits and the drapes – just enough to keep up appearances.
Almost all of the revenue windfall the government has been so proudly spruiking has been spent, with just a slither kept aside to maintain the illusion of economic responsibility. The government expects to rake in $12b or so more than they expected in December, but it will be spending $10bn more on keeping everyone happy.
Make no mistake, this is a budget designed to win another term of government and win another term of government only. This is not a budget a Coalition government would hand down at any other time.
Let’s start by taking a look at the budget surplus.
It’s predicted to hit $7.1b for this budget year, or 0.4% of the GDP. That’s more than was predicted during the mid-year update – just under $3b more.
In 2020-21, Josh Frydenberg predicts an $11b budget surplus, 0.5% of GDP.
The following year is the big one – a predicted $17.8b budget surplus, which equals 0.8% of GDP – that same year there is a big jump in income tax, the third biggest jump in income tax in the past decade. That is also when the wage growth is meant to come back, according to these Treasury predictions, jumping from 2.75% to 3.25%. The biggest wage growth increase in more than a decade, despite unemployment staying steady at 5% and nothing else seemingly changing. I guess we all decide that is the year we pound on the boss’s door demanding a pay increase and get it. Then again, wage growth has been predicted to hit these highs for a while now, but with each budget, it is put off for another year. That’s the magic of forward predictions.
In 2022-23 the budget surplus goes down again – to $9.2b or 0.4% of GDP. One of the reasons for the decrease is the second tranche of the $158 tax cuts start to come into effect but there is another $2.665b in “decisions taken but not yet announced”. So revenue goes down, partly because of the tax cuts, but spending overall is staying pretty flat.
A lot of this budget relies on everything staying exactly the same as it is now, while warning that things are going to change – and then not taking those warnings into account, at least from a fiscal point of view.
The world economy is predicted to slow – Brexit, China, emerging markets and the US all get a mention – but the domestic economy is meant to continue growing just fine. That’s despite our two major trading partners – China and the US – suffering growth setbacks. By 2021, China’s growth is predicted to go from 6.6% to 5.75% and the US is predicted to see growth decrease from 3% to 1.75%. But for some reason, that is not going to affect Australia’s economy.
There is also a forecast of another decade without a recession, or a need to do any stimulus spending to prevent one – which is how the government says it will be able to pay down debt.
So for the next 10 years everything is unicorns and rainbows as far as the economy is concerned, as long as absolutely everything stays exactly the same as it is now – which it won’t.
You can read that as a ‘look at how great we left the budget’ if it all goes to shit if Labor gets into power. The numbers in the forwards can tell almost any story a government wants them to, within reason. It’s a prediction, not science. And for this government, heading straight into an election campaign, they tell the rosiest story possible.
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'Back in black': Treasurer announces surplus
The treasurer is speaking in the lower house now. He has handed down the budget.
Tonight I announce that the budget is back in the black and Australia is back on track. For the first time in 12 years our nation is again paying its own way.
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The bells are ringing. MPs are gathering in the lower house. We’re seconds away now.
Live from the House of Representatives with #Budget2019.
— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) April 2, 2019
Watch here to find out how our plan for a stronger economy benefits you: https://t.co/5tuwqLFlcB
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It’s now just ten minutes until treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, delivers his budget speech. It will be a critical moment for the first-time treasurer, who is delivering his first budget. His party is hoping it will be enough to reverse the Coalition’s fortunes before a likely election in May. Scott Morrison is floating three possible dates for the election: 11, 18 and 25 May.
It’s not a lot of time, making Frydenberg’s budget all the more important.
We know there’ll be a major infrastructure spend. We know there will be tax cuts and handouts, pre-election sweeteners designed to entice swinging voters. But will it be enough? And what nasties has Frydenberg hidden behind the budget’s major announcements?
We’ll soon find out, stay tuned.
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The achievement of a surplus, expected to be unveiled in less than half an hour, will be a significant boost to the Coalition before the election. Scott Morrison has spent the morning talking up the achievement to his colleagues in the Coalition party room meeting, as per AAP:
Today is the day we’ve been working towards since first being elected in 2013. Today we’re bringing the budget back in black.
This is a demonstration of what the Australian people expect us to do, to get the job done compared with Labor’s talk.
Andrew Charlton, a former adviser to Kevin Rudd and now economist with AlphaBeta, is making the point on Sky News that a surplus estimate does not equal a surplus delivered.
That estimate, often made in the April-May budget, is almost always wrong.
Friendly reminder that a surplus isn't a surplus until November (and the budget estimate is usually wrong) #budget #auspol #ausecon #Budget19 pic.twitter.com/f9MLsLn4Qb
— Andrew Charlton (@Charlton_AB) April 2, 2019
Charlton suggests it’s perhaps “premature” to be talking of a delivered surplus.
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We spoke about foreign aid a little earlier. Michael Fullilove, executive director of the Lowy Institute, has just raised the question: if the budget moves back into surplus, as widely expected, will foreign aid be increased?
Good question. https://t.co/0letx3lX6C
— Michael Fullilove (@mfullilove) April 2, 2019
Earlier today, the trade minister, Simon Birmingham, took a hefty swing at senator Fraser Anning for his post-Christchurch comments. He’s just appeared on ABC radio and said he does not believe Anning deserved to be in the Senate.
I hope that is the judgment of the Queensland people at the next election, and I made that clear today, that I hope they will deliver that verdict very clearly and resoundingly. My view is that he ought not be in the parliament. If I was in Queensland I would take great delight in voting to ensure that he was not here.
Birmingham also backs away from a direct comparison of One Nation and the Greens. He says One Nation is a party that “like Fraser Anning undermines our social harmony”. The Greens do “in a completely different way” have policies that go to extremes on other issues. Their policies would cost thousands of jobs and put regional areas in extreme disadvantage, he says.
I don’t think they’re equivalent but I do think that the parties of government, the parties that occupy the centre, ought to actually think long and hard about who we both preference.
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One hour to go, folks.
#Budget2019 is handed down in 1 hour. You can access all budget papers at https://t.co/AZTkfPNHKx from 7.30pm pic.twitter.com/MmSyM8fmH6
— Australian Treasury (@Treasury_AU) April 2, 2019
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Sky News and ABC are reporting the Coalition will use tonight’s budget to inject $188m over five years into the national drug strategy.
Almost $150m will go to the home affairs department for a crackdown on outlaw motorcycle gangs. The remainder will be divided up between rehabilitation and support services, regional and remote drug services, and a trial designed to reverse opioid overdoses.
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Senator Duncan Spender, who was sworn in today and will probably spend less than a week in parliament, is using his brief time with us to rail against renewable funding. Spender replaces David Leyonhjelm. Spender was also Leyonhjelm’s chief of staff.
