The faux-election campaign continued this week as the Prime Minister allocated an extra $714 million to drought-affected farmers and $65 million for cancer scanners. Meanwhile, the ALP backflips on the Medicare Safety Net and WA is still cashed up.
The faux-election campaign continued this week as the Prime Minister allocated an extra $714 million to drought-affected farmers and $65 million for cancer scanners. Meanwhile, the ALP backflips on the Medicare Safety Net and WA is still cashed up.
WA Budget Surplus
The big money was with the Western Australian government, which revealed a record $2.3 billion operating surplus this week, with Premier Alan Carpenter flagging an extra spend of $238 million on a housing and land package, mostly designed to help low income earners.
"In essence, our strong economic position, our better-than-expected budget surplus, has allowed us to address what we consider to be the most significant issue confronting many Western Australians now, that is simply affordability and access to accommodation."
The money will buy 124 extra social housing dwellings and up to 300 new lodging house and crisis accommodation rooms.
It will provide incentives - such as up to a year's free rent - to encourage 100 people who are living in under-occupied government-owned properties to move to smaller places.
The package will also provide accommodation help for mental health clients and buy 62 new dwellings for regional government officers.
Mr Carpenter said the state government would also buy strategic land parcels with the potential for 1,850 future residential lots, with the aim of keeping the lid on future housing prices.
WA Treasurer Eric Ripper said state net debt at June 30, 2007, was $2.98 billion - the lowest level on record.
General government revenue in 2006-07 was $17.45 billion, up 7.7 per cent on 2005-06. This was lower than the record 14 per cent in 2005-06.
"I think revenue growth has peaked - partly because of the grants commission effect," he said.
"We are getting 10 per cent of the GST now. In 2010 and 2011, we will be getting 7.5 per cent of the GST, there is a very significant fall off."
When Mr Ripper delivered his budget in May, he forecast a $1.853 billion operating surplus for the 2006-07 financial year.
He said today the surplus had come in much higher because government departments did not spend as much as expected before the end of the financial year and had sold more services than anticipated.
Drought Relief
Someone who is spending a lot more at the moment is Prime Minister John Howard, who this week announced an additional $714 million would be added to the $430 million drought relief package he announced for farmers last week.
The $714 million is to be spent over two years and takes the federal government's drought assistance to farmers to $2.8 billion since 2001.
Mr Howard says more farmers will be eligible for help, extra areas of Australia will be included and in some instances, farmers will be given grants of $150,000 to move off their farms.
Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Sydney today, Mr Howard described the extra funding as "an enormous additional drought relief package".
The extra money, he said, was evidence of the kind of human dividends available from Australia's strong economy.
"As a nation we can afford it," Mr Howard told reporters.
Labor's spokesman Kerry O'Brien says the Opposition agrees with the package but he says the Government needs to consider that the climate may have changed permanently.
"That's going to be a challenge for any future government, its a challenge that we'll be looking at," he said.
The policy also won support from the Western Australian Government, with Agriculture Minister Kim Chance telling ABC that he expected about 100 drought-hit farmers across the state would take up the grant, particularly those living in the north eastern wheat belt.
Cancer scanners
Further to this, the federal government announced it would spending $65 million on 13 new medical imaging scanners used to diagnose conditions including strokes and cancer.
Health Minister Tony Abbott says people will be able to have scans under Medicare, and children and pensioners will be bulk-billed.
The Magnetic Resonance Imaging units - which will each cost $5 million over four years - will be spread across all six states.
NSW is being given four, Western Australia, Queensland, Victoria and South Australia will get two each and Tasmania will get one.
Medicare Safety Net
The news came after the ALP was forced to defend a decision to support the Government's Medicare safety net, reversing three years of opposition to the policy.
The safety net introduced in 2004 now reimburses 80 per cent of out-of-pocket, non-hospital medical costs above $1000 per year. The threshold is $500 for low-income earners, families with dependent children and pensioners.
"We believe if you are helping 1.2 million Australians to the tune of $280 million a year, this helps families under financial pressure," Mr Rudd told reporters in Brisbane.
"We want to provide that guarantee into the future that the 1.2 million people will continue to be assisted into the future with their out-of-pocket medical expenses," Mr Rudd said.
Federal Health Minister Tony Abbott said the backflip was extraordinary.
"This is not so much a backflip as a triple somersault with pike," he said.
"The safety net is very popular, it is good policy but the fact that Kevin Rudd wasn't able to come up with anything better suggests he really is a follower, not a leader."
Bits and Pieces
The Western Australian Department of Education wrote to state school principals this week telling them to prepare for staff shortages because it would sack any teacher who did not pay a compulsory $70 membership fee to the WA College of Teaching - their professional standards body.
The Thai Government has agreed to a prisoner transfer, allowing Australian heroin trafficker Holly Deane-Johns to finish her jail sentence in Perth.
The Final Word
In a week where State Perth MP John Hyde donned his Geelong colours to call for the Parliament's support and South Australian ALP candidate Nicole Cornes got pilloried for another on-air policy bungle, the final word goes to Workplace Relations Minister Joe Hockey.
It goes without saying that the government's workplace reforms are a crucial point of difference between the two parties, and that Mr Hockey feels that Australian Workplace Agreements are a pretty good idea.
So much so, he told the Courier Mail yesterday, that he feels he could easily double his $200,000-plus salary if he could free himself from the political pay scale and negotiate an individual contract.
In the article, Mr Hockey argued that the parliamentary pay scale was essentially an award arrangement, the same type of arrangement the Government has been trying to transform since its WorkChoices legislation was introduced.
"Given that on AWAs you earn, on average, twice as much as the award, that would be my starting point," Mr Hockey said.
"Then I'd try and get comparisons with how much state minister's earn and given that my job is 50 per cent larger than a state Minister's, I'd want 50 per cent on top of that."
He said he would also negotiate a substantial travel allowance as he was away from home approximately 40 weeks of the year, and would also seek to be paid childcare costs for some sitting weeks and accommodation and travel costs for a carer (family member) for his children while in Canberra.
He said an AWA would also give him increased job security and the term of employment was set.
"I don't have any job security now," Mr Hockey said. "The Prime Minister can hire or fire you without any warning. He couldn't if I was on an AWA. He'd have to pay redundancy."
Arch can't help but wonder how that would be explained in the annual Budget.
