Budget earns Costello’s praise
PETER Costello has given the Turnbull Government’s Budget the nod of approval, saying it is is now on a believable path to a surplus.
The former Liberal treasurer had issued a warning before the Budget was handed down last week, saying many Australians would be dead before the nation pays off its debt.
“The good thing about the Budget is it shows a believable path to balance surplus,” Mr Costello said yesterday.
Mr Costello, the last treasurer to deliver a surplus 10 years ago, said it would probably take another decade of surpluses to get rid of the nation’s debt. But he questioned if politicians had the appetite to run surpluses for a decade.
“The consequences if we don’t are we will just be more exposed when we go into the next financial downturn,” he said at the Centre for Independent Studies in Sydney.
Treasurer Scott Morrison’s third Budget forecast a return to surplus a year earlier than previously expected, while putting a seven-year income tax cut package at its centre.
Mr Costello backed the plan that will increase the tax threshold and reduce the number of tax rates while capping tax to 23.9 per cent of GDP.