Budget reaction

Budget reaction


Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Broadcast: 10/05/2011

Reporter: Leigh Sales

Leigh Sales speaks to the welfare and business lobby.


CHRIS UHLMANN, PRESENTER: For more analysis, it's back to Leigh Sales, who's joined by Heather Ridout, the head of the Australian Industry Group, and Cassandra Goldie, who leads the Australian Council of Social Services.


Heather Ridout, let's start with you. What's your overall assessment?

HEATHER RIDOUT, AIG: Look, we think it's solid on fundamentals. The investment in skills is exactly what AI was advocating and we're very pleased to see it there. It's a reform; it's not just a new pot of money, it's a substantial structural reform to the system. On the infrastructure side, we also think that's a pretty solid performance around not only projects but also the governance of the system, more money for Infrastructure Australia, support for private investment into infrastructure, sensible things. The fiscal bottom line, I think that's pretty good too. I mean, the Government have made substantial savings. Undoubtedly people should say they could go further, but given the uncertainties of the economy, we're not unhappy with that.

The place we do think it's a bit light on is the two-speed economy or the multi-speed economy and the fact that a lot of companies are really doing it tough with the high dollar, etc., and that's gonna continue. We don't think there's enough there, whether it's for exporters, whether it's for research and development, which continues to be uncertain, whether it's anti-dumping, and we're also quite concerned about some of these Defence cuts and what the implications of those might be. But generally, solid on fundamentals, light on on these areas of uncertainty.

LEIGH SALES: I'll come back to those two-speed economy points in a second, but just first of all, Cassandra Goldie, what about in terms of social services?

CASSANDRA GOLDIE, AUST. COUNCIL OF SOCIAL SERVICES: Oh, look, Leigh, this is a budget we think that takes at least as much as it gives. There's definitely some good promise in here. I mean, the Treasurer's right: there's some new money that's gonna be investing in removing barriers for people who are trying to find paid work. I agree with Heather about - you know, on the broader education industry focus on the vet scheme, for example, great, but we're really disappointed to see that part of this does involve crackdown and cuts to payments for some people who are really living on the lowest income. Some single parents are gonna lose up to $60 a week. Cost of living, that's not a good look, and also some young people also will be reducing about $40 a week as well. So, on that side of things we've said, "Look, we didn't need to go down that path at this time. We should have stayed with the investment side," and it's a good start on that front.

LEIGH SALES: So overall on balance then, Heather Ridout seems generally pretty happy with it. How do you feel on balance?

CASSANDRA GOLDIE: Oh, look, I think the mix was we didn't get it right when it came to people on social security on the lowest incomes. On the mental health package, fantastic. I think you're gonna see broad support for that. That's well and truly overdue. And there was good stuff in there for the not-for-profit sector itself; finally an independent regulator's gonna get established - that's great. And when it comes to waste, we were fully behind the Treasurer on that. Great to see that there was some measures there to tackle the health benefit rebate - the healthcare rebate, that's great if we could get that going, but overall when it comes to people on the really low incomes, we just felt that those crackdowns were unnecessary and we're disappointed on that front.

LEIGH SALES: Heather Ridout, back on the business side of things, you mentioned the two-speed economy. What more would you have liked to see happen for those sectors where the high dollar is impacting?

HEATHER RIDOUT: Well we'd have liked to have seen support for exporters. The export market development grant scheme continues to be underfunded and basically ignored. The business capability area is really pretty light on - a bit of money in, a bit of money out, and that's really important in driving new product and service arrangements in that sector. So that's pretty light on. Innovation generally is light on. The anti-dumping stuff is really not being addressed, and just generally there hasn't been enough recognition, we believe, in dollar terms. There's plenty of acknowledgment in the documents about the multi-speed economy and the risk that the dollar, the high dollar and high levels for a protracted period of time poses to our economic development in the future.

LEIGH SALES: So which of the industries that are suffering most then? Tourism, I presume.

HEATHER RIDOUT: Manufacturing is a huge one, tourism. Anything that's trade-exposed, export-orientated and import-competing and doesn't enjoy the high prices of the resources sector. So, anything in that sector, you know, areas are very exposed to this and these risks will continue.

LEIGH SALES: Cassandra Goldie, you spoke about the mental health funding. Where would you like to see that spent and targeted?

CASSANDRA GOLDIE: Look, I think the direction that the Government has set in that package is really positive and I've discussed with colleagues who work - specialists and members in that area, they're generally very pleased with that. Obviously it's gonna take time to get a lot of these initiatives on the ground and benefitting from the community's point of view, but the figure in terms of the investment was right and the spread between early intervention on the one hand and responding to chronic illness was also really welcomed, in addition to supports for example in the youth suicide area. So, it's been across the board on that front, and also great for our sector because we work with a lot of people who experience mental health problems and so there is some money in there to foster sort of co-ordination of services in local communities, so that's great.

LEIGH SALES: Just two quick questions. Briefly, the single pension's now just over $700 a fortnight, the budget papers sort of talk about the fact it's gone up since 2009. $700 a fortnight: is that what you'd like it to be?

CASSANDRA GOLDIE: Well when you talk about the pension, we've obviously got different pensions here. So, we talked about the sole parent pension; that's not one that hasn't been indexed well over time and now, for some of those parents, we're gonna see a cut there. On the other hand, from the disabilities support pensions side, the feedback on that is that the Government's probably got that right in terms of positive incentives for people who are on that pension who want to be involved in paid work to get access to employment services without risking cuts to their really basic payments, so that's a really good one.

LEIGH SALES: And Heather Ridout, still no detail on the carbon price scheme. That must be a little disappointing for business.

HEATHER RIDOUT: No, there's some hints that it may not be as revenue neutral as has been previously asserted. But look, that argument is still going on. I think the least of our problems is whether it's in the budget or not. We just have to focus on getting a viable scheme.

LEIGH SALES: Heather Ridout, Cassandra Goldie, thank you very much for making time to speak to us tonight.

HEATHER RIDOUT: Thanks, Leigh.