This week, Senators are conducting Supplementary Budget Estimates for the whole week, rather than sitting. For the most part it’s a colossal waste of time and money.
Treasury
Exeunt Grech
The curtain has finally dropped on the long and controversial public service career of Godwin Grech, according to The Oz, making a quiet exit stage left from the Treasury last week.
Treasury advice: don’t stop stimulating
The government’s $42b stimulus package has been “more effective than first thought’”, according to Treasury advice. That means phasing it out (let alone stopping it cold) could be problematic. Philip Coorey has the exclusive.
Saulwick: Treasury under fire
The Treasury has come under much criticism in the national auditor’s report for dodgy bookkeeping and putting too much pressure on Godwin Grech, writes Jacob Saulwick.
Treasury knew about my very poor health, by Godwin Grech
Public official at the centre of the Utegate scandal, Godwin Grech, says that Treasury were well aware of his significant and ongoing health issues.
Crikey Says: How media’s myopia hurts economic analysis
Economic commentary in Australia is based on numbers of momentary significance, numbers which are loaded with meaning in the few minutes after their release and then promptly forgotten.
The good economic news just keeps on coming
This is an economy coping remarkably well with a collapse in its terms of trade and a collapse in business lending.
Political snippets: Media returns to business as usual
Things are returning to normal in the tabloids after the excitement of Utegate, with rugby league and sex back on the front page.
Godwin Grech: the loneliest man in the world
Grech, a man of almost Dickensian visage and name, chose absolute honesty in talking about the Utegate affair, an approach that, unless you’re very confident in your own evasive skills, is probably wisest.
The little recession that couldn’t
For the Government and Treasury, this is as close to vindication of its stimulus approach as it will get. And all thanks to 0.4%, in black, rather than red.
Back off Hockey: Treasury stands by its forecasts
Treasury has blunted the Opposition’s attack on the validity of the Government’s Budget forecasts.
Koukoulas: don’t mess with Treasury forecasts
It’s a mug’s game to quibble with the Treasury forecasts that underpin the Budget revenue and outlays estimates.
Treasury’s positive outlook is a false vision
A downturn that the Budget papers describe ad nauseam as “the most severe since the Great Depression” is expected to be over faster than the recession. So which is it? asks Steve Keen.
Berg: Never mind the deficit, look at the spending
There’s a weird - almost creepy - sense of confidence surrounding Wayne Swan’s second budget, writes Chris Berg.
Budget tries to sell unattainable growth rates. Why?
About the only certainty that I get from this Budget is that our economic circumstances will not unfold as forecast, writes John Hewson.
Budget backdrop is chaos and crisis
The usual Treasury imperative to restrain desperate politicians, still as great as ever, is tempered by a need to be careful not to depress everyone.
Budget to RBA: you complete me
Today’s Reserve Bank forecasts complete the likely picture that will emerge on Budget night next Tuesday.
Crikey Says: Rudd and Treasury vindicated as unemployment falls
Behind the rise in employment — revealed today — is a deliberate strategy taken by a Government that has consistently moved earlier than expected to deal with the impacts of the financial crisis.
The brave new world of disinflation
Get set for a burst of disinflation as the much forecast fall in price pressures starts turning up in official statistics.
Political snippets: The banks’ time will come
Banks might think it is very clever to protect their profit margins by not passing on the cut in official interest rates but their time will come. Treasury officials and politicians have long memories.
Greenhouse niggard to review treasury ETS modelling
Climate action opponent Brian Fisher should have automatically been excluded from any “independent” review of the modelling, writes Bernard Keane.
“You went too far Malcolm.” Turnbull and the Oz c-ck it up
Turnbull’s Parliamentary skills are still a work in progress, and that his frontbench lacks either the experience or forthrightness to rein him in, writes Bernard Keane.
Julie Bishop’s gaffes taken to a new level
Even the suggestion of incompetence will be enough to put Julie Bishop under plenty of pressure, when it’s Wayne Swan who should be in the spotlight, writes Bernard Keane.
GST and fuel excise: A taxing argument
Every time there’s a new problem for the Government it gets whacked onto the tax review. Now it’s an investigation of the interaction of the GST and fuel excise, writes Bernard Keane.
Did the credit-crunch hit revenue? Don’t believe it for a second
Wayne Swan’s claims of a credit crunch hitting revenue are pure bunkum, writes Stephen Mayne.
