So says Peter van Onselen:
Before the weekend, little by way of leaks from the budget had surfaced. While there was the odd news item, the flow didn’t resemble what’s occurred in years gone by.
That changed with details of a housing affordability package and higher education changes, in the News Corp tabloids and this paper respectively. However there still hasn’t been a lot to act as markers ahead of such an important budget.
The question is, have we seen less leaks because the government is more disciplined and hoping to surprise us on the night with a plethora of changes? Or is there so little of note in the budget that there’s nothing much to leak beyond the weekend’s revelations?
The latter is certainly a depressing thought, but it’s the more likely scenario.
At this late juncture that seems right to me. The Do-nothing Government was going to make the property bubble its centerpiece but after the floating of the super-to-housing bribe was universally panned that died away. The timing of macroprudential probably didn’t help either. That we still don’t have any clear leaks about the bubble package suggest there will be nothing earth-shattering about it.
Recent efforts have clearly been aimed at shifting the focus to the good debt/bad debt infrastructure push but that is also relatively minor. We already knew Badgery’s Creek was coming and Inland Rail ain’t that big! Indeed, as argued this morning, those two projects won’t do much more than back fill the wind down of NBN investment.
Looks like the stage is set for a Do-nothing Budget the highlight of which will no doubt be ludicrous economic forecasts.
