COSTELLO’S SWAN SONG?

Am I missing something here? Or am I just stupid? I have watched and read heaps about Treasurer Peter Costello’s tenth federal Budget with generous tax cuts for almost everybody and a surplus of nearly nine billion dollars. On 3AW yesterday I predicted ten billion, so I wasn’t far wrong.

And people are saying last night’s Budget felt like a pre-election package in its generosity. When the Howard Government still has years to run after being re-elected to a fourth term.

But getting back to being stupid. Many Canberra commentators are saying that this is a generous Budget from a “Prime Minister in waiting”. What? Does a federal treasurer bring down a Budget for his own personal ambitions? If that is the case he doesn’t deserve to be PM.

You play with a country’s taxes and economy just to get the keys to The Lodge? That must be rubbish. And anyway a Budget is not a One Man Band. Surely, Cabinet and especially the Prime Minister – the man Costello wants to depose – must sign off on it.

And the tax cuts must not only help Costello. They must help Howard and his chances of going to the polls for a fifth term. This is a government awash with money and they are giving some of it back. Opposition leader Kim Beazley has called it “unfair and irresponsible” and Stephen Smith says the Labor Party will oppose the tax cuts.

That’s a bit rich when they have been carping for months that this is the highest taxing Government in the world. Which horse do they want to be on? And tell that to the punters who welcome any tax relief at any income level.

Many observers are likening this Budget to the famous Paul Keating “bringing home the bacon” Budget of 1988. Of course that blew up in his face and his promise of L.A.W tax cuts never happened.

But Costello and Howard have done it. Admittedly, it is mainly because of billions of dollars from GST. But they have done it.

One thing intrigues me though. The Treasurer boasts about a predicted 3% growth.

I remember interviewing Prime Minister Keating some years ago at Parliament House and he said that if you could not guarantee 4% growth annually “we might as well all give the game away”.

How things have changed—even with a Government that sits on a GST nest egg of around thirty billion dollars a year.

Wednesday, May 11, 2005

©Copyright Derryn Hinch 2005