Wayne Swan's budget

Wayne Swan’s budget, Chronique d’une catastrophe  attendue

by GDL 

Last year the opposition accused Treasurer Wayne Swan of cooking the books and this year they (particularly Joe Hockey) asked for an honest budget.

Honest indeed it was, and surprisingly the most right wing newspaper in Sydney front page title, this morning, was “Wayne Swan came clean.”

Indeed the Treasurer came clean in showing us the state of the national finance. We are in deep shit. We are in debt and we have to borrow and pay interest.

This year the budget was $19.4 billion in deficit and next year it will be $18 billion. These figures demonstrate how the Labor government has mismanaged the people’s money. Wayne Swan was indeed honest in showing, how they have spent the money coming from our sweat and blood, our taxes. Wayne told us how they have borrowed on our behalf to pay for expenses we never allowed them and never approved.   Wayne can say that they were elected to govern and they have done what is in the best interest of the country and of the citizens. But putting a mortgage on the heads of 21 millions Australians is surely not effective management of the finances. Very bluntly Wayne and Julia confirmed that they cannot be trusted to handle our money and our future. They have a spending problem, they spend money they do not have and have no shame in saying that they did the right thing to keep jobs and growth. How? Please explain. Is it by spending more than we can afford! The stimulus package during the GFC was right but we have passed this difficult time and it was time to be more careful and save for the future. Gouverner c’est prevoir, n'est ce pas ?

Wayne Swan told us that the economy is strong and we are the envy of the world, but at the same time told us that because of the strong dollar and the high price of commodities, the MRRT did not collect they money they we expecting. The same apply to the carbon tax. This is a big admission that their predictions were wrong.

Still worse, they spend the money that did not arrive and distributed it around through compensations of various sorts, and spending some 3.2 billion on the asylum seekers. 

Even though the MRRT did not collect the billions expected, the government’s revenue increased last year by seven percent which is equivalent to $70 billion.

The fact that the budget was $19.4 billions means that they have spent more than $89 billion or $19.4 billion more than the income. This is outrageous.

It has become a tradition in the Labor party to get things wrong. Since they came to power in 2007, there has been but problems and everything they touched turned to lead, from the School revolution program, the pink bat, the live cattle ban, the carbon tax, the media law, the broadband, and their surrender to the Greens.

Coming back to Wayne Swan, he ridiculed himself all though last year promising a surplus budget this year by 1.1 billion. Last night he dared talked about surplus again, when the FMI has been saying that Australian governments (Federal and States) will for years to come be in red.                                   Plus ridicule que ca tu meurs !

Again his surplus predictions for 2016 are built on the revenues from the MRRT and Carbon Tax while he already committed, in the forward estimates, some 9.8 billion to Gonski,  14.3 billion to the NDIS and 24 billion for the infrastructure.  This is again luring us on money that is still in the clouds !!!

Wayne and the Labor party have skilfully cornered the opposition into these two policies which are popular among the nation. The Labour party might not be there to implement these policies but Labor will beat their chest saying that these were our policies. Poor Tony Abbott will have no alternative but to implement these policies. Where will he find the money is the question.

Let’s wait for the budget reply from the opposition.