FEDERAL BUDGET Be careful of a fiscal sugar hit
MORRISON’S new budget is like a parent trying to win the affection of their children with plastic toys and sugar.
Riding off the back of WA’s iron profits and massive future debt Morrison is gleefully ticking all the boxes of our topical wish list while completely ignoring longer term problems of higher education, the environment, renewable energy, Indigenous issues, the arts and basically, well, a sustainable future. All the while he is injecting taxpayer funds into “road to nowhere” coal seam gas.
Carrieann Smith Gordon
KNOWN UNKNOWNS
FOR the Coalition “what” has never been a problem. The verbiage around a darn good idea is the government’s forte. But “when” and “how” are really the essential elements of implementation for any public policy.
How is the problem for the billions in the aged-care package: it goes directly to providers with not much in the way of guidelines for the spending, there’s little for training and nothing in the way of wage lift to attract the new workforce to alleviate low staffing.
When is the problem for infrastructure and more so for wages growth. An unemployment rate with a 4 is a cynical movable goalpost, contingent on vaccine rollout and open borders, dangerous assumptions as we all know.
How will development programs be
implemented? Through grant procedures already mired in pork-barrelling criticisms. When will the Coalition address climate? Apparently a long way off, if ever, beyond long-term options of hydrogen and carbon capture rather than technology that will begin carbon reduction right now.
How and when will we receive all the remarkable benefits of the 2021 budget? Through the ballot box when the Coalition fancies its chances.
Ian Paulin South Hobart
ROAD TO RUIN
I SEE the government has pledged heaps of money for Tasmanian roads in the budget. I recently travelled from Claremont to Franklin, the worst roads in between were Brooker Highway from Derwent Park to the Railway Roundabout, Davey Street to the Southern Outlet and the Southern Outlet to Mount Nelson turn-off.
Davey Street has potholes big enough to hide a car in. Even the roadworks near Grove were better to drive on than Davey Street. So, what’s the plan, get everyone p .... d off so that they find alternative routes in and out of the CBD, that way you fix the traffic problems?
Robert Stewart Claremont
WILKIE’S WAY NOT WORKING
IF it was not already obvious that Andrew Wilkie’s negotiation and representation efforts on behalf of the people of Clark are ineffectual, the federal budget is the final straw.
It’s all very well to blame the government for favouring marginal electorates but Wilkie is an underachiever in the game of realpolitik and it is time he went.
Retire before the next election and make Clark marginal.
An independent holding the seat, as romantic as it may seem to the dewyeyed, will not cut it in the harsh world of dollar politics.
MONEY, MONEY, MONEY
The government is spending big time!
Apparently it does not matter how much money we owe. I wonder what will happen to Australia if China stops paying record prices for our iron ore? Or if the interest rate rises and we have to pay much more to service our debt. I wish we had a government with more foresight!
GOLDEN MILES
Nick Hutton Sandy Bay
Horst Schroeder Devonport
I haven’t travelled on the Bass Highway for a few years. It must be paved with gold by now.
Donald White Bellerive