He’s speaking on a climate change debate in the Senate, and reckons coal would be fine if we stopped giving money to renewables.
The renewable energy target lasts until 2030, people say it is winding down, no it is in place until 2030. It should be abolished now. We still have the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which is providing grants just to renewable projects. It should be abolished now.
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The government’s ParentsNext program has come under intense scrutiny in recent months. The program is designed to give intensive job-readiness training for single parents on parenting payments, aiming for them to enter the workforce when their youngest child is ready for school.
But parents have complained, time and again, that it is unfairly stopping payments and making parents’ lives more difficult. Senator Rachel Siewert, of the Greens, tabled a petition in the Senate earlier, signed by 39,305 people, calling for ParentsNext to be made voluntary.
“The government thought that ParentNext was just another punitive measure that would fly under the radar,” she said in a statement.
Today I tabled @ellaNbuckland's @Change petition with 39,356 signatures calling for #ParentsNext to be made voluntary. The Gov thought this punitive program would fly under the radar but the community knows that this program harms women & their children #Aupol #Greens pic.twitter.com/sEZ6Y6tbNH
— Rachel Siewert (@SenatorSiewert) April 2, 2019
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No love lost between Kevin Rudd and News Corp.
How surprising!Murdoch gearing up for the election with the usual “balanced” coverage.Pure coincidence they run an identical position to the Liberals.The Murdoch media is a political party by another name to keep their Liberal coalition partners in power. https://t.co/jkPOPDNd4M
— Kevin Rudd (@MrKRudd) April 2, 2019
Labor’s Ed Husic appeared on ABC a little earlier, talking about hate speech and extremism in the wake of Christchurch. He said mainstream media should be called out for broadcasting extremist content, and singled out Channel 7 for particular criticism.
I’ve said, in particularly Channel 7, I have openly questioned chairman Kerry Stokes and CEO Tim Warner, as to whether or not Channel 7 is going to be continually used as the go-to network on extreme views. They’ve given a platform for fringe parties for a considerable period of time. Just the other week they were criticised by the media regulator for their accuracy in the reporting on Africans and African community members in Melbourne, we saw as was being called out, relatively soft interviews of senator Fraser Anning, I think that’s the sort of thing that needs to be called out.
Husic was asked whether he would support greater regulation of traditional media. The Coalition has of course targeted social media giants with potential criminal sanctions if they didn’t take down footage of terrorist acts as soon as they are discovered. Husic questioned why that same requirement wasn’t made of traditional media.
“Traditional media have a responsibility to play in ensuring national cohesion… we're talking about taking action against social media outlets that may include jail time… Why aren’t we contemplating harmonisation of rules across platforms,” Ed Husic tells @PatsKarvelas #auspol pic.twitter.com/MtZ5OxnicS
— ABC News (@abcnews) April 2, 2019
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A little later today, Greens senator Larissa Waters will move a motion calling on the government to reinstate an axed statement detailing the budget’s funding for women. The motion will also call for boosts to domestic violence funding and to close the gender pay gap. It’s expected to be supported by Labor.
The motion says:
Today on budget day, the women of Australia will be looking to their government to address economic inequality and women’s financial security.
The motion calls on the government to restore the women’s budget impact statement, which was axed in 2014, and provide proper funding to family violence services.
The Greens wanted the motion to call for $2.3bn funding for frontline crisis services and primary family violence prevention, and $16m to make abortion safe, but say they couldn’t get Labor’s support with those specific figures included.
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Another Budget tradition: the construction of TV sets around the building. Here’s the set for @ABCTV’s broadcast - the backdrop won’t be so sunny when they go to air! pic.twitter.com/Rkn7rXa3gk
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) April 2, 2019
The government has tabled a bunch of documents while the vast majority of the press gallery is in budget lockup.
I’m still going through them, but one is the commonwealth ombudsman’s report into the Australian Federal Police’s improper access of journalists’ metadata. You might remember back in April 2017, when the AFP commissioner, Andrew Colvin, confessed his agency had accessed a journalist’s metadata without the proper warrant. The ombudsman has since conducted a string of “non-routine” inspections to see whether the AFP has cleaned up its act. The report, just tabled, found the AFP is mostly using warrants as expected, and has implemented mandatory training, an increase in the level of seniority required to grant authorisations, and improved operating procedures.
But the ombudsman also found:
Although the AFP has made progress, one suggestion from our October 2017 report has not been implemented. Specifically, we had suggested that [Professional Standards Unit] staff undergo supplementary induction training relating to telecommunications data, shortly after commencing in the section. We will continue to monitor the AFP’s compliance with telecommunications data legislation through our routine inspections. We will also use those inspections to assess the AFP’s progress in implementing our remaining suggestion.
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Three hours from budget, what do we know?
We’re just three hours out from the release of the budget. There have been leaks aplenty, as per usual. So we have a fair idea of what’s coming.
It will be a classic pre-election budget. Tax cuts. Debt reduction. A surplus and infrastructure spending aplenty, to give Coalition MPs oxygen in campaign battles across the country.
So what’s coming, that we know of?
- A return to surplus expected to be more than $4.1bn in 2019-20, as forecast in Myefo in December.
- One-off payments of $75 for singles and $125 for couples to help cover the costs of energy bills for 3.9 million pensioners, carers and veterans. Newstart recipients will not receive the payments.
- The acceleration of tax cuts announced last year, brought forward from 2022 and 2024. Analysis suggests the tax cuts, once they are fully implemented, will primarily benefit higher income groups.
- Massive infrastructure spending, including $1.6bn for roads and rail in Western Australia, the topping up of the $1bn congestion-busting fund, $550m for black spots, $2bn for fast rail in Melbourne, $160m for the Outback Way Highway from WA to Queensland.
- Giving older Australians, aged 65-66, greater flexibility to top up their superannuation. From July 2020, they will be able to make concessional and non-concessional contributions to super without meeting the 40-hour work test over a 30-day period.
- A $328m funding boost towards domestic violence prevention programs.
- Almost $900m in security spending, including $294m for airports, $512m for the Australian federal police and $58m to Asio.
- $600m funding to the corporate regulator, Asic, and the banking regulator, Apra, to implement the findings of the banking royal commission.
- The expansion of the cashless welfare card in the Northern Territory and Queensland.
- More than $1bn in health funding, including for the NDIS, cancer research, heart disease research, and more money for ultrasounds and x-rays.
- More than $2bn for the Climate Solutions Fund to reduce greenhouse gases across the economy through the existing Emissions Reduction Fund. Another $1.4bn for Snowy Hydro 2.0.
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Senator Fraser Anning was denounced in the Senate earlier today for lacking basic humanity following the Christchurch attack.
