The federal government will unveil the first elements of its plan to cut “waste and rorts” in its October budget and continue them into next year, but new figures show the budget is rapidly repairing thanks to surging company and personal tax revenues.
On Thursday evening, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said the government would have to “really put the brakes” on some spending areas, arguing promises made by the previous administration did not stack up. The problem was the political argument, he said, noting that the Abbott government was the last to have sought to cut budget expenditure in 2014 but had done so without an electoral mandate.“There’s no absence of experts with ideas on how to repair the budget on the economic front. But there is an absence of a mandate for the new government to go a long way,” he said.Richardson said the government could aim to reduce expenditure by about 2 per cent of gross national income over five years.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers will hand down a new 2022-23 budget on October 25, updating not only key economic forecasts but also the expected level of deficit and debt being carried by federal taxpayers.Gross debt on Friday was $892 billion, with that figure expected to climb beyond $1 trillion within two years. That debt is growing more expensive due to a sharp lift in global interest rates on government debt.