A greasy fry-up of the numbers as we dissect Budget night drama

A greasy fry-up of the headline Budget numbers as we dissect the drama of the night before.

Drivers, women and first home buyers are some of the big winners of Budget 2022, but there are plenty of sore heads and losers in Canberra this week.

Drivers, women and first home owners are some of the big winners of the 2022 budget, handed down on Tuesday night, but with Treasury forecasts predicting gross debt to move above a trillion dollars in 2023-24, the announcements are a bit like whacking a shopping cart full of Mecca products on Afterpay. 

Think of "gross debt" as something that is
a). gross 
b). a time that will come when you'll eventually have to pay for adding all of those items to cart

With the federal election expected to be called as soon as next week, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg had the unenviable task of scattering around just enough goodies to help secure votes while also looking fiscally responsible. 

Essentially, the government has used this budget to address the rising cost of living as the Covid pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and extreme weather events like the East Coast floods continue to do a number on our collective Apple Wallets.

The good news is there has been a $103bn improvement in the budget bottom line over five years and the economy is being turbocharged - after two years of pandemic lockdowns - by a surge in prices for key commodities such as iron ore and coal. 

The not-so-good news is as we young folk take our place at the mantle of society, we will be paying back Australia’s debt for decades to come and the one-off payments and cuts to fuel excise contained in this budget don’t really help in the long term. 

Net debt will reach 31.1 per cent of GDP by June next year, or $714.9bn, and is still growing. 

A future us problem? Not quite.

The key takeaways:

• More than $8bn in immediate cost-of-living relief is being directed at middle Australia which is feeling the pressure of rising costs in an effort to show the Coalition cares.

• The short-term economic outlook is very strong. Think of Covid as a bad hair cut which is finally starting to grow out. We’re on track for a fast recovery, unemployment is less than 4 per cent, and the government forecasts wages might soon rise (although they have a track record of making this optimistic and empty promise). But the long-term outlook is bleak - like too much bleach in your balayage.

Here's some info for the group chat:

🏘️ Housing: The Home Guarantee Scheme, is going to help more first home buyers get into the market, by letting people put down a deposit of just five per cent and two per cent for single parents. Beware of when interests rates rise, though.

⛽ Petrol: The fuel tax will be cut by 22 cents for six months. This will save motorists about $11 on a 50 litre tank of petrol.

🚺 Women:$1.3bn will be spent tackling violence against women and kids. The new spending is on frontline services, emergency accommodation, easier access to legal advice and a special education piece about consent and online safety.

🧑‍🎓Uni students: More than six million Australians - including those on Youth Allowance, Austudy, Abstudy Living Allowance or Jobseeker  payments - will receive $250 to help ease the cost of living in the coming months.

😓 Mental health: $547m will be rolled out over the next five years to treat early psychosis and launch a pilot program for best practice treatment on eating disorders.

NEED A NEW HEADING HERE

When the cats are away, the mice will play, and as The Oz's eyeballs bled as they poured over Treasury documents in budget lockup on Tuesday night, two Liberal party members decided to let loose. 

Former attorney-general Christian Porter used his final address to parliament to slam the “culture wars” and the “mob” that came after him following reports of historic rape allegations against him.

Mr Porter announced his resignation late last year in the wake of fierce scrutiny on his private life – specifically the airing of allegations by the ABC that he had raped a woman in the late 1980s.

The West Australian MP, who was elected to seat of Pearce in 2013 after four years of state politics, told the House of Representatives on Tuesday that he wouldn’t wish what had happened to him on his “worst enemy”.

Meanwhile, over in the upper house, Liberal Senator Concetta Fierravante-Wells, went nuclear, using parliamentary privilege to attack Scott Morrison and label him a "bully who has no moral compass".

It comes after she was relegated to an unwinnable spot on the Liberal party’s NSW Senate ticket – meaning she has effectively been dumped and has no hope of returning to politics after the election. 

Senator Fierravante-Wells, who has been a Senator since 2005, claimed Mr Morrison and Immigration Minister Alex Hawke had “destroyed the Liberal party” through recent interventions in NSW branch preselections.

“Morrison is not fit to be Prime Minister and Hawke is certainly not fit to be a minister,” she said. “There is a putrid stench of corruption emanating from the NSW Liberal Party.”

One Nation's Pauline Hanson also spoke in support of Senator Fierravante-Wells and on Wednesday accused Mr Morrison of being “a bully” and a “my way or the highway” politician. 

“He is a bully and I back the senator up completely with that. He is a bully, because I have experienced it myself,’’ Senator Hanson said. “He is a man, you do it ‘my way, or there’s no way’.”

Senator Hanson said suggestions that Senator Fierravante-Wells' claims were nothing more than sour grapes were wrong.

But during a media blitz to sell the budget, Mr Morrison accused the Senator of being a sore loser.

“There are many disappointments in political life and you know, when you’re Prime Minister, people hold you responsible for many, many things,’’ he said. “There were 500 members who came together (to make the decision to put Senator Fierravante-Wells in the un-winnable position). I wasn’t there.”

The Oz understands the Liberal Party were not made aware of the Senator’s gripes with the Prime Minister or the party at large.

The fireworks did not stop there.

Another Senator, Sam McMahon from the Northern Territory, went off like the Sydney Harbour Bridge on NYE. 

The pollie, who quit after she lost preselection a few months ago, said she quit as she had to seek treatment for PTSD after her party - the Country Liberal Party - appointed a man who “terrorised” her to its leadership team.

“I think of the premature death of my colleague Kimberley Kitching and one thing that haunts me is that so easily could have been me,” Senator McMahon told the Senate.

There are many receipts in Canberra this week thanks to all the money talk but, jeez, the personal and petty ones are stacking up.

Curious timing all these people, who’ve been in positions of power for years and years, decide to unleash when they no longer have anything to lose.

Pass the Panadol.