Australian budget

By Leith van Onselen With an election fast approaching, Labor’s infrastructure spokesman, Anthony Albanese, continues to push hard for a High Speed Rail (HSR) line linking the east coast capitals.

By Leith van Onselen Infrastructure expert, Professor David Hensher, has warned that Sydney requires “hundreds of billions” of dollars in infrastructure investment needed to fix current congestion problems, let alone keep up with projected population growth.

By Leith van Onselen The University of Sydney has joined MB in warning that NSW is facing a potential Budget crisis as the property crash wipes billions in dollars of stamp duty revenue: With a state election imminent in NSW, it is timely to consider the fiscal opportunities and constraints facing whoever wins government.

By Leith van Onselen In late 2017, the Victorian Labor Government completed a shady $6.7 billion deal with Transurban to build the West Gate Tunnel Project, which will see Transurban contribute $4.4 billion towards the cost in exchange motorists paying $15 billion in additional tolls on CityLink until 2045.

By Leith van Onselen The AFR’s Market View continues to flog the company tax dead horse, arguing that lower company taxes are necessary to lift wages: One reason wages are not rising that fast today is that company taxes are too high.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Council of Social Service (ACOSS) has called for any increase in the minimum wage to be matched with an increase in Newstart.

By Leith van Onselen The University of New South Wales’ City Futures Research Centre states that more than one million social and affordable homes will need to be built across Australia over the next 20 years.

By Leith van Onselen The Coalition is set to announce a small cut in Australia’s permanent non-humanitarian migrant intake in April’s pre-election Budget to a cap of 160,000 from 190,000.

By Leith van Onselen Both the Liberal and Labor parties have engaged in a spending war to sway voters for this week’s State Election.

By Leith van Onselen Leaked emails from industry experts have shredded the roll-out of Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN) and warned that taxpayers face a potential $20 Budget hit.

By Leith van Onselen The federal government announced in the 2017 Budget that it would remove a capital gains tax (CGT) exemption for around 100,000 expatriate Australians who sell their main residence while overseas.

Via Deloitte: The economy is getting worse, but the Budget’s getting better.

We are sorry to report that the AFR’s US correspondent has been kidnapped by aliens and felt the cold kiss of a rectal probe today: Australia’s treasurer hunkers on the top floor of his department’s Langton Crescent HQ in Canberra putting final touches on the government’s finances.

By Leith van Onselen It’s amazing watching Australia’s politicians treat the symptoms of Australia’s third world population growth, rather than addressing the problem at its source by reducing immigration.

By Leith van Onselen The Australian Tax Office (ATO) commissioner, Chris Jordan, has sounded its annual warning shot at rorting landlords, claiming that 9 out of ten tax claims are wrong.

Via Bloomie comes Mohamed A.

Let’s kick off with David Scutt at BI: The responses in the latest [consumer sentiment] survey indicate that Australians are now more risk averse when it comes to their investment decisions — or scared — than what they were during the height of the GFC.

From the good professor today at the AFR: Proponents of an old idea in new clothes – modern monetary theory (MMT) – argue that central banks can solve all these problems by simply buying the large amounts of government debt and increasing the money supply…This can only be described as a classic free lunch.

By Leith van Onselen The Committee for Economic Development of Australia (CEDA) has released a new report, entitled Sustainable budgets: underwriting Australia’s social compact, which backs Labor’s policy to limit the refund of excess franking credits, as well as halving the capital gains tax (CGT) discount.

By Leith van Onselen Amid an epic crash in NSW stamp duty receipts, which promises to wipe billions from the State Budget: The NSW Labor opposition has vowed to lift wages for public servants by at least 3%.

By Leith van Onselen The Grattan Institute’s Marion Terrill has trashed the Victorian Government’s announced plans for a $50 billion gigantic rail tunnel loop, claiming the project will not connect workers with jobs.

By Leith van Onselen Hot on the heels of Judith Sloan’s demolition job last week, the Grattan Institute has joined the growing conga-line of analysts shredding Anthony Albanese’s brain fart to build a High Speed Rail (HSR) line linking the east coast capitals.