Anning again refused to apologise for his abhorrent comments on Christchurch when he arrived in Canberra this morning. Anning then used Senate question time to question the government about the teenager who cracked an egg on his head.
Acting government Senate leader Simon Birmingham then blasted Anning:
The way you have conducted yourself in the time since betrays the rights you have to freedom of speech.
The lack of compassion you have shown demonstrates, frankly, a basic lack of basic humanity.
Birmingham said Anning had acted in a way that would potentially fuel more acts of terrorism and violence.
You have failed the test of character I would expect of anybody who is elected to this place.
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We’ve mentioned that the censure of senator Fraser Anning over his post-Christchurch comments will likely take place tomorrow.
Derryn Hinch, who sits on the Senate crossbench, is on the ABC speaking on the censure motion. Hinch says he will support the censure.
What he did and said around that time was reprehensible. Look, the way he talked – and it was straight out of the gun lobby handbook.
There is a feeling he deserves this, he should get it, and I feel strongly about it and I’m glad they are doing it.
Hinch also said he would support a censure of One Nation for its actions in seeking money from the US gun lobby to weaken Australia’s firearms laws.
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Ahead of tonight’s budget, it’s worth taking some time to talk about one of the more significant risks to Australia’s economy: the ageing of our population. It’s a problem many developed nations are grappling with. As the pool of working-age Australians falls, how does the economy cope with the reduced revenue and increasing costs needed to meet the extra demand for healthcare and associated support services?
Figures released this week by the Parliamentary Budget Office projected Australia’s ageing population will subtract 0.4 percentage points from Australia’s annual real revenue growth and add 0.3 percentage points to annual real spending growth.
That’s roughly an annual cost to the budget of $36 billion by 2028–29. Safe to say, it’s a significant amount of money. It’s more than the projected cost of Medicare in the same year.
We’re expecting tonight that the treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, will officially cut Australia’s migration cap by 30,000 a year. But the budget office said Australia’s migration program has helped slow population ageing, to some extent.
“Migrants to Australia are younger than the population, on average, and also serve to boost the birth rate by increasing the number of people of reproductive age. These effects mean migration can slow the pace of population ageing,” the PBO noted in its report.
The Grattan Institute chief executive, John Daley, told ABC radio this morning that migration by itself was not a silver bullet.
“That has slowed ageing in Australia, in fact the average age of the Australian population has barely moved in the last 10 years, essentially because of migration,” Daley said.
“But that’s a game you can only play for so long. Unless your migrant intake keeps going up ever-faster, there’s only so much you can do that, eventually the ageing population really does start to bite.”
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We’ve just published a rather explosive report on the environment minister, Melissa Price, and her interactions with a major energy company. Adam Morton reports that Price requested a review of how climate change policy could be used to upgrade coal-fired power stations after being contacted by a consultant working on behalf of Delta Electricity, which owns Vales Point power station in New South Wales. You can read the full report here:
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We’re just over four hours away from the release of the 2019-20 budget, so perhaps it’s time to look at a key change widely expected to be delivered by the Coalition. The government is expected to bring forward stages two and three of its planned tax cuts, which were due to start in 2022 and 2024. The changes flatten the tax scales so workers earning between $40,000 and $200,000 pay the same rate.
The Australia Institute has described that as a “nightmare scenario for inequality”, which would weaken the progressive nature of the tax system.
It has warned the plan overwhelmingly favours higher-income Australians, and says stages two and three of the tax plan brings a “fiscal time bomb”, costing the budget $24.6 billion per year once they are fully implemented.
The Australia Institute’s modelling suggests 95% of the benefit of stage three goes to the top 20% [of earners], and that “a massive 70% of people get nothing at all. Zilch.”.
“Analysis from the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods shows that — once the tax cut is fully implemented — the proportion of tax being paid by the top 20% of households will be 3% lower, while the proportion paid by the rest of the households will be 3% higher,” the Australia Institute says.
4/ First, let’s look at who wins from the tax plan.
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) April 2, 2019
Overall the tax plan favours – wait for it— high income earners. pic.twitter.com/dzG7BOR8b6
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Greens to push for end to overly generous parliamentary pensions
The Greens will move to end the extraordinarily generous pension scheme for politicians that gives those elected prior to 2004 six-figure incomes after they retire.
Ten of the 21 members expected to retire at the upcoming election will be eligible for the older, more generous Parliamentary Contributory Superannuation Scheme that existed prior to 2004, including Julie Bishop, Steve Ciobo, Christopher Pyne, Michael Danby, Wayne Swan and Jenny Macklin.
The pre-2004 scheme entitles them to a lifetime pension or a lump sum, depending on their length of service. The least they can get in their pension is 50% of the parliamentary allowance, if they’ve served at least eight years in parliament. Each additional year of parliamentary service gives them an additional 2.5% on top. Those who have spent more than 18 years in parliament get 75% of the parliamentary allowance. They would all receive additional pension for service as a minister or as an office holder.
The more generous scheme has since been closed off to politicians elected after 2004. But 28 members of the current parliament, including those who are retiring, are still eligible.
Greens senator Larissa Waters, the party’s democracy spokeswoman, is planning to introduce a bill to end the 2004 pension scheme, including for those currently receiving it.
“While politicians elected after 2004 don’t receive a parliamentary pension, those elected before then – such as ministers Pyne and Ciobo, rumoured today to be leaving politics – would get hundreds of thousands of dollars each year as a pension, for doing nothing,” Waters said.
“It’s no wonder people think so little of politicians, when the rules are rigged in their favour. If they’re not doing the job any more they shouldn’t be paid.”
The Greens will introduce a bill to ensure all retired MPs, including those who were elected before 2004, are only entitled to the benefits of the current scheme, which pays 15.4% of their salary into a nominated super fund.
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Attorney general Christian Porter gets a dixer on protecting Australians post-Christchurch. He uses it as a chance to tee off (fairly, in my humble opinion) on the failings of social media companies, particularly Facebook, in regulating their own content. Porter says Facebook’s handling of the Christchurch video constituted an “abject failure”.
The role of social media, and in this case particularly Facebook, played in those tragic events is one that deserves scrutiny and condemnation and a response from this government.
He speaks of horrendous acts that have been broadcast freely on Facebook. The sexual assault of a 15-year-old girl in the United States. A murder in the US, which was available to be viewed for three hours. And the airing of two videos of a Thai man killing his 11-month-old daughter.
The Coalition is – as you’ve no doubt heard – pushing ahead with new laws allowing it to punish social media companies for such failings. Porter says:
The only thing perhaps more concerning [than] that abject failure by Facebook to control the content of its own platform is the legal fact that there is not any sufficient recourse for this parliament if such a failure occurred in the future in Australia.
And with that, question time is over.
