Unsurprisingly, I find the inherent cynicism of the budget a bit of a let down. Throw money at short term problems (fuel costs) and quick cash grabs (is $420 going to make much of a difference in an inflationary environment to anyone's year?), that'll get people on board. The tax breaks to fossil fuel and extractive industries, consistent lack of increased investment in alternatives, unallocated disaster funding and just consistent 'we'll give them a big car park' just is so patronising of voter's desires, wants and aspirations of the society.
There's a lot in the budget, I can't claim to be an expert. But relevant to our field, middo, 60m in chaplain funding, not much equivalent in counselor, social work or psychology professionals in schools. Not much around increasing equitable funding to public schools. Unsurprising, but still.
The anti-China rhetoric is just appalling at the moment, and reflects so poorly on decisions made by the LNP (Port of Darwin, reducing DFAT's budget which prevents diplomacy in the Pacific from being firmly pro-Australia), public inflammatory comments re: CCP for showboating - just a litany of ''you've made your bed now lie in it'' and the pivot towards Australia's long history of anti-Chinese sentiment is ugly. A series of problems vastly exacerbated by LNP policy and publicity IMO. (the CCP is bad, but cmon, LNP, the fuck are you doing?)
