There’s a clear key message in last night’s Budget: Australia’s new government is happy to risk being boring if it means ending the contest over which party is the better economic manager. Treasurer Jim Chalmers has prioritised drastically reducing the inherited deficit over investing to safeguard the most vulnerable people in a period of great uncertainty.
With another Federal Budget due in just over half a year, it’s a relatively safe time to prioritise deficit reduction – well, safe-ish; anyone trying to get by on unemployment support knows that $40-something a day is woeful, creating far more problems than it actually redresses.
Let’s look at three elements of the Federal Budget’s impacts on arts and culture – First Nations, youth, and election commitments – and then, let’s briefly put these commitments in their broader economic and political context…
ESTHER ANATOLITIS 