What do the political and economic analysts make of the 2013 federal budget? Crikey wraps the commentary from the websites and newspapers.
READ MORE174 Results
Ducks in even more trouble than economists
Crikey readers talk economics, the upcoming budget and the tragedy of duck shooting.
READ MOREAsk the economists: we balance Swan’s books
How is Labor going to pay for its big-ticket promises on education and disability care? Crikey intern Ben Westcott asks leading economists whether Wayne Swan should tinker with super, Medicare, taxes or the GST to balance his books.
READ MORERichard Farmer’s chunky bits
Kevin Rudd is likely to bide his time before making any kind of leadership challenge. Plus other political issues of the day.
READ MOREA promise worth breaking: the surplus is slipping away
The government will need more cuts to protect its slim surplus, but is it really what the economy needs? The fetishism around returning to surplus is spooking business.
READ MOREBudget surplus next to go?
Perhaps the promised budget surplus for this financial year will be the next thing jettisoned.
READ MOREMilne reprises key themes in budget reply
Christine Milne has reiterated her commitment to moving the economic focus to households and quality of life in her budget reply.
READ MOREBattler’s budget won’t do much for Labor, but won’t hurt its legacy
We were promised a Labor budget and we got one, at least Labor in its modern sense of a managerialist party that still faintly remembers the old nostrums of equity and opportunity that form what’s left of its core values.
READ MOREDisconnect between economic perception, reality
The federal budget looms, and as we’ve been hearing for weeks, it’s going to be a tough one (with a few conspicuous sweeteners on the side).
READ MORESwan’s near perfect application of economic policy
Swan’s very clear message to the RBA is that it can easily cut interest rates knowing that government demand will be dampening demand and inflation pressures over the forecast horizon, writes economist Stephen Koukoulas.
READ MORESwan’s MYEFO tricks to be overshadowed by EU?
The 2012-13 surplus has been preserved, at the cost of moving spending around, but Europe is still a huge threat to the economy.
READ MOREMYEFO: Swan cuts to save the thinnest of surpluses
The government has unveiled a range of spending cuts but they won’t stop a big blowout in this year’s budget deficit.
READ MOREMental health and the budget: positive steps but many gaps remain
Given the magnitude of the burden of mental illness and the scope and extent of needs in the mental health sector, the Gillard government’s significant down payment on new and expanded services can only be considered the beginning, writes Lesley Russell.
READ MOREParallels between mental health initiatives and portrayals in Australian film
This year there has been a striking — but completely unnoticed — correlation between the federal government’s mental health initiatives and the dominant theme in Australian films. Luke Buckmaster explains.
READ MOREJericho: Hockey’s budget reply address was an embarrassment
Joe Hockey’s budget reply address was a ludicrous quasi economic lecture capped off by a grilling from the press gallery, writes Greg Jericho.
READ MOREHuffing and puffing over Fukushima coverage
Crikey readers have their say.
READ MOREThe budget yawn.
So the impact of the budget has been measured by the pollsters and nothing really has changed.
READ MOREBudget breakdown: the holding pattern on clean-tech investment
In the first of a series of post-budget reports, Fiona Armstrong and Laura Eadie from the Centre for Policy Development explore options to encourage innovation and roll out less mature renewable energy technologies.
READ MOREMiddle-class welfare
Crikey reads have tehir say.
READ MOREVariation on a theme
Space and time in the media expands to fit the journalists available.
READ MOREJericho: The question is not ‘who is rich’ but ‘who cares’?
Reportage of the federal budget was generally of a high quality, but some media outlets were sidetracked by the pointless question of who is rich and who is not, writes Greg Jericho.
READ MORESome context to the budget’s mental health announcements
Mental health is a particularly fraught area of public policy. Croakey presents two pieces which provide some historical and current context to the cutbacks to the Better Access program, which were announced in this week’s federal budget.
READ MOREBudget goes cold as Australia’s Got Talent cooks MasterChef
The low figures for the Treasurer’s speech and then the 7.30 discussion program at 8pm, plus Lateline and Lateline Business tells us that viewers were bored.
READ MOREThe budget attack to come
our sentences from this morning’s Liberal Party missive on the budget sum up the attack to come.
READ MOREWayne Swan moves in to the spotlight
Wayne Swan’s presentation remains dead ordinary, but his messaging has been reasonably good in the wake of the budget.
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