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What happens when Australia gets downgraded?

Wednesday 18 February 2015

TONY Abbott and Joe Hockey have accepted that they did not sell last year’s budget as well as they might and have promised to do better this year. They intend using the forthcoming Intergenerational Report to shift the debate.

The government has several objectives for the report. It hopes it will convince the public of the need for at least some of the sacrifices proposed in last year’s budget, including reforms to health funding, tightening of family benefits and lowering the indexation of pensions while lifting the pension age gradually towards 70 years. The report will lay the ground for longer-term measures that the government is planning this year.

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About the author

David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific's leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.