The Fiscal Artisan

  The Australian Federal  Budget 2021 Once in a lifetime…   Last night – Tuesday, May 11, 2021, the Treasurer handed down the budget for the 21/22 year. While the government won’t describe it this way, it is clearly an election budget – given the next election is due by Mid May 2022, so unless they go with a February 2022 budget announcement, there is no time for a follow up before we next go to the polls. And in the current environment, and with a Government hooked on announcements and re-announcements, rather than significant new action, there is very little in the budget that was not already announced, or simply a continuation of what was already in place but dressed up as a ‘new initiative’. Many of the forecasts and expectations in the budget are predicated on the assumption that ‘everything will go so very well’ in terms of the vaccine roll-out – despite actual vaccination numbers being less than one-third of the way to what was originally planned. The Federal Gov...

    “We’re back in black, oh yeah we’re BACK in BLACK. Its May, 2019. And Josh Frydenberg grins and tells us that he has ‘brought the budget back into surplus in the coming year” Not in the year that he was reporting on (2018/19), but in the year ahead - 2019/20. Looking  back now, it now reminds me of watching The Western Bulldogs play Essendon just a few months after this statement was made – in August 2019. Essendon started brilliantly, kicking the first goal after just 20 seconds* The Cheer squad was singing - They are Back in Black Baby! Break out the limited-edition coffee mugs and toast their success! (Or Break out a cigar perhaps?) Well, we all know that you don’t determine the result of an AFL game after one minute. Nor do you proclaim the success of your financial forecasts in the moments after you announce them. But the treasurer was certainly not backwards in announcing just how successful they were going to be in the future. And by the end of the ...