Budget 2012 - Editorial's View

Editorial - editor-in-chief: Paul S McAuley
  

While I might lack the economic credentials to deliver a federal budget, let alone a surplus, I think it is clear that this year's budget is lacking its own true economic credentials. Now call me cynical, but with all the hysteria of leadership tension, bad polls, dismembered mp's, more bad polls, sex, lies now video tape, it strikes me it is more than coincidental that there were more pre-budget leaks than Rudd on a leaky boat. So why were the political journo's and economists forced in a budget lockout? Could it be for the same reason level 1 of members hall was off limits to former mp's and current presiding officers? I don't recall quarantining media at the galleries of parliament house a requirement of Finklestein's report. Was there something I missed?

This budget was never going to be a popular one for treasurer Wayne Swan. He committed his government to returning the economy to the black, by installing a surplus of less than $2b for 2012/2013 financial period. You see what's interesting is, anyone that's ever run a business or attempted book keeping, will know that in order to achieve a positive output, you simply jiggle the books. You just remove funding or negative output by copying and pasting selected entry fields from one area to another. In the case of this budget, re-allocating projected funds from 2011/2012 budget over to 2013-2016 budgets. 

I guess like many budgets, labor or liberal, there will always be areas that are sugar coated down to divert attention from black holes or budget cuts to critical govt departmental units. But unlike this one, there's more sugar than butter, so to speak. 

The part of the budget that I personally found disappointing and insulting was,  the announcement of $7b to IMF to help out Europe's spiraling debt problems at the detriment of our struggling economy. Since when was Australia part of the European Union, and multi- empires like France, GB, Germany, and Italy? While I sympathise with our European counterparts, I sympathise more with Australian people that are being dudded by our own govt, for the sake of their ego driven madness on the world scene. That $7b is instant, it's in their account right now, while Australians continue to borrow $133 million dollars everyday to pay for bad policies unfunded and unwarranted. 

Think about the pensioners and people in aged care who have to wait another year before they see any real funding. Then there's the NDIS (National Disability Insurance Scheme) that will have to wait four years to get their $1b funding off the backhand of nothing more than a disgraceful publicity stunt by prime minister Julia Gillard, who knows this money won't reach the accounts of the NDIS while her govt hold office.

The most unpredictable financial problem for this govt is the uncertainty of increasing numbers of illegal boat people. I refuse to refer to illegal boat people as refugees, as I have met genuine refugees who have come to our country to escape their war savaged countries, and one bloke in particular lost his whole family. The sorts of people that are arriving illegally by boat are nothing more than economic refugees. They pay smugglers the big money to travel to at least two countries before finally arriving in Australia. Indonesia or Malaysia is the first or second point of refuge, so that should be there place of asylum. While this govt sit on their hands and knees and blame the opposition for their own inaction, I mean, after all, they don't need the coalition's vote if they formed an unofficial coalition with the greens. This problem won't go away, and it's clear that given there is no funding allocation in the budget for the 2012/2013 period, just what is this government's expectation for their formulated budget costings? 

With the installation of Bob Brown's replacement, Christine Milne, it shall make for interesting times ahead for the business relationship between the greens and labor. The highly anticipated budget surplus divides these two mainstream players, where the only numbers that are concerned would seem to be more focused on that of the executive govt, as opposed to a balance sheet or budget white paper.

What this budget does prove is that where's there's smoke, there's fire. Strictly as a political observer, the govt's attack on the mining sector and its cashed up bosses, seems like a last minute cash grab from the govt's oldest enemies but newest political opponents. Hmmm, sounds like a defeatist attitude to me.  

Overall, this budget will affect different people in different ways. For good, for bad. Some will lose, some will pay. Although while I don't have a problem with cuts to some areas to make ways in others, it's the dishonesty and deceit that I can't handle. Just one day, it would be nice to see a politician that actually believes in what he or she is doing, and thinks of the people that put them there to represent us, not themselves. 

Time may not be on our side right now, but only time will tell what lie ahead, as only time may make the wounds heal in due time.