There is a well-known internet meme that quotes Britain’s war-time leader Winston Churchill’s response to a proposition that arts funding should be cut in favour of the war effort. His retort was: “Then…
The reality of the 2014 budget is now pretty clear, not just its specific provisions but the kind of nation it wants Australia to become. How it affects culture relates not just to this or that cut to…
The 2014 Budget has been variously celebrated and reviled as a “budget for corporate Australia”. But this assessment is based on the premise that corporate tax cuts and infrastructure spending will provide…
As part of the Liberal government’s slash-and-burn budget on Tuesday night was the surprise announcement that the Australian Interactive Games Fund was to be cut, effective immediately. First announced…
This week’s budget was clearly highly political. The question is what its economic impact will be. My overall assessment is that the Abbott government has burnt too much political capital for too little…
Joe Hockey’s first budget does not contain much tax reform, in spite of headlines on the “temporary budget repair levy”. It does contain some very big cuts to spending in the short and longer term - consistent…
Over the last few years our economic debate has focused on the budget deficit and government debt, displacing other aspects of economic policy. To Labor’s cost Wayne Swan made the deficit the centrepiece…
The 2014 federal budget implemented a so-called crackdown on what Minister for Social Services Kevin Andrews calls young people who are content to “sit on the couch at home and pick up a welfare cheque…
In the lead-up to the 2014-15 budget, Australians heard the federal government’s mantra that the “adults are back in charge”. However, the government’s approach to young people has been vague since its…
The 2014-15 federal budget continues the deconstruction of Australia’s post-war welfare state. In fact, the budget takes it a step further, particularly for the young. People under the age of 30 will now…
Suzanne Cory, WEHI (Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research)
When the freshly-minted Prime Minister Tony Abbott declined for the first time since 1931 to appoint a science minister as part of his Cabinet in September last year, he did so having made an election…
Buried in the details of the health budget are some changes to Medicare not widely discussed in the last 36 hours. Just as important as the introduction of co-payments for medicines and GP visits are changes…
Our budget coverage continues with interviews firstly with Finance minister Mathias Cormann and then Shadow Finance Minister Tony Burke. Listen to both interviews in this podcast.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott has bluntly dismissed howls of outrage from Liberal premiers over the budget’s plan to push future funding responsibility for hospitals and schools on to the states. He has rejected…
You can’t fault a treasurer for trying to put the best possible spin on budget numbers — and that’s certainly what Joe Hockey did last night. The most important numbers, of course, are the deficit projections…
Budgets are often framed as give and take. But in the case of the environment, the government is taking large amounts of money in cuts, while giving little back beyond funding the Direct Action climate…
It’s hard to ignore the irony. The 2014 federal budget will “better target innovation and research funding to areas of national and strategic priority” but funding cuts of more than A$111 million to CSIRO…
In the lead-up to the Abbott government’s first federal budget, there was one standout headline that stole attention from “exclusive” pre-budget leaks: WHY I’VE GOT A PACKER UP MY CLACKER In terms of tabloid…
There are billions of dollars of broken promises in the Abbott government’s first budget for low-emission and renewable energy programs – and wiggle room to break even more in the next few years. Among…
Joe Hockey says that this budget shares the pain. But what is the right share for whom? This budget is like all the others – it lacks a compass that tells us the overall effect of government spending and…
Honorary Enterprise Professor, School of Population and Global Health, and Department of General Practice and Primary Care, The University of Melbourne