Forget a few thousand here and there on the cost of weddings and Cairns “meetings”, Hockey’s petty budget politics will cost tax payers about $300 million over the next 12 months and another couple of hundred million the next year. In a speech at a Sydney investment conference this morning, Stevens backed up comments by the RBA deputy governor last week that the bank was happy to rebuild its capital reserves over time. The RBA certainly didn’t ask for Hockey’s $8.8 billion capital injection and didn’t think it was necessary. That’s the extra $8.8 billion the government is having to borrow and pay interest on while blowing out “Labor’s” 2013-14 budget deficit by the same amount.
