Jim Chalmers handed down his third budget this week, pleasing some and upsetting others.
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Budgets are sometimes framed as just being financial documents that show income and planned expenditure.
But they are much more. They highlight the priorities of the people drafting them. This budget from a Labor government has big positives and big failures.
The failure to lift the level of Jobseeker will, I believe, go down as one of the major failures of the Albanese Labor government.
At the same time as the government is willing to subsidise the fossil fuel industry to the tune of $50billion per year, to be unable to find the money to provide a living income to the most disadvantaged in our community is appalling.
Mind you, the LNP would be even worse. They seemed to take delight in punishing those at the bottom for "failing". This may have been something to do with the evangelical prosperity gospel adopted by many of their leading lights. Think about Joe Hockey talking about lifters and leaners.
The $300 energy subsidy looks very much like an attempt to manipulate the way that the CPI is calculated rather than an effort to help struggling families. If it was aimed at struggling families then, just like last year's subsidy, it would have been limited to the worst off, rather than giving $300 to every family regardless of their financial circumstances. This one looks to me like they are being very clever with figures but missing the point.
An initiative to invest in supporting individual households to electrify everything, by converting gas appliances to electric would have had a profound effect on inflation by reducing household energy bills year on year, not just by $300 in one calendar year. This, to me, represents a missed opportunity.
Increases in rent assistance are welcome, but without a lift to the base rate of Jobseeker it is unlikely to have much impact. The people on the lowest incomes are already locked out of the rental market so a 10 per cent increase in rental assistance makes absolutely no difference to them.
Any investment in developing a renewable industry with a manufacturing base in Australia is welcome but allocating $22.7 Billion over 10 years while continuing to subsidise fossil fuel industries to the tune of $50 billion per year looks counterintuitive. It gives the impression that the government (and believe me I believe this is true of the LNP as well) has been captured by the fossil fuel industry.
Recent decisions by this federal government to expand the fossil fuel industry over coming decades gives me no reason to review my view.
In summary, I believe that this is a budget of missed opportunities. I, and I think most other Australians, expect more of a Labor government in supporting those most disadvantaged members of our community in ties of economic stress.
At the same time, I also believe that a budget delivered by Peter Dutton and Angus Taylor on behalf of the Liberal and National Parties in the current circumstances would have been an absolute disaster for most families and individuals in Australia.
Hopefully the Greens and other MPs on the cross bench can achieve meaningful improvements in what the Labor government has put forward this week.