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The deputy leader of the opposition, Tanya Plibersek, accuses the Morrison government of cutting $14bn from public schools.
Money that would have paid for things like literacy and numeracy programs and extra support for the kids who need it most. After six years of cuts, chaos and neglect, why should Australian families believe anything this prime minister says about education?
Morrison says Labor have their numbers wrong and are peddling “falsehoods” and “mistruths”.
It may come as some interest to the member for Sydney – that funding, recurrent funding, for government schools, state schools, from the commonwealth government from 2013 to now, has increased by 57%. Now, only under the member for Sydney’s arithmetic would an increase in funding of that order be constituted as a reduction, Mr Speaker. But it gets better than that because, Mr Speaker, the forecast increase on our spending plans is to increase funding for schools in her own electorate of Sydney by 60%, Mr Speaker!
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We’re also getting more of an idea of the Coalition’s line of attack on Labor: high-taxing, high-spending, attacks farmers, attacks tradies, and reckless on climate. Oh, and the “carbon tax”, which of course is in no way a carbon tax. With the election announcement just around the corner, expect much more of this. Morrison:
Under Labor you will always pay more and we learnt this week it won’t be just the $200 billion of higher taxes, Mr Speaker, because their big carbon target, Mr Speaker – you can call it a carbon tax, you can call it a carbon price – all I know is that people are going to be paying more, Mr Speaker.
Because of the reckless target that the Labor party want to put over everything that moves. They want to tell farmers what they can do on their property, Mr Speaker. They want to tell you what car you have to buy. Mr Speaker, this is a tax that is going to cost Australians in their wages $9,000 a year. This is what the Labor party’s reckless carbon target is going to do to our economy.
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Budget will pay down debt, lower taxes, back business: Morrison
A dixer to Scott Morrison, who is giving us a flavour of the government’s messaging around tonight’s budget. Much of it we’ve already heard.
He says the government will deliver “a balanced budget, paying down debt, lower taxes on all Australians without increasing taxes on any Australians”.
Backing small and family businesses, ensuring we’re taking all industries forward, whether they’re our mining industries and agricultural industries, or our new-frontier industries in the health and instrument sector. Mr Speaker, the infrastructure that both busts congestion and drives our economy forward. Mr Speaker, this budget will be delivering for the hard-working Australians who are making Australia stronger and this budget is for them.
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We’re finally into question time in the lower house. The treasurer is absent because he’s preparing for “the first budget surplus in 12 years”, the prime minister tells us, helpfully.
After an hour or so of rare bipartisanship, the gloves are off.
Chris Bowen, the shadow treasurer, gets us off and running:
My question is to the prime minister. The prime minister has spent years making it harder for Australians to make ends meet. He’s supported cutting penalty rates and jacking up taxes, like his $44 billion Medicare levy increase. After six years of cuts and chaos, and just six weeks before an election, does the prime minister seriously expect his last-minute decision to copy Labor’s bigger, better tax cuts for Australians will hide the last six years of cuts and chaos?
Scott Morrison is predictably insulted by the suggestion he is borrowing from Labor’s handbook.
I can assure the member that the Liberal and Nationals parties will never be borrowing any economic policy from the Labor party. That will never happen, Mr Speaker. That will never happen, Mr Speaker.
There’ll be no tax increases in tonight’s budget, Morrison reminds us. Under Labor, he says, it’ll be a different story.
That is why the Labor party would need another budget … because you won’t find tax increases in our budget tonight, Mr Speaker. You won’t find that at all. But you’ll find them thick and deep in the first Labor budget if that were ever to be inflicted on this nation. Instead, what people will get tonight is the first surplus budget in 12 years, Mr Speaker. That’s what they’ll get tonight. The last time the Labor party had a surplus was 1989, Mr Speaker.
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Quentin Dempster, the ABC luminary, has urged the Coalition to restore funding to the national broadcaster in tonight’s budget. He has warned of the government’s intention to continue with plans to pause the indexation of ABC funding.
“That can only mean there will be programming and staff cuts,” Dempster said.
“Now, the big difficulty for the ABC is that Tony Abbott, remember, promised there would be no cuts to the ABC or the SBS. The ABC has been substantially diminished since 2014 at a time of gross disruption of media, mainstream media, in this country. We really need a restoration of that funding.”
What do you want to see from #Budget2019? @TheAusInstitute is on the ground at Parliament House asking this very question:
— Australia Institute (@TheAusInstitute) April 2, 2019
"We really need a restoration of the ABC's funding," says @QuentinDempster @abcalumni #auspol "Remember, Tony Abbott promised that there would be no cuts." pic.twitter.com/VKbiU4Pleq
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Reserve Bank leaves interest rates on hold
Some breaking news. The Reserve Bank of Australia has left interest rates on hold at 1.5%. It was a widely expected decision. Rates have now been on hold for 32 months. The cash rate was last cut in August 2016 and has not increased since November 2010.
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One of the maple trees in @aust_parliament is known as the Budget Tree, as the Treasurer typically stands under it to give post-Budget press conferences. Its leaves usually turn red in time for the Budget, but it’s happening early this year and the tree hasn’t quite turned yet. pic.twitter.com/I1akXrwdtx
— Australian House of Representatives (@AboutTheHouse) April 2, 2019
Sombre scenes in the lower house as Scott Morrison and Bill Shorten move a condolence motion on the Christchurch attack.
Shorten says these moments present choices for individuals and nations. He says the attack must cause us to reflect – are we doing all that we can to stop hate? He says Australia cannot be shocked that “the worst of consequences occurs” when hysteria and hatred is whipped up.
In the light and heat of a campaign, people under pressure can reach for convenient scapegoats, durable stereotypes. To use the other to be the easy answer to a hard question. To be tempted by the motivating power of fear. Christchurch stands as a warning, as a lesson, a reminder that if one plays with the poison politics of racism, if we courage majorities to pick on minority, if we try to whip up fear of people are different, who worship different gods, if we try to pretend that all of the problems in this country can be blamed on the people who happen to arrive last, then we forfeit [the] right to be shocked when the worst of consequences occurs. Not all extreme rightwing hate speech ends in terror and racial violence, but all terror and racial violence begins in extreme hate speech.
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Speaking to the condolence motion, opposition leader Bill Shorten tells New Zealanders that Australians are “here to help you carry the burden of grief”.
To shoulder and share the weight of sadness because our two nations are not just friends, we are family, we are one.
Mr Speaker, the New Zealand poet Jenny Bornholdt once described the Tasman Sea as a bridge of faith between our nations. And that is what we need now more than ever. Not just a bridge of faith between our nations but a bridge between faiths. A bridge of understanding and respect, compassion and community.
