4pm: Wrapping up. Following Question Time and other incidents during the day, we’ve seen the opposition is going to query the assumptions that the government has made in the Budget, but also question if the Prime Minister can be trusted to maintain spending discipline. (Tony Abbott asked him today to explain why he only became an economic conservative at election time.) For its part the Government wants to know where the opposition will find savings to return the budget to surplus, and will be hammering the line that Australia has outperformed the rest of the developed world in handling the GFC.
Boring budget papers maybe, but not a boring Budget.
12.34pm: Question Time is back and now that we’ve been freed from the clutches of Treasury officials we’ll be covering Parliament proceedings live from 2pm today. Be there and be square.
12.24pm: Scientists found it boring too! No mistaking the take from Australian Life Scientist, which has a story headlined Budget 2010: Not much for science or biotech.
12.03pm:From ABC News:
Federal Treasurer Wayne Swan has disputed claims by Premier Anna Bligh the super-profits mining tax will adversely affect job creation in Queensland.
More here.
10.08am: You say tomato…
Read the stories here: Hockey, Rudd.
9.58am: No backdown, says Swan.
9.52am: Chinese news agency Xinhua focuses on spending on troops in Afghanistan. What, no mention of the mining tax?
9.15am: Some commentary highlights from around the blocks:
Paul Kelly in The Australian: Accounts deliver an election narrative
Swan was correct in his budget night boast that he wanted a set of numbers that made Australia “the envy of the world in recovery”. It is an arrow in the heart of the Coalition’s debt and deficits election theme.
Barrie Cassidy at The Drum: Nothing wrong with a boring budget
The trick will be in the marketing. This was one of the tightest spending budgets in a generation - certainly the tightest pre-election budget. Presumably not a lot was wasted on speech writers.
John Durie, The Australian - Canberra backs corporate bonds
In some respects it’s a business-friendly budget if you ignore the super tax on the resources industry.
Peter Hartcher in the SMH: Back in the black with a touch of restraint
The truth is that the natural recovery in the economy has done all the hard work for the Rudd government. Its attempts at cutting spending are embarrassingly feeble. From total outlays of more than one-third of a trillion dollars, it has cut spending by just $1.4 billion.
9.05am: Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey has a video statement giving his verdict, characterising the Budget as “a shameless con”.
9.03am: High praise from David Koch:
THE wimps of 10 days ago have found some courage.
This is exactly the type of Federal Budget we needed and, if they can pull off what they’ve promised, it will ease the pressure on future interest rate increases and keep inflation under control.
More here: Budget 2010: Government finds some courage
8.18am: Tony Abbott says the government can’t “change it’s nature from Paris Hilton to Uncle Scrooge”, arguing it is a big ask for voters to believe Rudd can now put the brakes on spending. And here’s a picture.
8.14am: Rudd’s been on the phone to the new British PM David Cameron. They’ve been talking about Cameron coming out, perhaps during the cricket. We’ve got more on the new British PM here.
8.08am: Kevin Rudd on ABC Radio, outlining his economic beliefs. Says he believes in expanding the role of government in the economy when the private sector is in retreat. “Now with the private sector expanding it’s time for the role of government to retreat,” he says. He mentions getting back in the black.
Penbo mentioned in his piece The Smartest Guys in the Room that Swan and Rudd might have been listening to Queen’s We Are The Champions when putting the finishing touches to the Budget. This might also have been on high rotation:
6.57am: Treasurer Wayne Swan will be taking questions live at the Herald Sun online from 10am AEDT here.
6.51am: Nice artwork on the home page of the Courier Mail:
Steph Balogh reports for the paper: WAYNE Swan has played to the Government’s economic strengths with a re-election Budget that accelerates Australia’s return to the black three years early and directs $7.3 billion to health reforms. More here.
WEDNESDAY 6.30am: Good morning, and hopefully everyone’s feeling on top of the world this morning. Wayne Swan probably is: his budget has been generally well-received, with the papers being generally positive about his plan to bring the nation’s accounts back to surplus.
