A budget for a pandemic

With the budget’s expected eye-watering debt and deficit numbers, the question remains whether the huge spending will be enough to fight the coronavirus slump.

Minister for Finance Mathias Cormann and Shadow Minister Katy Gallagher joined the podcast to discuss the budget’s entrails.

The government has faced criticism for benchmarking the much vaunted tax cuts against 2017-18, making them appear larger. Cormann said 2017-18 is the appropriate benchmark, and wouldn’t be drawn on giving further detail.

“The costing has been done on the basis that we’ve published it.”

Gallagher declared the budget expressed Scott Morrison’s choice to leave some people without support.

In particular, the decision to leave those on JobSeeker hanging was described by Gallagher as “frankly, just plain mean.”

NOTE: after this podcast was recorded, Scott Morrison announced the government will nominated Cormann for secretary-general of the OECD, and that he will leave Parliament on October 30.

A List of Ways to Die^[1], Lee Rosevere, from Free Music Archive.

References

1. ^{^} A List of Ways to Die (freemusicarchive.org)