It’s impossible to make everyone happy on budget night, but Treasurer Jim Chalmers’ 2024 effort has upset more than most, as the government struggles to avoid inflation rebounding, make more things in Australia, and do something about the cost of living.
This is the third budget of the Albanese government and the second in surplus, which won’t be much comfort for the millions struggling to survive on the edges of the economy, although Labor’s bean counters claim to be doing their best with the available resources.
As promised, most Australians will get a tax cut, and these will be a bit more equitable than those proposed by Scott Morrison. There will be more money for community legal centres. The price of medicines under the PBS will be temporarily frozen. Households will each receive a $300 rebate on their energy bills over the next twelve months (whether this help is needed or not).
HECS indexation will be slightly less onerous, Commonwealth Rent Assistance will become slightly more generous, and life will be better than ever for those who dig stuff up and export it, with fossil fuel subsidies growing well beyond spending on renewables, and the Petroleum Resource Rent Tax being revised down even further (tobacco tax raised nine times as much in the last financial year).
With unemployment likely to rise, along with interest rates, and the global economy looking far from healthy, immigration has been cut back.
There’s no new money heading in the direction of mental health (apart from virtual consultations), emergency food support, or Indigenous communities.
Economy or ecology?
Nature has been ignored in this budget, and will apparently have to look after itself, with no significant additional funding to deal with serious invasive pests like fire ants, or to prevent more native species sliding into extinction.
Instead, the budget suggests that critical minerals are the future, never mind that these will end up in high-tech weapons as well as low emissions vehicles, and those likely to profit most will be Gina Rinehart and Twiggy Forrest, who hardly need more government support.
Perhaps renewable hydrogen, quantum computing and ‘green’ metals will save us all’? Unfortunately there’s no Biden-style money for large scale household electrification.
Once again, the government ignored the expert advice of the Independent Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee, which suggested that income support payments could be lifted substantially without affecting inflation.
Independent senator for the ACT, David Pocock, said that while there were some good things in the 2024 budget, it had a ‘gaping hole at its heart’, which left many vulnerable Australians behind.
Many of the benefits of the 2024 budget, such as the previously announced housing loan package, will take years to play out, and depend on the Albanese government being re-elected.
Uncosted dog whistling
Peter Dutton used his budget reply speech to indulge in a bit of uncosted dog whistling, saying that further migration cuts and a ban on foreign investment in housing would solve many of the problems confronting Australians.
Apparently migrants are also the reason roads are congested, and it’s hard to get a doctor’s appointment, never mind that Australia’s health and aged care sectors would likely collapse if all the migrant workers suddenly departed, not to mention all the other industries who are crying out for skilled employees.
The other complexities around the issue, such as the balance between permanent migrants and those here on temporary visas, and the effects on the university sector, have been ignored or obfuscated, with Dutton also recently proposing to let international students work many extra hours while they’re here (apparently it’s okay for foreigners to deliver Uber Eats).
Much like the Coalition’s nuclear policy, these latest thought bubbles have been made in the absence of any detailed deliberation, but are guaranteed to drag the ‘debate’ ever lower. America here we come!
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning film-maker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
Long ago, he did work experience in Parliament House with Mungo MacCallum.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