Shorten praises New Zealand prime minister Jacinda Ardern for “exceptional leadership in the most difficult of circumstances”. He speaks of his shock that the alleged attacker was Australian. Shorten says it’s a reminder that we should never be quick to blame an entire community for the actions of a “deranged” individual.
It’s a phrase that I didn’t ever expect to use – an Australian terrorist. It’s a phrase that still sounds wrong. But I think Christchurch has presented us all with an uncomfortable truth because when acts of violence of evil, of terrorism, are committed by people from other faiths and backgrounds, including but not limited to people of the Muslim faith, a lot of people are very quick to judge that whole faith by the actions of the individual, to demand that everyone of that faith in our community must condemn those acts.
A lot of people are too quick to tar everyone with the actions of demented, deranged individuals. But when the terrorist was an Australian of Anglo-Saxon background, we say, ‘He was deranged, it was an isolated exception’. And that is true! We know straightaway that, as the prime minister so forcibly said, he does not represent anything about our country of our values. But perhaps that should give us all pause the next time we rush to judgement. Perhaps that should remind us not to equate whole communities [with] the random, senseless, violent acts of individuals.
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Morrison speaks of meeting survivors of the Christchurch attack, saying they had displayed a remarkable ability to forgive.
One survivor, Farid Ahmed, who I met, who spoke at the service – probably one of the most beautiful, in such a horrendous circumstance, most beautiful things I have ever heard someone say under such circumstances. He didn’t speak of revenge, hurt or loss even though it was his own wife who had been killed by the terrorist while she sought to assist him. Instead he spoke in the great tradition of the Abrahamic faiths, of forgiveness.
He attempts to distance the alleged attacker from Australia, saying it was “quite apparent” he was radicalised abroad and had only spent a limited amount of time in the country in recent years.
The terrorist did live amongst us for just 45 days over the past three years. It is quite apparent that he acquired this vile radicalisation as he toured the world on a pilgrimage of hate and intolerance that meant in the most tragic events for those victims.
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The prime minister is speaking about the Christchurch attack. He says New Zealand is family, a country is “more like us than any other nation in the world”.
He speaks of Australia’s shock that the alleged attacker came from our country.
We feel shock, we feel grief. We are stunned and shamed that he came from among us and grew up among us. He may be an Australian by birth and by law, but his actions and beliefs betray all that is and forever will be Australian. And we denounce it absolutely.
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It’s 2pm, question time is upon us. But in the lower house, question time will be pushed back slightly, first to mark the death of former senator, Gordon Douglas McIntosh.
Prime minister Scott Morrison will then speak on a condolence motion for the Christchurch attack.
The federal government is expected to provide some good news for the ABC in tonight’s budget, according to reports.
The Channel 9 newspapers report the Morrison government will provide the ABC with another three years of funding worth $44m for its “enhanced news-gathering” program. The program is designed to give additional funding for national reporting, state-based online teams, and for regional and outer-suburban reporting teams.
The Community and Public Sector Union had previously warned funding for the program was at risk. The Coalition has previously cut the funding for the news-gathering program by $20m.
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It’s gone remarkably quiet here in parliament. The release of the budget is roughly six hours away, and our reporting team has trudged off to be locked up, along with the majority of the press gallery.
One thing we’ll be keeping our collective eyes on is the state of the foreign aid budget. Foreign aid spending has reached record lows in recent years.
The Coalition has continually targeted the foreign aid budget in savings measures since forming government in 2013. Five years of cuts in real terms in a row have seen Australia tumble in international rankings. Australia’s aid as a proportion of the budget was 0.23% of gross national income last year, a record low. In 1974-75 that figure was 0.47%.
Aid spending rose during the 2000s but has declined since 2013. The cuts have bitten so hard that the former World Vision chief executive Tim Costello launched a blistering attack on the Coalition last year, saying the cuts were “continuing Australia’s darkest era of aid cuts and further letting down the world’s most vulnerable”.
Groups like the Australian Council for International Development fear this year’s budget will continue the theme. The Acfid chief executive, Marc Purcell, told the ABC this morning that the government cannot keep “cannibalising bits of its aid budget to shore up new initiatives”.
ACFID is concerned that there will be further reductions to the #AustralianAid budget as part of #Budget2019 undermining poverty alleviation, prosperity and developing peace and stability in Australia's region.
— ACFID (@ACFID) April 1, 2019
ACFID CEO, Marc Purcell, spoke with @ABCNews #TheWorld (1/3) pic.twitter.com/9DILTA2LEq
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Senators are still speaking to the Christchurch condolence motion in the Senate. Greens senator for Queensland, Larissa Waters, said her state is not represented by the type of hate and divisiveness another Queensland senator has expressed since the attack.
Those minority voices of hate and division and fear and small-mindedness don’t represent the majority of us.
She also read a statement from Islamic Council of Queensland spokesman, Ali Kadri. Kadri said the strength of his community’s “common bond” with Australia had not been broken. But he urged politicians and the media to take time to reflect on the consequences of their words. Kadri said:
This incident is not simply an act of terror by an individual. It is the result of years of demonisation of Muslims by shock jocks, some media commentators and some politicians. The brunt of this demonisation is faced by Australian Muslims in the form of an abusive comment and in many cases in the form of a physical attack.
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Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi, Australia’s first female Muslim senator, has just spoken on the Christchurch attack. Faruqi is frequently the target of hate speech and racist vitriol, so her words here were particularly powerful. Faruqi read out the names of all 50 victims and their ages. It was haunting, and the chamber sat in sombre silence. Faruqi said the attack must be an impetus for Australians to reset the public debate.
Many of the targets of this horrific terror in Christchurch were there after having fled war and persecution. Some were refugees. To pass through a lifetime of violence and persecution, flee your home and spend years building a new one in a new community only to lose your life to the violence of a hateful murderer is an incomprehensible tragedy.
But I know that many people do not think of us Muslims as equal humans. In the midst of our grief, while we have been showered with love, we have also been bombarded with extraordinary hate and filth.
If this doesn’t reset the public debate, if this doesn’t prompt a complete rethink of how we dehumanise Muslims in our public debate – I really do not know what will.
Let us mourn and let us remember the targets of the Christchurch massacre. But let’s also commit with absolute resolve to making sure such tragedy never happens again. The climate of hate and racism that lead to this massacre cannot be allowed to go on. This can only happen if everyone in here genuinely reflects on their responsibilities to foster love and understanding for all and purposefully acts to change.
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Mike Bowers was down in the Senate chamber for the swearing-in of the newbies, Wendy Askew and Raff Ciccone.
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Imam IH Kauser, national president of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association Australia, is in parliament for the first sitting day since the Christchurch attacks.
He said today is “a day of prayer and solidarity”.
