Terry McCrann says Wayne Swan’s Budget is beyond parody:
What’s passed broadly unnoticed since Tuesday is that the Treasurer, even on his and Treasury’s dubiously optimistic fiscal and economic forecasting, is effectively promising to have budget deficits right through the full term of the next Gillard-Swan government, were it to win re-election in September.
Swan is effectively promising: re-elect us, and we will deliver three more years (at least) of deficits.
If everything went exactly right, the forecasts for both the economy and the two sides of the budget were exactly correct; and critically, government didn’t initiate a single dollar of new spending over the next three years; we would get a surplus of $1bn in 2015-16. Has there ever been a more stellar demonstration of lack of self-awareness? A year ago Swan promised a surplus of, well, $1bn, and delivered a deficit of $19bn. And now he still has as his first —still only promised—surplus the same ridiculously silly figure of $1bn…
On the not unreasonable assumption that a government, any government, would initiate some new spending, at some point in a three-year term, that is actually a forecast of a deficit in 2015-16. Even if the sun keeps shining…
The forecasts are the very opposite of “robust”. They pivot entirely on the assumption that China will keep roaring along at near 8 per cent rates of growth in its economy.
