00:00The Coalition releasing its costings. We've got two days to go before the polls come to
00:10an end on Saturday. As is traditional, these things come late in the peace. The Coalition
00:15making a virtue of the fact it says its budget over the four year forwards will be $14 billion
00:22better off. Now the surprise is that in the first two years it'll actually be $8 billion
00:28worse than Labor's proposed budget trajectory and that's in large part to two things. One is
00:35the fuel excise discount, the $0.25 a litre cut that Peter Dutton is promising and also a $1,200
00:43tax offset for low and medium income earners. Both of those things have come at some cost
00:51and that's the reason the Coalition's budget deficits will be larger in the short term,
00:57in the near term over that two year period. Angus Taylor, the Treasurer, is arguing that
01:02he is solving essentially for two budgets. One is the household budget, which is under
01:07pressure from cost of living. The second is the Commonwealth's budget, which is a longer
01:11term proposition he's suggesting. Certainly from today's numbers it's clear that the Coalition
01:17has raised the white flag on a surplus in the next four years. That's not a promise they
01:22are taking to the electorate. They are however suggesting that they've done the work. Here's
01:27what the shadow Treasurer had to say earlier.
01:32This is the biggest improvement in the budget position since the current costing conventions
01:39were put in place almost 15 years ago and outside of the time when Labor decided to impose
01:45$389 billion dollars of economy wrecking taxes. We know that if productivity and growth were
01:52to get back to where they should get back to, and to where they historically have been but
01:57not under Labor, we'll see a faster improvement than what we've laid out here.
02:02So, Jacob, has there been a response from the Government?
02:06There certainly has, and among the things they're saying is picking up on what Angus Taylor said
02:12at the end of that grab, which is the assertion that one of the Coalition's aims is to lift
02:19productivity growth back to 1.5 per cent. There is no detail in the budget costings about how
02:27that's done in practice. Industrial relations is one area which might have some levers for
02:32the Coalition, but there's no descriptions there about how they might lift that. But
02:37the, as you said, the Government has certainly jumped on these numbers. They've criticised
02:42the costings. Here is what the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, had to say.
02:46They haven't provided anywhere near enough for their nuclear reactors. They've got their numbers
02:52wrong on their job cuts in the Australian public service. They've got their numbers wrong on
02:58their long lunches policy, on their petrol policy, and on their mortgage deductibility policy as
03:04well. It's hard to imagine that Angus Taylor has had three years to come up with this, and
03:10he's come up with at least five substantial black holes.
03:15So, as you can see, very much on the front foot, jumping onto those numbers, and that
03:21is the traditional pantomime. With these costings, this close to Election Day, Labor left it until
03:28the Thursday of the final week, three years ago. The Coalition has followed in that tradition,
03:34and it is now up to voters to decide who has set up the best budget policy. Both sides are
03:42avoiding returns to surplus at great speed, prioritising the need to spend money on household.
03:49Lorna, back to you.
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