The Guardian • budget
“No More Tax Cuts For The Rich”
Dear Editor, Your editorial “No More Tax Cuts For The Rich” (Guardian – 17th October) is very apt, and unfortunately very well positioned, placed as...
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Issue #2101
HALF THE SKY
Australia is facing a major crisis in domestic and family violence, and it is women and children who are paying a high price. Leaving an...
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Issue #2100
WEASEL WORDS
Savings Jim Chalmers says he’s found $27.9 billion in savings. When you or I make savings, it means we’ve spent less on ourselves. When treasurers...
Read moreBacklash against NDIS Independent Assessments
As part of the latest Federal Budget on Tuesday the 11th of May, the Morrison government announced it would be increasing the annual budget of the NDIS.
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Issue #2033
WEASEL WORDS
RESPONSIBLE /rɪˈspɒn.sə.bəl/ A very useful word this one. You can be responsible for something, for example all governments claim to be responsible for good economic...
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Issue #2194
Tear up the AUKUS agreement now!
The AUKUS pact is in the news now. Three items have made it prominent: the Budget, the Shangri-la Conference in Singapore, and the announcement of...
Read moreCORRECTION
In last week’s Guardian, the article on the budget stated that the third stage of personal income tax cuts had not passed the Senate. This is incorrect.
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Issue #2140
WEASEL WORDS
savings (= cuts) It’s good to make savings. It’s also bad to take forever to process Veterans benefit claims, or make the process of contacting...
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Issue #1962
People’s budget: putting people and planet first
There is an alternative to the Coalition’s pro-business, gas- and oil-fuelled budget.
Read moreBUDGET RAZOR GANG
Despite everything that the Morrison government says about not pursuing “budget repair”, that is exactly what it is doing.
Read morePro-business – Anti-worker
Women, aged care, and jobs were to be the focus of the 2021-22 federal budget – or so we were led to believe, prior to its release.
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Issue #2104
Australian coal: the state of play
The recent Federal Budget has highlighted the significance of the mining industry, especially coal, to the Australian economy. Australia has the third largest reserves of...
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Issue #2032
A peace & peoples’ budget
Annual budgets are a mirror held up to the class divide. The income and expenditure sides of the budget come down to priorities. The budget...
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Issue #2031
If military spending could provide peace, wouldn’t we have achieved that already?
The Labor Government plans to spend $48.7 billion on the military this financial year, in line with the policies of Morrison and Dutton. There is...
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Issue #1968
What would a people’s budget look like?
As both federal and state governments begin to shape their next budgets, the Communist Party of Australia held a Politics in the Pub to discuss what a People’s Budget would look like.
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Issue #2030
A wellbeing budget for Australia 2022-23 and beyond
Our wellbeing as Australians into the future will be determined very much by what is given priority in the national budget. Because a Labor government...
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Issue #2025
United Nations day of peace
Today, 21st September, the United Nations Day of Peace, the Communist Party of Australia calls for the Albanese Government to save billions of tax payers’...
Read moreDemand secure well-paid jobs & full employment
Workers need a substantial wage rise now to meet day-to-day necessities.
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Issue #2101
DINGO
Following on from last week’s target of US wars of aggression and intervention beginning from the end of WW2, Italy, this week, Greece 1947-49: The...
Read moreBudget alternative: For peace and genuine security
As the cost of living soars the number of working poor is on the rise and more and more families are turning to charities for...
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Issue #2044
We must win the battle of ideas
Working people around the capitalist world have been hit hard from the employer class. Capitalists will always look at how to improve profit margins from...
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Issue #2002
Budget 2022-23 – CLASS WAR
The budget announced by Treasurer Josh Frydenberg is a pre-election, last ditch, vote-buying exercise from the Morrison government. Voters struggling with rising prices and falling...
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Issue #2103
Free education? Sorry kids, the military has all the money
The 2024/25 Federal Budget in May announced that military spending would be $53 billion, an increase on last year’s figure of $46 billion. The figure...
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Issue #2055
The Warfare State
The National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies has released an analysis of the militarised budget in the United States, titled “The Warfare...
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Issue #2147
Victoria’s budget slammed for ‘fiscal injustice and bad policy’
The Victorian government is celebrating a Budget they say is “Focused On What Matters Most,” but from the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service’s (VALS) point of...