He wouldn’t be drawn on his thoughts on the censure motion against Fraser Anning, but asked what he thought of Anning’s comments, Kauser said he would like to speak to Anning “and be patient, and make it clear what the teachings of Islam are”.
“We are very proud of Australia,” he said, noting its diversity.
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Also on the condolence motion, the Greens leader, Richard Di Natale, is calling for leadership and “true reflection” about hate speech in Australia and, particularly, the voices in parliament that have exploited racism and xenophobia. He said his party’s thoughts and sympathies were with the victims and New Zealand.
But as we said shortly afterwards and as we continue to say, thoughts and sympathies now are not enough. Thoughts and sympathies won’t protect our Muslim community from the daily abuses and hatred that they experience. They won’t protect people from the hate speech that we continue to see right here and around the world. They won’t help to heal the deep divides in our country. Now is a time for solidarity for us to come together as a nation and for some true reflection.
We must acknowledge how it was that an Australian could be responsible for such a horrific crime. We must all face up to the deeply uncomfortable truths about how racism and xenophobia have been exploited by the voices of hate, those who seek to divide us. And there is no escaping it ... some of those voices reside here in this chamber.
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They were attacked because of their faith, because of their faith.
The attacks were horrific acts of violence. They were acts of terrorism and at their core they were acts of hatred. And this we must understand: these were acts of hatred. The terrorist was welcomed into the mosque as a brother and he responded with hate and with bullets. And it is an act of terrorism, an act of hatred, that has shocked this nation.
For Australians, New Zealanders are family, and we mourn with them. And our distress has been magnified by the fact that the rightwing violent extremist responsible for this act of terror is Australian. An extremist, violent, rightwing Australian terrorist. And I hope I speak for all of us when I say this man does not represent Australian values.
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Condolences moved after Christchurch attack
The finance minister, Mathias Cormann, is moving a condolence motion in the wake of the Christchurch attack. Cormann described the attack, and the white supremacy that inspired it, as “vile”. He said Australia’s reaction as “one dear friend grieving for the suffering of another”.
“There must be no mistaking it: the Christchurch attacks were crimes committed against innocent men, women and children,” he said.
Cormann also described the attack as an assault on the ideals of diversity, of faith and culture. He said the attacker sought to divide New Zealand, but he had been “defied, and the people of New Zealand united”. The perpetrator’s “sick cause is doomed to fail”, Cormann said.
“To all those who fan the flames of racism, hatred and violence, we utterly condemn and reject you.”
He spoke of the deep bond between Australia and New Zealand, developed since Gallipoli.
“That experience, that shared sacrifice and loss built a bond to last the ages. In the more than 100 years since then, our two nations have only grown closer. Many Australians treat New Zealand as our second home.
“Ours are two nations united by so much more than geography. We are united by common history and a common set of values. That’s why the horrific attack at the Linwood and Al Noor mosques affected us so deeply.”
Cormann also praises the New Zealand prime minister, Jacinda Ardern, for her response to the attack.
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Parliament sits, new senators sworn in
Parliament is now sitting in both houses. The Senate is swearing in three new senators: Raff Ciccone for Labor, Wendy Askew for the Liberals and Duncan Spender, who replaces David Leyonhjelm.
Spender, who was Leyonhjelm’s chief of staff, is likely to set a record for being the shortest-sitting senator. There are just two sitting days left in the Senate, and he’s not expected to return after the election.
They’ll earn tens of thousands in the interim. Not a bad way to earn a crust.
The #Senate meets at midday today. First item of business is the swearing-in of Senator Askew, @SenatorSpender and @SenRaffCiccone
— Australian Senate (@AuSenate) April 1, 2019
Today's order of business (the Red) is available from ParlWork https://t.co/W0mvG4D8zj
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The intrepid Greg Jericho is breaking down professions by tax brackets and gender. It will not surprise you that men have somehow found themselves disproportionately in the top tax brackets for journalism, accountancy, IT, and many other professions.
I haven't done my usual occupations gender breakdown in the article, but here are a few. First journos!
— Greg Jericho (@GrogsGamut) April 2, 2019
(request any occupations and I'll see what I can do) https://t.co/G3ol97oNBk pic.twitter.com/mZMs3aON9T
An interesting update to Barnaby Joyce’s register of interests today. He’s revealed Channel 7 paid for flights for his “partner and child” between his home of Armidale and Sydney on 23 March 2019. You’ll remember – because it was simply so exciting – that was the date of the NSW election. Joyce sat on the Channel 7 election night panel, and the Australian reported he had to apologise to staff for his “behaviour and demeanour” backstage.
New page detected on the register of Hon Barnaby Joyce MP. Help make these disclosures searchable here: https://t.co/HzLfOraebX pic.twitter.com/Dijg1qioVU
— DisclosureBot (@AusDisclosure) April 1, 2019
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Hello dear readers, and thanks Amy – as ever – for seeing us through a frenetic budget morning.
I’ll be here to accompany you through the relative calm before madness descends later tonight. There’s plenty happening here in parliament to keep an eye on.
We’ll have a condolence motion for the Christchurch attacks about midday, question time as usual in both houses from 2pm, and then the treasurer’s budget speech at 7.30pm.
There’ll be plenty of intrigue in the gaps, I’m sure, so please do stick around.
#Budget2019 is handed down in 8 hours. You can access all budget papers at https://t.co/AZTkfPNHKx from 7.30pm pic.twitter.com/AnjjjgXDrF
— Australian Treasury (@Treasury_AU) April 2, 2019
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Parliament is due to sit in about 30 minutes, so I am going to hand you over to the more-than-capable hands of Christopher Knaus for the rest of the afternoon, while I slam my head against a ... I mean go get something to eat ahead of budget lock-up.
I’ll be back with you as soon as the embargo lifts on the budget – which is when the treasurer takes to his feet on the parliament floor – with the flavour of the budget (Hokey pokey? Rocky road? Vanilla? Double chocolate nut fudge mint caramel chip with a cherry on top in a unicorn bowl?) and the first takes, plus all the reaction.
I’ll see you on the other side.
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Meanwhile, despite the Fraser Anning censure motion most likely not going ahead today (because of timing), that doesn’t mean the Queensland senator won’t still be a topic of at least some conversation – the Greens will still probably attempt to table the Change.org petition with more than 1.3m signatures (a record for #auspol) calling for him to be sacked from the Senate.
That is unlikely to happen – there are two days left and there is no chance, absolutely none, that he will be re-elected as an independent on a full Senate quota. But still, once tabled, it is part of Hansard and therefore, the official record.
GetUp to target Josh Frydenberg's seat
Just stepping outside the budget for a moment, to the election (which can be called any moment from when the appropriation bill passes, which realistically, means any time from Thursday to Sunday), GetUp has announced it will also be campaigning in the treasurer’s seat of Kooyong.
