RSS Feed
March 5th, 2013 
David Schulberg the 3rd
Updated
The Business Council of Australia is urging the Federal Government to rethink its fiscal strategy in order to pay for big health and education promises.
Labor wants to deliver surpluses on average but after promising one in the last budget, it is not likely to achieve the aim this year.
In its budget submission, the council – which represents chief executives and business leaders – says pressure is increasing on the budget.
The council has published research by Deloitte Access Economics which says new spending since the global financial crisis will put a $49 billion impact on the budget over the next four years.
It says that is not being fully offset by real savings because expected revenue from the mining tax and some from the carbon tax is not eventuating.
The council’s chief executive Jennifer Westacott says the Gonski education changes and the National Disability Insurance Scheme will also cost about $17 billion dollars a year once they are fully operational.
“The challenge is how you make room for them,” she said.
She says the Government has a significant task to give the community confidence that essential services can be paid for.
“The Government did a very good job of unwinding the stimulus package,” she said.
“What it did though, which is what our budget submission shows, is it started to commit to new expenditure which hasn’t been fully offset by either revenue or savings in other areas.”
Ms Westacott says the Government should be aiming to return to surplus in the medium-term.
She says the Government needs to set a steady course.
“If revenues are volatile, if spending has continued to increase and if it’s increasingly difficult to get back into surplus, don’t jump to raising revenue – making more ad hoc changes to the business concessional tax arrangements, and don’t make ad hoc changes to super,” she said.
Topics:
budget,
business-economics-and-finance,
government-and-politics,
federal-government,
australia
First posted
Source Article from http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-03-05/business-leaders-question-labors-fiscal-strategy/4554928
Posted in 