On Lateline last night finance minister Lindsay Tanner said the budget “kills the debt and deficit scare campaign dead. Stone dead.” His opposite number Andrew Robb said it was a house of cards, and given shadow Treasurer Joe Hockey’s analysis last night we can expect this to be the opposition’s line: that there are flawed assumptions underpinning the projected return to surplus.
Tanner also argued the Opposition needed to support the government’s planned mining tax, as it underpinned the plan to pay off the debt.
All financial projections need assumptions, however. We’ll see detailed response from the opposition on Thursday night with Abbott’s budget-in-reply speech, and the Coalition says it will have its policy details released in full in a matter of weeks.
8.50pm: Okay, The Punch’s budget day is over. We’ll be back on from first thing in the morning at this post for a round-up of the papers and following the reaction through tomorrow.
8.46pm: Malcolm Farr of the Daily Telegraph on Sky. Says “good politics has been helped along a bit in this budget”.
8.43pm: Peter Hartcher of the SMH on Sky News. Says the government savings efforts are “paltry” and the actual cuts in spending amount to just over a billion dollars. Adds that the government deserves credit for not spending the extra cash on hand, but letting it go to the bottom line instead.
8.39pm: Wayne Swan on Sky - David Speers suggests to him the renewable energy plan is the same as Tony Abbott’s direct action plan. Swan says he’s just announced the funding rather than what the programs funded under it will be.
8.38pm: Another online poll, this time from the Herald Sun.
8.32pm: Hockey says the Opposition will have its plan to return the budget to surplus within a matter of weeks, saying the best way to get it back is to have faster growth.
8.26pm: Shadow treasurer Joe Hockey says on ABC TV in his estimation Rudd and Swan “will never deliver a surplus budget for Australia”, as there are too many assumptions that may not come to pass.
8.22pm: Nick Xenophon on Sky - “It’s kind of like a kid whose birthday was yesterday, it’s going to be a long time before anything good happens.” Says he hasn’t made his mind up on the resources tax.
8.21pm: The Australian has a range of news stories on the various government portfolios live on its website. It’s Budget special is here is here but a few highlights:
8.19pm: Steve Fielding calls it a “Melbourne style gangland budget”, saying there’s a “dark underside to it”, highlighting the cuts to childcare.
8.15pm: CommBank analyst tells Sky News the government probably hasn’t done enough to ease upwards interest rate pressure.
8.09pm: Tim Lester at the SMH has this take, in a piece headed Fiscal austerity, but tax returns set to go:
The hated tax return will vanish for millions of Australians and savings will be taxed at a lower rate as part of federal Treasurer Wayne Swan’s third budget, announced in Canberra tonight.
The measures are rare sweeteners in a budget that defies the old political logic of giving voters a raft of goodies in an election year.
Instead, the Rudd government has chosen to emphasise responsible management, cutting debt and aiming the budget for a surplus three years earlier than expected.
There’s a poll on the bottom of the story, with an early punter verdict:
8.06pm: ABC News leads with Swan plots course back to the black
Mr Swan’s pre-election pitch to voters is to emphasise the Government’s “strict fiscal strategy” and spending restraint as the budget returns to surplus by 2012-13.
Today’s budget comes after a horror few weeks for the Government, but Mr Swan says he does not expect it to give Labor a poll bounce.
Another $2.2 billion for health on top of the $5.3 billion already announced, and the new controversial 40 per cent tax on the resources industry, are also major features of this year’s budget, which shows a reversal in Australia’s economic fortunes from the dark days of the financial crisis.
More here.
7.52.pm: Summary graphic from news.com.au.
Full story here.
7.45pm: We’re off, and The Australian is leading on the headline Swan rides mining boom to early surplus
7.30pm: Welcome to our Budget 2010 coverage on The Punch, we’ll be following the Treasurer’s speech and all the reaction from the players and the public as it starts to come in.
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RT @toplitigator: @farrm51 Very difficult to believe the excitment of 'Water Efficiency Labelling and Standards Scheme' website doesn't have ppl all over it.
RT @toplitigator: @farrm51 As for the 'Intergovernmental Committee on Surveying and Mapping' website, just how do you contain your excitement?
RT @lynlinking: @farrm51 Well the links should be posted on Twitter more, by people that care about the Government. Perhaps the MSM could help cheers lyn
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