Well, the 2011-12 Federal Budget has come and gone. Despite promises of a ‘tough’ budget, it was actually not that tough at all.
Though there are many policies that this government has implemented that I do not agree with (which is pretty obvious from my posts here), the one good thing it is starting to address upper class welfare. Yes, upper class not middle class welfare: there is nothing middle class about families on $150,000 per year.
The problem, however, is that the budget has once again tied Australia to the fortunes of the resource boom basically ignoring the manufacturing, tourism and education sectors. Unfortunately, there is no Plan B if things do not go as they re supposed to.
I wrote an analysis of the budget along with Alex Surace to argue a lot more can be done to ensure the viability of these industries and plan for the resource boom turning into a bust for the Centre for Policy Development (CPD).
This piece is part of an e-book produced by the CPD which analyses the budget and looks at the need for longer term planning. You can download it here…
