Susie O’Brien: 2022 Federal Budget promises much and offers little

Although the Budget provides a sugar hit for many households, it’s bound to leave many groups feeling very empty.

The Federal Government has produced a sugar hit budget, delivering sweets to voters in time for the upcoming federal election.

Cuts to the price of petrol at the pump and the one-off $250 payment for six million pensioners will help address the soaring cost of living. This comes at a cost to the budget bottom line of $3 billion.

Along with a $1500 tax offset for middle income earners, these are modest steps unlikely to have any lasting impact.

But with the election just months away, the government needs a quick hit, not a long-term strategy.

However, if things don’t go to plan in terms of Covid, or China, or the Ukrainian invasion, voters will be left feeling sour.

Millions of Aussie will benefit from a cut to the fuel excise.

The relatively buoyant economy is due in part to the $343 billion spent getting Australians through Covid.

As the Treasurer says, this is now “delivering a large fiscal dividend,” but there’s little left for the next global crisis.

If you look behind the headlines, there is no major new spending in areas like health, aged care, the arts or education. This will be felt most in aged care, where there is a mere additional $468 million for 1.3 million aged care sector users.

The government says it’s providing “record funding” for child care, schools and universities, but it’s all hot air.

Total education spending will increase by just 0.6 in real terms between 2022 and 2025 and high education spending will decrease by 3.6 per cent to 2025.

There is no major new spending in areas like health, aged care, the arts or education.

Small gains include $20 million for new rural childcare centres, but that’s over five years.

There is also $346 million being spent on changes to the paid parental leave scheme to make it more flexible. Families with wealthy female breadwinners are among the big beneficiaries, with the earnings cap lifted to $350,000.

As usual there are some challenging priorities laid bare in the fine print of the budget papers. There’s an overall drop in climate spending from 2022 to 2025, but they’re still spending $61 million a year on school chaplains. It’s money that could be much better spent on properly qualified psychologists and counsellors.

There’s also an astonishing $270 billion worth of defence capabilities to 2029-30 (their words, not mine), including $9 billion over the next ten years for the defence REDSPICE package.

This makes the additional $3 million for the Respect at Work package designed to prevent sexual harassment in work places look paltry indeed.

Although there’s sugar, sour and spice, this budget promises much and offers little. It’s all we can afford right now, but is bound to leave many groups feeling very empty.