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Issue #2140
GREEN NOTES
Jim Chalmers’ Budget Speech failed to mention the words ‘climate change’ and ‘environment’ although $7.3 billion is allocated in recovery payments for ‘natural’ disasters that...
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Issue #2192
AI is coming for your job, and the budget is paying
The latest federal budget has a clear message for Australian workers: your labour is disposable, but tech billionaires are essential. While the Treasurer found nothing...
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Issue #2101
People’s budget – Working class solutions
The 2024-25 Budget threw crumbs to workers, their families, the unemployed, and the environment while lining the pockets of fossil fuel corporations and the military-industrial...
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Issue #2053
NT: Gas industry gets biggest slice
The Territory and Federal governments appear to have prioritised spending on roads that will benefit the fracking industry at a time when many of the...
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Issue #2192
Resilient? Not very – Reform? Think again
One slogan plastered all over the 2026-27 budget is “resilience and reform.” This is, of course, in response to the fuel crisis created by the...
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Issue #2044
Peace and Australia Post
Have you heard of the Peace Budget? If you’ve been reading News Corp or Fairfax publications this year, you won’t have seen any trace of...
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Issue #2060
What the surplus tells us
Australian budget surpluses are funny things. Sometimes we pay a lot of attention to a budget surplus or a budget deficit, sometimes we ignore them...
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Issue #2052
Not a People’s Budget
Budgets involve a redistribution of wealth reflecting government priorities and serving class interests. The 2023-24 federal budget has clear priorities. The big winners are the...
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Issue #2100
High profits mean low wages
According to a recent article in Canberra Times (13 May 2024), passive returns for property investors are enormous and well outside what workers gain through...
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Issue #2099
Federal Budget has ‘a hole in its heart’
The Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) has described the Federal Budget as having a hole in its heart. On one hand, the budget will...
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Issue #2092
NATIONALISE AGED CARE
The ageing population is portrayed as a burden on the budget and taxpayers because the priorities of the Labor government are pedigree neoliberal: user pays...
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Issue #2053
Off the hook
Budgets are about political choices. We look at where governments are spending, and where they are cutting. The media draw up lists of winners and...
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Issue #2050
Fight back!
May Day is just eight days away from the federal budget. All we hear from Treasurer Jim Chalmers are attempts to soften up the electorate...
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Issue #2053
People’s need not corporate greed
The main focus of recent federal budgets was on economic recovery for the corporate sector, focusing on wiping out the budget deficit created by the...
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Issue #2155
Tax: Make the corporates pay
“No sensible progress can be made on productivity, resilience or budget sustainability without proper consideration of more tax reform. I don’t just accept that, I...
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Issue #2100
Arms corporations win, People lose
Australians will be poorer but not more secure as a result of the massive increase in military spending in the next financial year outlined in...
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Issue #2103
Bill to kill NDIS
“This bill threatens the future of the NDIS and the rights of disabled people. Labor had the gall to create it behind closed doors. It...
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Issue #2191
Tax rorts for the rich
“This budget does nothing for ordinary people – renters, first-home buyers and mortgage holders – who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads....
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Issue #2097
EDITORIAL
Overshadowed by more important events, the Future Made in Australia plan was meant to be Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s Big Idea. It sounds like a...
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Issue #2189
Aboriginal solutions ignored in Victorian Budget
The Victorian government has delivered its first state budget following its commitment to First Peoples through Statewide Treaty. The 2026/27 budget is being heralded as...
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Issue #2100
More for war in a class budget
“In a cost-of-living crisis, the Labor government is choosing to remove $14.4 billion in funding from the NDIS that will lead to disabled people not...
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Issue #2190
BUDGET 2026 – Wealth divide is class divide
“I’ve listened hard for the sound of wealth trickling down but all I hear is the sound of the excluded still waiting”: poet, author and...
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Issue #2202
Federal budget discriminates against women
The Australian government has argued that the 2026 - 27 budget used gender analysis to improve women’s economic security. These include tax cuts, child support reforms, paid...
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Issue #2140
Budget 2025-26 – A SHOCKER
“We’re astounded that the centrepiece of tonight’s budget is more dollars for everyone except those with the least,” Australian Council of Social Service CEO Cassandra...
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Issue #2149
Australia-US ‘alliance’
The alliance with “our great and powerful friend” the USA comes at a human and financial cost to Australians, currently demonstrated by the Albanese government’s...
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