Budgets don't tend to inspire a lot of interest in Australia, or for that matter, a lot of passion. But after the poor reception of the first Abbott/Hockey budget last year, there's been an added bit of interest in the second Abbott/Hockey budget.
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We've spoken to several community and business leaders and politicians from South East NSW and they've shared their thoughts on Budget 2015.
Liberal Party Member for Hume Angus Taylor said this budget aims to stimulate the economy while simultaneously reducing the deficit and heading towards surplus.
"This budget is all about stimulating the economy, helping to drive more prosperity with a focus on families, small business and jobs, whilst at the same time continuing the responsible economic management that we started on since we've been in government, with a credible pathway to surplus," Mr Taylor said
"Those two things can live together, and that's exactly what we're seeking to do in this budget."
Mr Taylor said the budget would help families with measures to make childcare simpler, more accessable and more affordable, and that businesses would benefit from accelerated depreciation which would help small businesses that invest receive a tax break.
Goulburn specifically will benefit from a $10 million grant towards a water treatment plant, with funding also for a water pipeline near Yass.
ALP Member for Throsby Stephen Jones believes that this budget fails to resolve problems that are still oustanding from the last budget.
"The cuts to the health and hospital system, the defunding or the cuts to Medicare, and the cuts to the school and education system," Mr Jones said.
"We said that Tony Abbott had a challenge this evening... the challenge was to atone for the sins of last year. He's failed to do that."
Mr Jones said he was very disappointed to see the government was closing down regional offices for the Departments of Transport and Regional Affairs.
"We now have the absolute nonsense where you've got a department for regional development without any regional offices. It doesn't make sense and the governments got it's priorities wrong," he said.
Nicole Francis, President of the Shoalhaven Business Chamber, described the budget as being very positive especially for small businesses.
“I think it’s a real win-win situation for our businesses and I think that it has the potential to really help them kick start and fire up, especially for start-up businesses and we have many of those in the Shoalhaven,” she said.
Nicole highlighted the ability to claim 100% tax on business expenditures up to $20,000 as a measure that would result in more opportunities and growth and believed that the second Abbott/Hockey budget was much more business-friendly than the first.
Shoalhaven Mayor, Joanna Gash, said she hadn’t seen any the budget in detail yet and wasn’t aware of any implications from that relate specifically to local government, but was very pleased with the measures for small businesses.
“I’m very happy about small businesses and the tax cuts that they’re going to get, because we have so many small businesses in our local government area and our city… all of them doing it a bit tough as you’d appreciate … and I think this will make a huge difference to them, particularly being able to claim tax relief on up to $20,000 straight away,” she said.
Mrs Gash also highlighted defence expenditure as an area that the Shoalhaven would benefit from through HMAS Albatross and HMAS Creswell.
Shoalhaven Aboriginal Community Leader, Gerry Moore was very disappointed by the absence of programs, funding or even mentions of indigenous Australians in the budget.
“My first instincts are that the government has done a more positive job of selling this particular budget than they did last year, however there are a few gaping holes still, for me, as an aboriginal person,” he said.
“There was not one mention, in a year when we’re looking at working towards a referendum, of anything aboriginal whatsoever, or Torres Strait Islander.
“There was no discussion about what was likely to be given in order to restore the half a billion dollar funding that was taken away from the aboriginal affairs budget. Now there could be something in the budget papers that I haven’t seen yet… but it concerns me greatly that there was nothing mentioned at all and that Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people seem to have no buy in whatsoever into this federal budget.”
EARLIER TODAY
Prior to the budget speech, ALP Member for Throsby Stephen Jones and Liberal Party Member for Hume Angus Taylor spoke with Peter Van Onselen at Sky News about their thoughts on what needed to be included in the budget.
