Katina Curtis: Budget drama dies down as Chalmers foreshadows spending restraint
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It seems like things are back to normal after two out-of-cycle budgets: Canberra’s temperature has dropped and Parliament’s famous Budget tree is covered in glorious red autumnal leaves.
But — although the date of delivery has returned to May — we have not seen the normal Budget theatre Australians have become used to over many years.
At this point in recent years, you would be sick of seeing the treasurer and prime minister in hard hats as they unveiled projects to win over voters in this seat or that. Instead, a string of ministers have been brandishing reviews and cuts.
The defence strategic review promised more spending but scrapping and shrinking some programs; the migration review will change the makeup of Australia’s immigrant workforce; a review of “press release” infrastructure projects announced by the previous government will look for money to save or spend elsewhere.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese isn’t even in the country.
He’s spending most of the week in the lead-up to the political set-piece on the other side of the world in England.
The trip is mostly out of obligation — I guess if the King wasn’t going to move his coronation date because of a clash with a grandchild’s birthday he really wasn’t going to move it for antipodean political timing — but Albanese is also taking the chance to talk up submarines and free trade and meet again with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Back in Australia, Treasurer Jim Chalmers is not exactly running around cutting ribbons and throwing dollars about.
Quite the opposite. His job has been more about tamping down expectations of what help will be in the Budget and who will receive it. That said, he might have done it too well.
A fortnight ago, the Government’s two hand-picked expert panels told it to substantially increase the $50-a-day rate of Jobseeker, suggesting a level around $62 a day, or 90 per cent of the age pension, would be more appropriate.
The Government immediately said it wasn’t going to go that far, it was too expensive amid growing budgetary pressures.
It looked a lot like the expenditure review committee was going to stare down the calls from many quarters to boost the welfare payments.
Chalmers repeatedly said there were more good ideas than money. The task wasn’t helped very much by whispers from some economists of a possible surprise surplus aided by windfall gains from persistently high resources prices.
It’s pretty hard to stare down calls from backbenchers insisting it’s a Labor responsibility to look after the nation’s most disadvantaged if your books are back in black for the first time in 15 years, although being able to explain a structural deficit probably helps.
Last year Chalmers and Finance Minister Katy Gallagher held firm and returned the vast majority of the windfall gain to the Budget bottom line.
Chalmers was asked on Wednesday whether a surplus this year — no matter how slim — would help tell the Reserve Bank to ease off the interest rate hikes and find sympathy for mortgage holders with their cost-of-living crunch.
“We’ve shown that we’re serious about spending restraint,” he said.
But there is a sign his rhetoric is changing.
Chalmers is now promising there will be “substantial cost-of-living relief” in the Budget. He has refused to confirm the leak reported by my Page 13-compatriot Mark Riley that JobSeeker will be lifted but only for people aged over 55. But nor has he denied it. Other reports have suggested the single parenting payment will be tweaked to expand it to more recipients.
And there will be some kind of help for households and small businesses with power bills, which are skyrocketing in the Eastern States albeit not quite as fast as predicted in October. The Treasurer is keeping quiet on who and how all of this will help.
“It will have more than one element, it will be focused on the most vulnerable Australians and it will all be made clear on Tuesday night,” he said.
Telling reporters and the public to wait and see, all will be revealed in the Budget — yet another part of the cycle that is back to normal.
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Source: News
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