00:01This was a pretty meh budget with no new shiny baubles or exciting things that haven't been
00:07pre-announced.
00:08Already the Victorian Government's tried to tackle cost of living pressures by making
00:11public transport free for a couple of months and then half price from there.
00:15It's also discounted car registration and it's continuing with a lot of existing programs
00:21such as free dental vans and glasses for children.
00:24So those programs are kind of continuing, a substantial program which started last year
00:30to trim staff wages and the size of the public service kind of continues through attrition
00:35over this period.
00:37So not any big shocks in this budget, a kind of business as usual document.
00:43The interest bill is astronomical.
00:45It is currently about $9 billion a year, it will grow to be about $12 billion by the end
00:51of the forward estimates, the four year period that budgets look out at.
00:54Now we're talking about net debt hitting just under $200 billion as Victoria works through
01:00the end of a lot of these really big infrastructure projects that until recently, it was largely
01:05funding itself.
01:06Canberra didn't kick in very much during the Liberal Government years of the Morrison Government.
01:12So a lot of debt.
01:15The interest bill on it is now about the fourth largest line item that the budget has, looking
01:20at $1.3 million an hour that we're spending on that.
01:24It is important to note that this is long-term debt, so it's not variable in the same way
01:29as when the Reserve Bank announces its interest rates.
01:32If they go up, households will pay more almost instantly.
01:35A lot of this debt, 94% of it, is kind of long-term, doesn't mature for a long time.
01:40So it's set at much lower rates than the current interest environment.
01:43The most important number probably wasn't in the budget.
01:45It's the 207 days until the election where Labor is seeking an unprecedented fourth term.
01:51They are up against a resurgent opposition who face a pretty high bar.
01:55They need to win 17 seats to win, which is very difficult to do.
02:00A lot of discussion in this budget about cost of living, about some pretty heroic assumptions
02:04about inflation, about the potential of what's going to happen from the Middle East crisis.
02:09So more to come, but out of this budget, no huge ticket items, just business as usual
02:14with the programs that the government has.
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