... So that You may be kept informed

Fed: The Federal Budget Winners And Losers


12 May 2009 7:34 PM

FEDERAL BUDGET WINNERS AND LOSERS

WINNERS

* Existing Pensioners - single to get extra $32.49 per week, couples to get extra $10.14 per week

* Victorians - biggest infrastructure spend ($3.6b)

* New Home buyers - First Home Owners Boost continued for six months

* Small businesses - Small Business and General Tax Break increased to 50 per cent for order this calendar year

* The Environment - $4.5b on new clean energy initiative

* Tertiary Education - $5.3b on tertiary education, research and innovation

* Hospitals - $2.5b for hospital and health workforce reform, $3.2b from Health and Hospitals Fund to modernise hospitals and and improve cancer facilities

* Carers - new $600 a year Carer Supplement, plus extra $600 a year allowance for each person in their care

* New Families - $731m over five years for paid parental leave scheme

* Bond market traders - guaranteed supply of risk-free government debt to invest in

LOSERS

* Treasurer Wayne Swan - delivers biggest budget deficit in Australian history

* Unemployed - numbers likely to rise to 1 million in 2011 despite jobs created by infrastructure spending

* Future tax payers - responsible for repaying net government debt forecast to balloon to $188b by mid-2013, with interest payment to rise to $7.6b per year

* Pensioners of the future - pension age increased progressively to 67 years by 2023

* High Income Private Health Members - private health insurance rebate reduced

* Superannuation Salary Sacrificers - Halving of salary sacrifice into super to $25,000 a year for those under 50 and to $50,000 a year for those over 50

* Skilled Migrant - intake slashed by 20 per cent or nearly 7,000 places

* Asylum Seekers - extra $650m in funding for border protection

* Doctors - Angry that nurse practitioners and midwives will get access to Medicare Benefits Schedule for services and PBS for drugs

* Infertile couples - publicly subsidised IVF treatments capped for people who qualify under the Medicare safety net

AAP RTV mo/jlw/tm