So it seems that none of us workers are really not that bad off. The unions have raised concerns that its members are going to be badly affected by the governments Share scheme tax;

Assistant Treasurer Chris Bowen said yesterday the Government had listened to concerns that the income cap for access to the $1000 tax exemption was too low.

Unions warned shares were often part of a remuneration package for workers and if they were penalised under the system then there would be a call for greater wages – at a time when the Federal Government has called for wage restraint.

"Given the community concerns with the proposed changes and the possible unintended adverse impacts on employee share scheme arrangements for ordinary employees, the Government will be fast-tracking the consultation process," Mr Bowen said.

Bowen of course meant to say "Opps... we didn't realise that so many of our voters were so well off, damn those bastered bosses and their incentive schemes. How dare they share the wealth... Thats our job!!".

Like it or not.. this government has a strong word association with the term "Unintended", and its just getting stronger with every new policy.

Just Say it Rudd!!... Say; "I put Australia in 300 Billion Dollars worth of debt"!!!;

TONY JONES: OK. Let’s move on. What’s the peak figure of the projected public debt in terms of tens or hundreds of billions of dollars in the coming years? What’s the peak figure?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, these are clearly outlined in the Budget papers and they’re usually expressed in terms of a percentage of GDP. We peak, in around about 2013, at about 13.8 per cent of GDP.

TONY JONES: How much of that is in tens of billions or hundreds of billions of dollars; how much is that?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, let me step back in terms of the elements of this. First of all, 70 per cent of our overall position here is determined by a $214-billion collapse in tax revenue. That’s one slice of it.

TONY JONES: OK. I understand - we understand that. So what is the figure of peak debt in hundreds of billions of dollars? What is the actual figure?

KEVIN RUDD: Well, Tony, I’m about to come to that when I go to constituent parts. About $214-billion comes from a collapse in tax revenue and that is happening right across all the advanced economies across the world. That’s about two thirds of it. Then you go to the remaining third of it, which is made up of what we’re investing in infrastructure and other forms of temporary stimulus. And of that remaining one third of our total borrowings, the largest proportion is made up through infrastructure investment and the smallest proportion is made up through other forms of temporary stimulus. Put that altogether…

TONY JONES: But all I’m asking for is one figure.

KEVIN RUDD: Well, I’m about to come to that, Tony. I’m taking you to the constituent parts. Put all that together and you’ll see clearly outlined in the Budge papers, that we’re aiming to a gross figure of 13.8, which comes out at about $300-billio). The Liberals have said about $275-billion and then they’ve failed to nominate or to support $22-billion of savings in the Budget, which makes our positions virtually identical. That’s the point I was making.

TONY JONES: That figure is $300-billion, is that right?

KEVIN RUDD: As I said before, 13.8 per cent of GDP as described accurately in the Budget papers. There’s nothing new about that.

TONY JONES: Is there a political spin rule which says the Prime Minister must not say that figure? Because it seems very hard to get you to say $300-billion.

KEVIN RUDD: Well, Tony, there seems to be a political spin rule on your part to go back to this time and time again. The Treasurer made this absolutely plain in the Budget papers. I said before the figure was 300 as the Liberals’ was 275

From afar it looks like madness, from the Wall Street journal;

Australia entered the global financial crisis with one of the soundest fiscal positions among developed nations. Now, thanks to the Labor government of Kevin Rudd, that's no longer the case.

Treasurer Wayne Swan announced Tuesday a 32.1 billion Australian dollar ($24.3 billion) fiscal deficit this year and forecast that it would rise to A$57.6 billion in 2009-10 -- the largest in the country's history. Canberra plans to borrow money to fund the shortfall. Outstanding debt will rise to A$300.8 billion over the next four years from around A$111.9 billion.

This is an extraordinary fiscal turnaround from only a year ago, when Australia turned in a budget surplus of A$19.7 billion. The country entered the global economic downturn with historically low unemployment, muted inflation and very little debt, thanks to an uplift from strong global growth -- especially from China -- and prudent fiscal management by the former Liberal government and its treasurer, Peter Costello

This Keynesian revival comes at a particularly bad time, given that tax revenues are falling as the economy slows, a normal feature of economic downturns. Tuesday's budget wrote down A$23 billion in projected tax revenues this year, the biggest downward revision since the 1930-31 fiscal year. Still, without all that spending, Canberra would have announced a small budget surplus Tuesday.

yet so many of our own Media still pick at the edges and fear to call the Rudd government on thier incompitence.

Joe Hockey gives a simple lesson in budgets;

http://www.therealruddbudget.com/

Tough budget with cuts, and cuts, and cu....

The Federal Government will invest $2.1 billion over five years as well as additional funding from the future Education Investment Fund rounds

The Federal Government has committed $4.5 billion to clean energy in the 2009-10 Budget

A further $1.3 billion has been outlined under the 2009-10 Budget to close the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians. with A further $148.9 million will go towards establishing a body to reset the relationship between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

The ABC will be given $136.4 million in new funding over the next three years to develop an advertising-free digital children's channel and increase output of Australian content.

A record $64 billion in health and hospital funding has been flagged in the Federal Government's 2009-10 Budget

$1.3 billion over six years to enhance national security, border protection and anti-people smuggling measures. (Sadley this portion of the $1.3 Billion could be managed by a simple policy change) the Government will spend $654 million fighting people smuggling and to address unauthorised boat arrivals.

