Last week’s Budget wasn’t really green, or even greenish. Will Budget 09 take the environment more seriously? asks John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute.
Federal budget
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The budget, alcopops and Brendan Nelson … judicial independence … the US and isolationism … baby bonus … Israel …
Mungo: Nelson joins the list of Budget losers
The budget came and went and was a bit of a non-event, but there are still winners and losers, including the leader of the Opposition, writes Mungo MacCallum.
Iemma tries to crash through electricity privatisation
Unions are threatening to crash Morris Iemma’s party after he attempted to rush through his electricity privatisation bill , writes Alex Mitchell.
Nelson’s petrol price cut = embarrassing farce
Aping Clinton and McCain’s ideas on cutting petrol price is laughbaly bad politics, argues Adam Schwab.
Beware the wrath of the stay-at-home mum
Wayne Swan’s budget failed to mention stay-at-home mums at all amid grandstanding about increasing child care rebates for PM Kevin Rudd’s much vaunted “working families”, writes Neil Walker.
Comitatus Column: The Tarago Tax
Brendan Nelson’s rage against the ‘Tarago Tax’ needs a bit of a reality check, writes Possum Comitatus
Get stuck into the wine, penny-pinchers!
Spirit drinkers are being slugged considerably more for their booze than beer drinkers. But it’s the winos who win the excise wars, writes Richard Farmer .
Crikey Says: Crikey Says
Instead of standing up for stay-at-home mums or solar panels, the Opposition Leader has sided with ‘ute men’ and underage drinkers.
Eva Cox: How the Budget demonises rich women
The two minor income tests to Family Tax Benefit B and the Baby Bonus have been puffed and discussed as though the recipient were Cruella de Ville, writes Eva Cox.
Geriatric health assessments are a waste of health money
The current scheme for funding GP assessments of the elderly was deemed ineffective, and has blown out its budget by $93.7 million, But the government’s thrown more cash at it in the new budget.
Family tax benefits still a mass of contradictions
Tinkering around the edges of the existing layer cake system of family benefits will not fix the problem of middle class welfare, writes Jessica Brown of the CIS.
The Future Fund — why they can’t just give it back
Let’s accept that, as good “fiscal conservatives”, the government cannot just “give this money back”. Then how are they going to spend it? Writes Peter Saunders.
Arts funding sticks to status quo
There’s no grand Labor arts agenda in sight just yet, but Peter Garrett has left the door open for more youth and regional programming in future, writes Nick Pickard.
Crikey Says: Crikey Says
Wayne Swan’s budget was pre-announced, pre-processed pap. So why did some of Australia’s finest minds waste time covering it?
Budget boredom for schools but watch this space
The budget may have held only boring news for schools, but the new quadrennial funding agreement due later this year will have a far greater impact, writes Jennifer Buckingham.
Oh the humanity! Tonight’s Brendan Nelson budget reply today!
A distraught Brendan Nelson this evening confronted the Rudd Government, writes Bernard Keane .
Altman: Closing the gap rhetoric buys into Howard legacy
There are 37 new measures identified “to help begin the process of closing the gap” in the Budget but most of the major commitments are from the 2007–08 Howard government budget, writes Jon Altman.
Richard Farmer’s political bite-sized meaty chunks
Meaty snippets from the home of government plus the daily reality check and the pick of other people’s political coverage. Richard Farmer writes.
Boost for Housing Supply: HIA chief
The first Swan budget is a step in the right direction for solving the problem of housing supply, writes Chris Lamont from HIA.
Comitatus: not much wriggle room for Turnbull
Snookered – it’s the only way to describe what the ALP has done to the Coalition writes Possum Comitatus.
Digital radio turns out to be a mirage
Measures in the fine print of the budget papers will allow commercial radio stations to have another go at being allowed to reduce staff and resources in the bush, writes Margaret Simons.
Solving Swan’s $100b super liability discrepancy
In all the budget coverage so far, where is the story on the blowout in super liabilities, asks Stephen Mayne?
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Budget08 - where’s the environment?, professional women and the baby bonus, working families, Gen Y … the Democrats and Al Gore … Westpac …
