Small business owners will receive a $120 tax deduction for every $100 they spend on training their staff. The same deduction will also apply to investments in cloud computing, eInvoicing, cybersecurity and web design – up to a maximum of $100,000 per year.
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Infrastructure
The headline figure is $17.9 billion for new roads and faster rail. That includes $3.7 billion for faster trains between Sydney and Newcastle and between Brisbane and the Gold Coast. There’s also $3.1 billion for two intermodal terminals on the outskirts of Melbourne, designed to get trucks off roads and freight onto rails – and eventually, onto the inland rail track between Melbourne and Brisbane.
Motorists
The fuel tax excise will be cut in half to 22.1 cents per litre for six months. The net cost of the measure is about $2.7 billion. In practice, that’s a saving of about $11 on a 50 litre tank of petrol and over six months, filling up once a week, that saving will reach $264. The change comes into effect from midnight on Tuesday night and the competition watchdog will police it.
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Support services for women
Another $1.3 billion will be spent tackling violence against women and children in this budget, building on the $1.1 billion spent in last year’s budget to improve women’s health, safety and economic security – a package that was unveiled after fierce criticism the 2020 budget had largely ignored women. The new spending is on front-line services, emergency accommodation, access to legal advice and more.
The regions
There’s $7.4 billion on the table to invest in more dams and water projects, such as the already-announced Hell’s Gate dam in Queensland. Mobile phone coverage will be expanded across approximately 8000 kilometres of regional roads, at a cost of $1.3 billion while $2 billion will be spent on a so-called regional accelerator program to invest in skills, education infrastructure and more.
First-home buyers
The number of people able to access the Home Guarantee Scheme will double to 50,000 places per year. That scheme, designed to help more people buy their first home, lets people put down a deposit of just five per cent, or two per cent for single parents.
Defence
The headline figures for defence investment are startling. Already announced is a $38 billion plan to grow the defence force to 80,000 people – though it won’t be fully implemented until 2040. There’s also $9.9 billion over ten years in Australia’s offensive and defensive cyber capabilities.
LOSERS
Aid agencies won’t be thrilled by the inconsistent foreign aid budget.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Future generations
The budget bottom line will see future generations paying back Australia’s debt for decades to come and the one-off payments and cut to fuel excise contained in this budget don’t help. Net debt will reach 31.1 per cent of GDP by June 2023, or $714.9 billion and is still growing. It’s expected to peak at 33.1 per cent by 2025, before beginning to decline. The good news net debt is down from the 38.4 per cent – or $835 billion – forecast a year ago, thanks to falling unemployment and higher than forecast prices for resources such as coal and iron ore.
Developing countries
Funding for foreign aid from the Department of Foreign Affairs will bounce around over the next four years. While the amount of money will rise by a bit over $600 million to $4.4 billion in 2022-23, it will then fall to $3.7 billion in 2023-24, rise again in 2024-25 and fall in 2025-26. Aid agencies are unlikely to be thrilled with this budget.
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Climate change mitigation
After committing to net zero emissions by 2050, the government has made no major promises in this budget about how to get Australia to that target. There’s $247 million over five years to back in private sector investment in hydrogen, $148 million for so-called microgrid projects in regional areas and $50 million for gas infrastructure.
People with a disability
The National Disability Insurance Scheme will continue to be fully funded, but there are few new headline-grabbing measures beyond the investment in skills and training. Free access to Rapid Antigen Tests and N95 masks for all people on the NDIS that many disability advocates have called for have not been delivered.
Jacqueline Maley cuts through the noise of the federal election campaign with news, views and expert analysis. Sign up to our Australia Votes 2022 newsletter here.
Winners and losers: Who gets what in the budget
Source: Philippines Alive
