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May 4th, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda The federal government should deliver a budget that doesn’t rattle already shaky consumer confidence, West Australian Premier Colin Barnett says.
Mr Barnett said he’d be looking for policies and taxation that encouraged and supported consumers and small businesses in the budget to be handed down on May 8.
“The biggest part of our economy is consumer spending, and what we’re suffering from at the moment across the country is a lack of consumer confidence, so I hope there is no additional tax impost for households,” he told AAP on Friday.
The Liberal leader was bracing for a confirmation of the federal government’s carbon tax, which he estimated would push up electricity prices in WA by between eight and nine per cent.
That increase would come on top of a five per cent rise in electricity prices recently flagged by the state government as a result of the higher cost of wholesale gas and access to the pipeline network.
Higher power costs were weighing on consumer confidence, Mr Barnett said.
Both sides of WA politics said they were strongly in favour of the long-awaited National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), with both Mr Barnett and Opposition Leader Mark McGowan welcoming the plan.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Monday said funding would be set aside in the budget to launch the NDIS but wouldn’t say how much.
The scheme, effective from mid-2013, will cover many of the costs of people born with disabilities or who become incapacitated later in life.
Mr McGowan said the launch of the NDIS would be an historic achievement.
He also said he hoped the federal government would allocate infrastructure funding, drawn from the Minerals Resource Rent Tax, according to the state’s level of contribution to the tax.
Mr McGowan said he had urged Ms Gillard and Treasurer Wayne Swan to do so.
“We’d therefore get 50 or 60 per cent of it,” Mr McGowan told AAP. “That would be a massive win for WA.”
The commonwealth had spent more on infrastructure in the state than any other government but had not “sold it” well, he said.
“It (the funding) needs to continue,” Mr McGowan said.
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