In Dickson the group have been running an “anyone but Dutton” campaign since the 2016 election.
Tony Abbott’s seat of Warringah has also been a pretty big target.
But now, GetUp sees Kooyong as being “definitely in play” and climate change as the number one issue.
What does that mean? It means GetUp’s not inconsiderable volunteer base will be deployed in Josh Frydenberg’s seat, and in Kooyong, that is a pool of about 8,000 volunteers. The group plan on making 80,000 calls over the next few weeks (a 11 May election date is just over a month of campaigning), plus donations will be deployed for billboards and advertising.
Then there is the door-knocking. The Liberals were already a bit worried about Kooyong. This news won’t exactly make them feel better.
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We have officially hit the calm-before-the-hell-storm section of today.
Everyone in the building has gone to ground ahead of parliament starting and the budget lock-up beginning. That mostly means attempting to get something to eat and drink, making sure the highlighters are ready and madly printing out every political story from the last four years, because we have no internet access in the lock-up.
Nothing makes you realise how little you actually know quite like the budget lock-up. At this point, Google is never allowed to go down. I know, like, 10 things apparently, and most of those involve food and the Kardashians.
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While we’re TBT-ing, it’s the original “budget-so-white”.
The first Commonwealth budget, Melbourne 1901 pic.twitter.com/EHg0Jnf1pQ
— Canberra Insider (@CanberraInsider) April 1, 2019
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It’s throwback Tuesday, to another era. Back when Josh Frydenberg had hair.
Prime Minister John Howard with staffer Josh Frydenberg pic.twitter.com/XJR9xTZGAs
— Canberra Insider (@CanberraInsider) April 1, 2019
Sah natural.
Tonight’s #Budget2019 sets Australia up for the next decade.
— Josh Frydenberg (@JoshFrydenberg) April 1, 2019
It builds a stronger economy & secures a better Australia for every Australian. pic.twitter.com/2AXn4Pb1Yh
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The budget is also the domain of the cartoonist and I am pleased to inform you First Dog on the Moon is in the office and getting ready to explain the budget to you in a much more succinct way than I ever could.
Jim Chalmers had a chat this morning about whether Labor would support the Coalition’s increase to the low and middle-income-earners tax rebate from $530 to just over $1,000, which effectively matches what Labor had already put in place:
We will always do the right and responsible thing by people on low and middle incomes in the Labor party. We’ve had a policy on the table for almost a year now to give substantial relief via bigger, fairer tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes. Of course they are the people who should be prioritised when there is tax relief to go around. We’ve been saying that for some time.
The Liberal party’s not just playing catch-up with Labor on tax cuts for people on low and middle incomes, they’re copying Labor’s policy. Australians will see through it. Australians know that the Liberal and National parties couldn’t give a toss about people on low and middle incomes. They know this is about Scott Morrison’s political interests and not about the interests of people of modest means.
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Speaking of Fraser Anning:
New Zealand's acting Prime Minister Winston Peters has told @SkyNewsAust that Australian Senator Fraser Anning is "a four-flushing jingoistic moron" & that Australia has to clean up its political system "to avoid that sort of person making it into politics."
— Jackson Williams (@jacksonw____) April 1, 2019
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Good Beyonce.
Scott Morrison is also on Snapchat.
I’ve just joined @Snapchat! Follow me for updates at: https://t.co/ipx8Bwi2jW pic.twitter.com/SWatVWGBCL
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) April 1, 2019
For those wondering about the Fraser Anning censure motion, as we speculated a little earlier, it doesn’t look like the Senate will have time to get to it.
The condolence motion for Christchurch is (rightly) taking priority. And then Mathias Cormann, as the finance minister, will have to head into the budget lock-up, which doesn’t leave a lot of time.
tl;dr – Anning likely won’t be censured until tomorrow.
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Tim Costello, the executive director of Micah Australia, has one request ahead of this budget – for the Coalition to reinstate the bipartisan commitment to aid spending:
When the first budget surplus in over a decade is delivered tonight, sadly, I don’t think it will be good news for the poor.
Even now with a surplus at hand and as the revenue is rolling in, we are left wondering why we are not moving to a more generous Australian aid commitment.
When will our government believe we have ‘enough’ so we can start being generous again?
If there is an additional cut in tonight’s budget, we’d have to be asking even more serious questions about the absolute rot in our aid budget and the lack of character and moral leadership shown by this current government.
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Parliament is also sitting today.
The Senate will be a bit busy this morning – three new senators need to be sworn in.
Jacinta Collins finished up for Labor in February. Raff Ciccone will replace her.
David Bushby has also finished up for the Tasmanian Liberals. His sister, Wendy Askew, will be sworn in, in his place.
And David Leyonhjelm, who left for a shot in the New South Wales upper house (still to be decided) will be replaced by his former chief of staff, Duncan Spender.
Both Ciccone and Askew are likely to be back when the new Senate is determined after 30 June.
But Spender looks like making a record for shortest sitting senator ever, given there are just two sitting days left in the Senate.
All will be paid until the term officially ends in June though. Which is just under $60,000 for two (sitting days) work – but of course they will all be very busy with their state constituencies, I’m sure.
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I guess if you’re going to choose from the AC/DC back catalogue, Back in Black works better than Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap.
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The social team seem quite proud of this.
It’s Budget Day. Tonight our Government will be announcing the first Budget surplus in 12 years #Budget2019 #BuildingOurEconomy pic.twitter.com/IpIOqKn0nl
— Scott Morrison (@ScottMorrisonMP) April 1, 2019
Maybe stop trying to make fetch happen?
Bill Shorten is holding his pre-budget press conference:
We understand tonight’s budget is much more a political leaflet than it is an economic plan for the future but one thing which the government could do is reverse the $14bn cuts to public education. After all, what could be more important than giving our kids the best possible education? I believe in better schools not bigger tax loopholes. I believe in better schools, not short-term political budget statements like we will see tonight.
On the doubling of tax rebates to $1,000, which will be one of the cornerstones of the budget paper tonight:
Thank you for reminding everyone that last year the government said they could only find $500 for a working person on perhaps $90,000 a year but because of our economic reforms we said we would increase the refund available to working Australians to $928. The government’s now realised that they have a problem, that Labor has bigger, better, fairer tax cuts for nearly 10 million working people. We will study what they offer tonight.
And on the government’s attacks on Labor’s climate policy:
We need to lift the standard of journalism and not just repeat unsubstantiated facts. Well, they are bringing it in like a piece of coal and brandishing it like some lucky charm.
The fact is that the Liberal party can’t get energy party back. If they are fair dinkum on climate change and energy policy, Malcolm Turnbull would still be prime minister.