And how will Swan try to cover the stupid levels ongoing? Why sell our nation of course;

The Federal Government is planning to sell a record $60 billion of bonds next financial year to raise the funds needed to replace plunging revenues and increased infrastructure spending.

The sale will dwarf the estimated $35 billion in bond sales this financial year, and is well up on the $5.1 billion issued in 2007-08, when a Federal Government in surplus was issuing debt mainly to keep bond markets alive.

Rudd has just bosted that his stimulus packages have saved the day on the unemployment front... However;

TODAY'S federal budget will forecast a record deficit of $58 billion for next financial year while also claiming that the Government's stimulus packages will save 200,000 people from losing their jobs.

With the two stimulus packages worth a combined $52 billion, the average cost of each job saved will be $260,000.

Nuff said.

Rudd is rightfully worried about the NSW Government drag on his election chances.

So much so that he wont trust his State counterpart with any opportunity to waste the cash in their inevitable blundering and incompetence;

The city of Sydney has been singled out by the Prime Minister as needing much better infrastructure planning.

...He says an organisation like the Sydney Organising Committee for the Olympic Games might be a good model.

Now thats a vote of confidence.

Wayne swan is so quick to blame all the woes on the nasty global conditions out of his control he inadvertently admits to being a big part, one third. of the problem;

"Over two-thirds of it (debt) is actually the revenue downgradings," he said. "It's this new reality where out revenues are being smashed - just smashed. That's what the debt is all about."

Hmmm.. So instead of reducing spending to compensate for the loss of revenue, Rudd and Swan have spent over $100 Billion in order to compound our woes.

And he thinks its a good thing!!

ALP Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner seems a bit confused over the benefits of the Stimulus packages.

First he claims a victory;

"The retail trade figures today demonstrate both that the government strategy is working and just how vacuous and empty the response from the Liberal opposition is," Mr Tanner told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.

Then two days later we see pessimism;

“We’re pushing back as hard as we can against these very powerful negative forces from the international economy. But those forces are so powerful that no government can effectively wipe them all out.” Mr Tanner said.

So we go a full two days of working government strategy, and all for the low low cost of 6 years of Deficit and 200 Billion dollars worth of debt.

What an amazing deal this Labor government did for us Aussies...

Seeing how it doesn't kick in until 2011 its more of an election promise than a done deal... 

but it still has the stink of expending Taxpayers money when there just is no more left, and for what benefit?

THE Federal Government will commit to paid parental leave from January 2011 for those earning less that $150,000 a year, Treasurer Wayne Swan says.

Political benifit of course, no more. If it really was a measure that increased productivity they would have implimented it now to save money / generate income.

I think the budget will target a whole lot of people at that magic $150,000 per year income mark. But hey, I'm sure that based on economic modeling, not voter demographics... and a pig may levitate.

Its called a Structural Deficit, and it means the budget without the benefit of the mining boom. But what many Labor supporters have grasped hold of it as is an excuse for Rudd and Swans mismanagement of the economy.

George Megalogenis has blogged a line that has left the Labor Luvvies still applauding;

Next week’s budget will confirm that the resources-led surge in revenue between 2003-04 and 2007-08 will have disappeared by 2009-10 and - crucially - won’t come back in the next recovery.

The core policy problem for Wayne Swan in dealing with the global recession is that the Coalition government left him with an unsustainable income tax mix that assumed too much from capital and took too little from labour. This is why the Treasurer is trying to tell two budget stories at once: economic stimulus for the short term and sacrifice for the long term.

But the dual purpose of the national budget contains its own political risk.

The size of the hole wasn’t apparent until this year - after Mr Swan’s first budget last May and after Labor’s first stimulus package last October.

So it leaves the Rudd Government vulnerable to the charge that the culpability is its.
This would be a false reading of recent political and economic history because it was the Howard government that misspent the proceeds of the mining boom.

Now thats sheer gold for the Labor trolls on his blog, but the argument against is very easy and simple;

Firstly the so called Structural Deficit is nothing more than failure to see the impending failure of national revenues. Despite the Coalition warnings during the election period, and quite some time after, Rudd and Swan were still running the Inflation Genie line well up to thier last budget. A perfect indicator that had not a clue as to the forward state of the economy.

Its been 18 months and 1 Labor budget (a budget that did nothing to adjust tax mix, nor forcast downturn) since Rudd and Swan too control of the economic and fiscal controls of this nation. No more can blame be apportioned to previous governments.

Federal Finance Minister Lindsay Tanner says the cost of interest payments on Government debt will likely top $3 billion a year.

Everybody together.... "Thank you Mr Rudd."

The Roman empire was just "temporary" too.

"There's no doubt the temporary deficit will last longer as a consequence of revenue downgrades imposed on this country by the rest of the world," Mr Swan said.

I'm sure that the mad $100+ Billion dollars of spending; Broadband roll out ($22b +), stimulus packages ($52.4b), “Nation building” ($4.7b), COAG funding ($15.2b), Car makers bailout ($6.2b), Homeless package ($6.1b). and a further promised $300b worth of defence spending, would have had nothing to do with our massive black hole that will take a minimum of 6 years to dig out of.

What sort of fools does this Rudd Government take us for?

Surely even the most rusted on Labor person must wretch at these sort of statements?