COVID-19 Ushers in Era of Big Government Spending in Australia
Australian Treasurer Josh Frydenberg announced a spending bonanza in Tuesday night’s budget speech, signalling a complete shift by the normally fiscally conservative Coalition government.
Frydenberg has defended the budget, which allocates billions across most sectors of society, manifesting in the form of tax breaks, job training programs, and boosting of critical services. It also precedes the next federal election, which is due between August and May next year.
“This has been the most significant economic shock since the Great Depression,” Frydenberg told the ABC, saying the impact of COVID-19 “dwarfed” the 2008 Global Financial Crisis.
How climate change skepticism held a government captive
In her new book, reporter Marian Wilkinson uncovers the network of politicians, business leaders and others who have wielded huge influence over Australia’s climate policy for more than two decades. May 11, 2021 Australia’s then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (center) takes part in a press conference with Scott Morrison (left) and Environment Minister Josh Frydenberg at the Parliament House in Canberra on August 20, 2018.
In late April this year, at a global summit arranged to coincide with Earth Day, United States President Joe Biden announced ambitious new goals for tackling climate change, and set a challenge for all other nations to do the same.
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says this is a crisis budget: Australiaâs economy still needs support and a bounce back from Covid can not be taken for granted. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg says this is a crisis budget: Australiaâs economy still needs support and a bounce back from Covid can not be taken for granted. Photograph: Mike Bowers/The Guardian
Fri 7 May 2021 16.00 EDT
Last modified on Tue 11 May 2021 20.27 EDT
Budgets in Canberra used to be a very big deal â a focal point of the political year. But Covid has turned a fixed ritual into something more fluid. Over the past 12 months, weâve been in a permanent budget, with the Treasury in a huddle, and money flying out the door, so one Tuesday in May of 2021 feels overshadowed by a public health crisis humanity hasnât yet conquered.
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Prime Minister Scott Morrison (Image: AAP/Steve Vitt)
Political irony doesn t get much better than this: Scott Morrison having to interrupt his promotion of a new third-of-a-billion dollar package to invest in systems to protect Australia s cattle from external biosecurity threats, to put out a firestorm over his criminalisation of Australians returning from India. All of which is the product of his failure to invest in systems to protect Australians themselves from external biosecurity threats.
When even hard-right commentators and the Institute of Public Affairs are attacking you, you know you ve crossed some hitherto-unknown line of offensiveness and that s why Scott Morrison, who hoped to devote yesterday afternoon and this morning to a cattle-slaughtering conference in Rockhampton, suddenly felt the urge to do both major breakfast TV shows today to defend his criminalisation as non-racist.