Jeff Kennett: Budget is a moral, social and economic failure

This year’s budget has to be seen as a deliberate failure by the Allan government to address the cost to Victorians of rising debt. It’s a rats and mice budget, where the rat just got much bigger.

People in general, and politicians in particular, are not born stupid. Therefore, the budget brought down on Tuesday has to be seen as a deliberate failure by the Allan government to address the cost to Victorians of rising debt.

The whole of the Treasurer’s address was on their historical and new spending.

Not one courageous decision.

The deferring of the rail line to the airport was never going ahead because of lack of funding by the federal government.

Yet the Suburban Rail Loop is continuing without significant federal financial assistance. All on borrowed money in our name. Remember, there is no government money – only our money, yours and mine.

The Treasurer talked about the need for training extra staff in our vital service areas of education, health, mental health and so the list goes on.

But look at their record. They promised 3000 extra jobs in mental health alone years ago and delivered nothing. Where are the applicants going to come from? Who is going to train them?

Promises are cheap, and under Labor they have always been so, but delivery never occurs without administrative failure if at all, and added cost.

The budget brought down on Tuesday has to be seen as a deliberate failure by the Allan government to address the cost to Victorians of rising debt. Picture: Getty Images

The budget is morally corrupt because it puts the interests of the 70 members of the government, and their fellow travellers, ahead of the six million people they were elected to serve.

This is a rats and mice budget, where the rat just got much bigger.

It is socially corrupt because it continues to transfer government blame and responsibility on to its most fragile citizens, those on low income, our young, and for decades.

The recent massive increases in land tax have meant investment properties are being sold. Prices for those houses are falling and will be purchased by those who can afford them but for homes, not rental accommodation. Thousands of Victorian families are being denied affordable rental accommodation – the Labor government’s own goal. There is no social justice in this budget.

And that’s before we mention the impact of government taxes and charges on those who provide jobs, businesses big and small. The small handouts in this budget, the sugar coating, will only add to Victoria’s debt levels and interest repayments.

The whole of the Treasurer’s address was on their historical and new spending. Not one courageous decision. Picture: Getty Images

Just think about it, Victoria is paying about $28m a day in interest. That payment will increase, in the main to overseas companies and governments. That figure will only grow as a result of this budget as our debt in financial year 2026-27 grows to 25 per cent of gross domestic product.

This is a government that can oversee the deaths of 800 citizens and turn a blind eye. This costs more than lives; it has left mental scarring that might never be healed.

This budget continues the attack on the economic fabric of the state.

The Treasurer must be living in a different world than me. Has he not seen the number of businesses that have closed, shops increasingly empty, for sale or lease?

There is no new incentive for any business to continue or establish themselves in Victoria. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

There is no new incentive for any business to continue or establish themselves in Victoria.

Victorians’ energy costs for citizens and businesses – manufacturing in particular – is unsustainable.

This budget does not address at all the need for gas to replace brown coal as our base load energy supply. This could only be done if they had allowed extraction of gas from the massive fields in the Otway Ranges.

Solar and wind energy alone will not provide the base load power that our society needs. As a result, higher energy charges, and periods of interruption to our energy supply, blackouts, will see industry exit their operations from Victoria.

But again, it will be our pensioners, those on low incomes and our youth who will pay the highest price from increasing energy charges.

Solar and wind energy alone will not provide the base load power that our society needs.

Subsidies are no solution to the underlying issues that Victoria faces; they only increase debt. Fix the underlying problems.

We so often hear about the lack of tradies and the cost of labour. But again, it is the government that has set the benchmark for wages and salaries within the public service and employment on the infrastructure projects, to the point that they are now unsustainable.

The government pays the most to those working on their greatest management failures, while ignoring those we need most, our teachers, health, police and other basic service employees. Hence the talk to find and train more teachers and health workers.

There is nothing in this budget that offers hope for economic prosperity. Quite the opposite. Victoria is shrinking at a rapid pace. Labor governments have a reputation for destroying what they have inherited. They are doing it again.

This budget fails totally and deliberately to address the fundamental issue of Victoria’s soaring debt and mismanagement, spending too much of our money.

We are at the top of a rollercoaster; hang on tight.

Jeff Kennett is a former premier of Victoria