Pitch Engine
The Property Pack

.

New year, new strategy? Unheralded change to budget targets creates space for stimulus

  • Written by Danielle Wood, Program Director, Budget Policy and Institutional Reform, Grattan Institute

In public, the government is crab-walking away from its commitment to a budget surplus, saying since the bushfires that other things have become more important.

Asked directly on Tuesday whether he was prepared to sacrifice this year’s projected surplus to help the bushfire recovery effort, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said:

Our focus is on...

Read more: New year, new strategy? Unheralded change to budget targets creates space for stimulus

More Articles ...

  1. Celebrity concern about bushfires could do more harm than good. To help they need to put boots on the ground
  2. With costs approaching $100 billion, the fires are Australia's costliest natural disaster
  3. Vital Signs: the end of the checkout signals a dire future for those without the right skills
  4. Take care when examining the economic impact of fires. GDP doesn't tell the full story
  5. Might the bushfire crisis be the turning point on climate politics Australian needs?
  6. BlackRock is the canary in the coalmine. Its decision to dump coal signals what's next
  7. Shaming people for flying won't cut airline emissions. We need a smarter solution
  8. Australian building codes don't expect houses to be fire-proof - and that's by design
  9. A life of long weekends is alluring, but the shorter working day may be more practical
  10. What employers need to know: the legal risk of asking staff to work in smokey air
  11. High hurdle rates are holding back businesses, but perhaps they should be
  12. Our buildings aren't made to keep out bushfire smoke. Here's what you can do
  13. In fact, there's plenty we can do to make future fires less likely
  14. A crisis of underinsurance threatens to scar rural Australia permanently
  15. Holidaying in a disaster zone isn't as crazy as it might seem
  16. Cabinet papers 1998-99: how the GST became unstoppable
  17. Dili wedding. How Australian farm work nudges up Timor's marriage rate
  18. Protecting Australian women from American jazz: the hidden aim of the 1927 tariff inquiry
  19. Vital Signs: Australia's nation-building opportunity held hostage by the deficit daleks
  20. Blind bags: how toy makers are making a fortune with child gambling
  21. New study: changes in climate since 2000 have cut Australian farm profits 22%
  22. Politics with Michelle Grattan: Mathias Cormann and Jim Chalmers on the mid-year budget update
  23. 5 things MYEFO tells us about the economy and the nation’s finances
  24. Surplus before spending. Frydenberg's risky MYEFO strategy
  25. Lower growth, tiny surplus in MYEFO budget update
  26. Must end soon! But not too soon! The catch in time-limited sales tactics
  27. Vital Signs: Australia's wafer-thin surplus rests on a mine disaster in Brazil
  28. What limits shareholder activism as a force for good: the free-rider problem
  29. How New Zealanders miss out on hundreds of thousands in retirement savings
  30. Don't blame the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. It's climate and economic change driving farmers out
  31. Why the profit motive fails in education
  32. Key trade rules will become unenforceable from midnight. Australia should be worried
  33. Litigation is the real reason financial reports are becoming harder to read
  34. Vital Signs: Australia's slipping student scores will lead to greater income inequality
  35. GDP update: spending dips and saving soars as we stash rather than spend our tax cuts
  36. How plant-based meat is stretching New Zealand's cultural and legal boundaries
  37. Limiting cash payments to $10,000 is more dangerous than you might think
  38. Westpac ticking every anti-money-laundering box wouldn't make much difference to criminals
  39. Banning Huawei could cut off our nose to spite our face. Good 5G matters
  40. Robodebt failed its day in court, what now?
  41. Uber might not take over the world, but it is still normalising job insecurity
  42. Now we know. The Reserve Bank has spelled out what it will do when rates approach zero
  43. What the US defence industry can tell us about how to fight climate change
  44. Westpac's panicked response to its money-laundering scandal looks ill-considered
  45. The RBA has a new brain. It has thoughts on what'll happen after interest rates hit zero
  46. How Westpac is alleged to have broken anti-money laundering laws 23 million times
  47. We're delaying major life events, and our retirement income system hasn't caught up
  48. That moving graph of US tax rates that went viral, it's probably wrong. Here's why
  49. Vital Signs. Untaxing childcare is a bold idea that seems unfair, but might benefit us all
  50. Smoke haze hurts financial markets as well as the environment