The modelling shows a 45% emissions reduction will have the same impact as the 26%, because we will include international credit.
First of all, another proof point, our commitment to investing in renewable energy will see the generation of 70,000 new jobs, good-quality new jobs in a growth industry which we can help export.
Let’s look at Malcolm Turnbull’s work. The government can’t have it both ways. We borrowed their safeguard mechanism to reduce emissions in heavier industrial polluters, we borrowed their mechanism, so if they don’t like what they are doing, they are saying their own mechanism doesn’t work, or to put another way – last year or just before they got rid of poor old Malcolm they were proposing a national energy guarantee which would help power bills come down by about $500.
We have taken up the national energy guarantee, they haven’t. When you look at it, we are using their logic, we are using the best science and evidence, and we are focusing on increasing jobs, and now the government, even the current leaders of the government voted for Mr Turnbull’s plans last year. We have borrowed them and now because we have borrowed the framework all of a sudden they don’t like them.
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This budget has a very weird feel about it, it has to be said.
Not just because it is not cold, although that has something to do with it not feeling quite real.
But because it is only the prelude to the main game. The election can be called any time from when the appropriation bill passes parliament. You need about half a day for that. So the budget this time round is just one big election platform. Which is why it may as well be full of unicorns – everyone gets something, but it’s not quite real.
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He’s not a regular prime minister. He’s a cool prime minister.
Nothing like the pre-budget awkward photo op. At least it was less awkward than the one with Kenneth Hayne?
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Coalition to match Labor's low and middle income tax cuts?
Other than the infrastructure stories that have been dripped out over the last couple of weeks, the other budget story floating around today is the News Corp report that the low and middle-income tax cut legislated last year for $530 will be doubled.
So if you earned under $125,333 you were due to get a $530 rebate from the government when you did your tax this year. Now it looks like the government will be matching the Labor plan to give low and middle-income earners a $1,000 tax rebate.
The big question there will be what happens to that second tranche of the (then) $144bn tax plan the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition came up with.
Under that plan:
By 2024-25, those with taxable income of:
- $200,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $11,815
- $160,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $8,415
- $120,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $6,935
- $90,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $4,685
- $80,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $3,740
- $50,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $3,740
- $30,000 will get a cumulative tax cut of $1,400
As reported at the time of the tax plan passing parliament:
The tax cut plan comes in three stages.
Stage one will provide tax relief of up to $530 to low- and middle-income earners over the next four years. Stage two is directed at taxpayers earning over $90,000. Stage three is directed at taxpayers earning over $120,000.
Stage one is a low and middle-income tax offset, and will give $530 to 4.4 million taxpayers with incomes between $48,000 and $90,000 in 2018-19. This stage also raises from $87,000 to $90,000 the income threshold under which the tax rate of 37% applies.
Stage two, which begins in 2022, lifts the top threshold for the 19% rate from $37,000 to $41,000 and lifts the top threshold for the 32.5% tax rate from $90,000 to $120,000. Stage three abolishes the 37c tax bracket from mid-2024.
So what happens to stage two? I guess we’ll find out.
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In the grand tradition of politicians pretending they are just like us, Josh Frydenberg just threw a ball around with ABC Breakfast host, Michael Rowland. In his office.
As you can imagine, it was totally natural and organic and everyone came out of those shots looking fun.
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Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg will do their happy budget family pic in a few minutes.
Josh Frydenberg arrives at parliament.
The treasurer has arrived and addressed the media for some pre-budget sizzle.
Josh Frydenberg:
Well, tonight’s budget sets Australia up for the next decade. It build as stronger economy and secures a better Australia for every Australian. And we do that without increasing taxes.
Tonight’s surplus is no accident. It’s the product of responsible decisions and an economic plan that is working. There is more to do, but the Australian people can trust us to do it. Are there any questions?
What about that surplus?
Well, tonight we will deliver the first surplus in more than a decade. It’s the product of responsible decisions – difficult but necessary decisions. Discipline when it comes to budget management is absolutely important.
Because if we can get debt under control, we can ensure more spending on the essential services that people need and deserve.
How about those ‘average families’?
Average families can expect out of this budget that their cost-of-living pressures will be eased, that there will be more money in their pocket, congestion-busting infrastructure that will allow them to get to work earlier and to get home sooner.
And guaranteed essential services of hospitals, schools, aged care, disability support – they’re the things that are important to the Australian people, and they’re the things that will be in tonight’s budget.
And tax cuts?
The Coalition believes that every Australian should earn more, and that every Australian should keep more of what they earn. And that will be reflected in this budget tonight.
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Josh Frydenberg is late for his morning press conference.
Not the greatest start.
As reported by Network Seven overnight, the Liberals have found a candidate for Reid, to replace Craig Laundy.
You may remember some of the delay was that Scott Morrison wanted a “star candidate” to help hold the seat. At least two people, including Stan Grant, turned it down.
But now child psychologist Fiona Martin has won the endorsement, beating Scott Yung who had been considered the favourite.
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Liberal senator and John Howard’s former chief of staff, Arthur Sinodinos, was on the Bad Show overnight and it’s almost like an election is just moments away, because he said he believes Newstart should be increased.
“I’m putting a personal view, I’m not necessarily talking on behalf of the government here. But my observation is that this does raise an issue that should be considered at some stage.”
Well smash me down and call me an avocado. It’s amazing what sort of “personal views” pop up at five minutes to midnight.
Good morning
Happy budget day 2019!
It’s the big reveal day for the budget Scott Morrison was just champing at the bit to hand down to you. Why? Well, it will act as the foundation for the Coalition’s entire election campaign. So you get some infrastructure. And you get some infrastructure! And you get a tax cut! And you and you and you and you!
It’s that sort of budget. Particularly if you are in a state where the Coalition is feeling a bit wobbly. Victoria and Queensland will probably come out of this quite well in that case.
There’s also that surplus, which Morrison and Josh Frydenberg are very excited about, plus there will be a lot of that new habit of “the 10-year plan”, which really, is just bupkis. There is a reason Treasury operates on four-year plans for a reason. That’s because in terms of predictions, it’s a lot easier to guess short term, than long term.
But that’s the magic of the Unicorn Budget. It’s all magic and good news. In terms of actual implementation – that’s another story all together.
You’ll have me until 11.30 or so today, when Chris Knaus will pick up the blog while I and the rest of the Guardian’s brains trust, including Mike Bowers, Katharine Murphy, Paul Karp and Gabrielle Chan, head into the budget lock-up.
Parliament is also sitting – there is a condolence motion for Christchurch first up, and we’ll see if we get to the Fraser Anning censure motion (the budget lock-up makes things a bit tricky, as members of the parliament also head in there, and go off line for quite a few hours).
So let’s jump straight into it.
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