Budget to fall back in deficit and stay in deficit for 40 years

The federal budget is set to fall back into deficit this financial year and stay that way for the next four decades, as an ageing population increases spending pressures, the tax base erodes, and climate change ravages traditional revenue sources while imposing extra costs on the economy.

In launching the report at the National Press Club, Dr Chalmers said that to buttress the economy for next 40 years, governments had to show the same policy vision as the Hawke/Keating government showed in the 1980s,which had enabled the economy to flourish over the past four decades.

The Intergenerational Report forecasts the population to reach 40.5 million by 2062-63, by when the number of people aged over 65 will have doubled, the number of those aged over 85 will be triple that of now, and there will be a six-fold increase in those aged over 100.

The five fastest-growing costs on the budget – the National Disability Insurance Scheme, interest payments in debt, defence, aged care and health – will between them cost $140 billion more a year in today’s dollars than they do now.

https://www.copyright link/politics/federal/forty-years-of-deficit-as-climate-and-ageing-population-ravage-economy-20230824-p5dz0t