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
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