To conclude, we looked for inspirational leadership to deal with the menace of climate change: we got dust thrown into a powerful and growing storm. We looked for tax reform: we got money returned to low-income earners from whom it should never have been taken in the first place and nothing to protect them from it being nicked again. We looked for childcare and school funding that would cut to the heart of the problems in those sectors: we got a spray of surgically enhanced early payments and subsidies. We looked for funding that would ensure all our best and brightest would have access to university, regardless of their income: we got a fund that will improve the look of facilities but little to finance the students who populate them. And Indigenous Australians continue to be treated in the same shameful way they have always been treated.
This is a budget which cements old prejudices and bribes voters. Its centrepiece? Truckloads of money. It could have done so much, but actually did so little. Sure, the Treasurer threw back to us some of it and, like kids in a lolly shop, we are expected to scramble for our share. But you can bet your bottom dollar that we will all end up paying for it in a multitude of ways and in the not-too-distant future. If you missed Tuesday night’s budget, do not worry: there will be another: ‘2007 Budget: the Sequel’. Just before election day, another large stash of money will be found and another round of promises and spending will commence. And I am tipping that the sequel will be just as show-stopping as the first: a daring taxation robbery; a dramatic fight scene in which the key players alternatively fall away and then claw their way back; lots of special effects; and a winner-take-all scene at the end. But whether you will see reparations made in Indigenous communities, a lid on interest rates, a commitment to tax reform, access to higher education or a real response to climate change when you finally get out of the theatre remains to be seen.
