Opinion: The budget is loaded with sugary stimulants to get the system moving by the next election, but without a long-run muscle-building program for the years beyond | Peter Hartcher
Australia's economy is seriously sick with the virus, and the government is injecting a correspondingly big stimulus to get it moving.
Australia's national balance sheet is one of the stronger ones among nations, and the government has taken advantage. All of this is intended to bring the economy back. The government reckons it'll power a short-run boom to turn a 1.5 per cent contraction this financial year into mini-boom of nearly 5 per cent growth next year. It expects to bring unemployment below 6 per cent within two years.
"An opportunity has been missed," says the chief economist for Industry Super Australia, Stephen Anthony. "What we need is a private investment-driven economic reform plan – we needed one before COVID and we need it now." The budget is not that program. Innovation policy remains stunted; the investment incentive is temporary. And there are no structural reforms to the economy, the sort of reforms that would open new vistas for entrepreneurs and growth industries.
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