The May 7 Victorian Labor State Budget and the May 14 Albanese Labor Federal Budgets depict a debt and deficit nightmare, particularly in Victoria and with tragically little to show for it in Mallee.
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The Albanese Labor Government has spent $209 billion more since the last election, which equates to an additional $20,000 of government spending per Australian household. We all pay for government debt through taxes, so it is like an extra mortgage for every Australian. The Albanese Labor Government has extended that extra mortgage while ramping up government spending, which is driving a home-grown inflation crisis.
Australian inflation is still far higher than in the US, UK, New Zealand, Ireland, France, Germany, Japan and Korea (to name a few), which is why - on Victoria's Budget day - the Reserve Bank of Australia squashed any talk of interest rate cuts and raised the spectre of rate hikes later this year.
The RBA has raised interest rates 12 times in the two years since Labor was elected in May 2022, whereas over nine years under the former Coalition government rates were cut 9 times and raised once (during the 2022 election).
The Victorian budget shows the annual interest repayments (on that extra mortgage of government debt we all carry) are now close to $26 million. Victorian debt will surge to almost $190 billion by 2027/8, the equivalent of an extra $67,000 mortgage per household. Treasurer Pallas hopes to keep up through rising payroll, land and other tax revenue while the OECD highlighted late last month Australians suffered a 7.6 per cent annual tax increase, the highest in the developed world ahead of second placed New Zealand at 4.5 per cent. As Winston Churchill said, "for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle."
With your energy bills also skyrocketing to subsidise a costly, unplanned rampage to political renewable energy targets, Mallee residents are paying for Labor's reckless policy agenda. It's time to return Victoria and the nation to the sound financial management under Coalition governments.
