Miranda Stewart, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University and Teck Chi Wong, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
In it’s first inclusion in the Open Budget Index of 115 countries, Australia ranks 12th.
Unless the government is willing to increase taxes elsewhere to pay for tax cuts there will be longer-term costs for the budget and the economy. And younger Australians will wear these costs.
The 2017 budget contains initiatives that help alleviate some of the worst aspects of its predecessors. However, it doesn’t radically turn things around for women.
The proposal to drug test welfare recipients needs to be fine-tuned otherwise the government will be targetting the wrong people and be tied up in legal challenges.
The fund is nothing more than a rebadging exercise in the hope people might think it is a new policy. And it’s being used to airbrush public hospitals out of the Medicare picture.
Labor needs to convincingly discredit the 2017 budget to the point that the government cannot use it to help restore its standing in the eyes of voters.
The budget is pushing for a much-needed reboot of the social housing sector. What it isn’t offering is extra funding to renew and expand run-down housing stocks.
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne