Budget surplus, but not everyone is a winner

By Sheree Hoddinett

While there were a few big pieces of spending and savings to come out of the 2023 Federal Budget, overall it wasn’t very exciting. It was touted as a budget that would focus on the cost of living but there doesn’t appear to be a lot in there to help ease the burden on families doing it tough. It’s only small, but this budget is heading towards the first surplus in 15 years, coming in at $4.2 billion for this financial year. It’s expected to be short lived, with a deficit of $13.9 billion in 2023-24 and even more lower deficits in the years to come.

Some of the Cost of Living highlights:

• Low-income households will receive relief in the form of a deduction of up to $500 from their power bills from July 1, 2023. Eligible small businesses will receive a deduction of up to $650.

• Those on JobSeeker will receive an increase in their payments of $40 a fortnight from September 20 this year, while those over 55 on JobSeeker will receive an increase of $92.10 a fortnight, which is currently reserved for those over 60.

• Also in September (subject to being passed in parliament), eligible single parents will receive the single rate of Parenting Payment until their youngest child turns 14 (currently only available until the youngest child turns eight). The current base rate of Parenting Payment (single) is $922.10 per fortnight, compared to the JobSeeker payment base rate of $745.20 per fortnight.

• The maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance will also increase by 15% (subject to being passed in parliament). For a single CRA recipient with no dependants who does not share their rental home with anyone else and who is receiving the maximum amount of assistance, their payment would increase from $157.20 a fortnight to $180.80.

Some of the budget winners:

• Small business – The government will reward small business owners with a range of financial measures. The instant asset write-off threshold will be temporarily increased to $20,000 from July 1 for a year. This means small businesses with an annual turnover less than $10m will be able to instantly deduct the entire cost of certain assets that cost less than $20,000, which are first used between July 1, 2023 and June 30, 2024. The $20,000 threshold applies to each asset, so small businesses can take advantage of this measure to buy multiple assets.

• Health - The government will spend $3.5 billion to triple the bulk-billing incentive that GPs receive, meaning there will be more common consultation types which doctors can choose to bulk bill. The government will also spend hundreds of millions to better coordinate healthcare, including on telehealth, the digitisation of records and increasing Medicare rebates for consults longer than 60 minutes. Aged care workers will also benefit from a 15% pay rise.

• Veterans - Services for veterans will be better funded, including $64.1m over the coming financial year for additional resourcing to tackle the backlog of claims for supports, as well as increased demand for complex case management, rehabilitation, pharmacy and health approvals. Another $2 million will be spent over two years to continue the Department of Veterans Affairs mental health literacy and suicide intervention training program for the ex-service community.

• Cash boost for young carers - Young people aged 12 to 25 who are caring for a loved one will get a cash boost so they can continue their education. The nearly $10 million funding increase to Carers Australia’s Young Carer Bursary Program will be increased from $3000 to $3768 and the number of bursaries offered will increase by nearly 60% to around 1600 each year over the period 2023 to 2025.

Some of the budget losers:

• Travellers - Whether you’re going on holiday or moving for good, you’ll have to pay an extra $10, as the government increases the passenger movement charge from 1 July 2024 from $60 to $70 a passenger.

• Tobacco and vaping companies

- Nicotine products will be more expensive, less attractive or illegal. The budget includes a 5% tax hike on cigarettes, taking the average price of a packet to roughly $50. The measure is expected to raise more than $3 billion in revenue. There will also be a ban on all non-prescription and single-use vapes, while all medically prescribed vapes will be flavourless and come in pharmaceutical-like packaging.

• Scammers - A national anti-scam centre will be established from this coming financial year, at a cost of $58m, to respond to a spike in online scams and fraud. The centre will share scam data across government and the private sector. Scammers sending phoney text messages have also been put on notice, with $10m allocated for an SMS sender ID registry to stop criminals impersonating government and industry names.

• Visa applicants - Applying for a visa is about to get more expensive. All application costs will rise at least six percentage points from July, except for applicants from the Pacific Islands. That means tourists will pay $40 more ($190 overall), a backpacking visa will cost $130 more ($640 overall) and students will pay $65 more ($715 overall).

Member for Longman Terry Young had a mixed reaction to this budget:

“I was pleased to see the continuation of some of the work that we, the Coalition started in the last term of government such as the extension of the instant asset write off for small businesses, investment in programs to help women who are victims of domestic violence and additional funding for the processing of veteran’s affairs claims,” Mr Young said.

“What I am not pleased about is that this budget has an extra $180 billion dollars of spending which will drive inflation up even further. At the election Mr Albanese promised Australians that under a Labor government they would be better off, that electricity prices and mortgage payments would drop when in fact nothing is going down, everything is going up, except real wages, noting that JobSeeker payments will increase.

“So, wage earners effectively will earn less and job seekers will earn more? Surely, all Australians should be better off, not just some of those on welfare? The economics are simple - when government spending goes up, so does inflation and everything else.”

With our community struggling with infrastructure issues such as roads, Mr Young was disappointed to see there was no mention of any infrastructure spending at all, including the promise of a fourth lane on the Bruce Highway between Uhlmann Rd and Dohles Rocks Rd or the $3 million for Bribie Island Road.

“There is also no mention in the budget of all the other election promises made by Labor for our electorate of Longman,” Mr Young said.

“No mention of the $3 million for new clubhouse at the Narangba Eagles Football Club, no mention of the $3 million for the new Caboolture Rugby League Clubhouse and no mention of the $3 million for the splash park at Centenary Lakes in Caboolture.

“The people of Longman have been snubbed by this government and promise after promise has been broken, its simply not good enough and I will be holding them to account. I was truly hoping that this budget would help relieve cost of living to average Australians but sadly it does just the opposite.”

Letters To The Editor

lieve that the Indigenous people are very well represented by those members of parliament.

We are one together – not two divided. In finishing, I would like to ask the 70% of yes voters, how much more do the Indigenous Australians actually want and where and when will it ever STOP?

R Hansen Bongaree

The Voice

I read with interest and some trepidation the articles in Letters to the Editor. I have tried to avoid becoming embroiled in a topic that after all is a personal choice. So, I put forward the facts:

1. We are told that a NO vote is racist, but surely the whole concept of THE VOICE is just that, racist! It is also undemocratic, as it gives one group of people more say in running Australia than the other 96%. That is not democracy. Jacinta Price will tell you that they already have many voices but nobody including the state and federal governments listen.

2. The Australian governments over the years have poured eye-watering amounts of taxpayer’s money to try and rectify the problems in Aboriginal communities. I had the privilege of spending a week in one many years ago and saw firsthand some of the issues. The real problem is that for all this money that has been spent, there is very little to show for it. The problem is that there needs to be more oversight and accountability as to who, where and when this money is spent and the contracts that are approved should also be under the magnifying glass.

As well as the VOICE, Australians should be very worried about the following:

A health system that is falling apart with staff under extreme pressure, ambulance ramping and insufficient beds and hospitals (including Bribie Island) for an expanding population.

A justice system that has soft laws and even softer penalties for most serious crimes including teenage crime, drug trafficking, armed robbery, domestic violence, assault and car theft, that should all have far more serious consequences.

Roads that are clogged with traffic because successive governments have not ‘planned’ for the future.

A power supply that is shortly going to be a total disaster because we are closing down and not replacing base load power stations in the interests of saving the world, when countries like China are building new coal fired power stations as fast as they can. Our power prices should be the cheapest in the world given the natural resources that we have including clean coal, gas, uranium and so on. But we have become obsessed with solar energy and wind turbines and there is nothing wrong with these as an addition to the grid power, not as the basis that they replace it. Let alone the pollution that the product causes at the end of its life. So, when the lights go out and you cannot charge your electric car at days end, think of this. Yet we charge in Queensland a 40% royalty tax (vs 10% in NSW and WA) on mining companies who we rely on for the bulk of our overseas earnings. Do you want them to go to pastures new where they will be welcomed with open arms, at our expense? Dare I suggest that THE VOICE has been designed to take your mind away from the other serious issues, of which there are many more than the above. That both state and federal governments (and previous governments) have been negligent in addressing all of the above issues for many years. I support clean energy but not at the cost of our businesses, our jobs, our standard of living and our kids and grandkids future wellbeing.

I say NO to the VOICE and YES to pro-

Stuart A. Banksia Beach