Much has been made of the size of the budget deficit.
The debate has been superficial, given that corporate tax revenue has collapsed because of the global downturn. Yes a good Government should light a path to recovery and surplus. But Malcolm Turnbull’s budget reply speech did not offer any alternative policies to reduce the debt. Both parties will need to indicate further cutbacks before the next election.
In his usual insightful way, Sydney Morning Herald economics editor Ross Gittins, put these concerns into some perspective:
"It really is remarkable that so many people who’d normally be worried about losing their jobs instead are working themselves into a lather over the Government’s (still small) debt. Send them a cheque for $900 and they’re convinced the nation’s on the verge of bankruptcy.
"Usually in recessions there’s an unceasing cry for the government to ‘Do Something, Anything’... but this time voters are either remarkably selfless or supremely confident the angel of unemployment won’t be visiting them or theirs."
Are people actually suggesting that Government debt should be kept low, and let unemployment soar high?
Rudd delivers the Gong destroyers
One part of our Diocese particularly hard-hit by the global downturn is southern Wollongong. Last year's long line-up of steel ships bound for the factories of Asia has slowed to a trickle. As a result, wharfies and steel workers are struggling to find regular work.
Unemployment in Wollongong has topped 9 percent, nearly twice the national rate. The extent of the Illawarra's battle with the recession was highlighted in a Four Corners investigation on April 20.
Earlier this week, Kevin Rudd came to Wollongong and delivered the locals some much needed good news.
He announced that the ADF's budget will include new Hobart class air warfare destroyers made with Wollongong steel provided by Bluescope.
God says employment good
From a biblical perspective, is unemployment the greatest enemy in a recession?
In Genesis 2 we see that despite the pain of toil that came later with the fall, work is actually part of God's good plan for humanity right from the beginning.
Meaningful employment is fundamental to our wellbeing as human beings.
And even more significantly from a Christian point of view - as philosopher Alain de Botton points out in his recent book The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work - the meaning we gain from work is fundamentally derived from the way it allows us to be other-person centred.
“When does a job feel meaningful?” de Botton asks. “Whenever it allows us to generate delight or reduce suffering in others.”
How to judge the budget
The Rudd Government should be primarily judged on its success at boosting employment.
So how does the budget stack up on that score?
According to the Treasury estimates, the stimulus packages will keep up to 200,000 Australians off the dole queues.
I am in the process talking to those best placed to judge the impact on the ground - Anglicans in the hardest-hit churches: Port Kembla, Warrawong, Berkeley, Dapto, Albion Park.
Those I have interviewed thus far suggest that retrenchments have already been flowing through to ancillary industries since the slowdown at Bluescope Steel.
Steel production is critical to the health of the Illawarra's economy.
So this week's budget brought some in Wollongong welcome relief. The ADF spend means that Bluescope Steel’s blast furnace is likely to be firing soon again.
As the Rev Stephen Semenchuk, rector of Dapto, told me on budget eve: "This budget will be good for Wollongong”.
However the next day business leaders interviewed by the Illawarra Mercury were not so sure, citing that there were no local big ticket items out of the massive $22 billion infrastructure spend which included rail links and ports across the rest of the nation.
Even Union leaders were complaining.
So does this budget strike the right balance between stimulus and cutbacks? Will the budget save the blue collar jobs of Wollongong? And if it does, is it a debt well spent?
And what do you make of Turnbull’s response?
