politicalowl

The longest temporary change in Australian economic history started in 1942 when the Commonwealth took over income tax from the States. The then Federal Government promised that the switch was only for the duration of the war. Makes you wonder about temporary budget deficits doesn't it?

Politicians just love third party endorsements. They think favourable comments from someone they can describe as an independent expert helps convince the public of the merits of their own actions. Kevin Rudd was at it yesterday in question time.  The Opposition squirm, he told the House of Representatives: about the fact that for the question of our temporary budget deficit for a temporary debt that will flow to the economy, we will have a temporary debt for Australia which will be the lowest by a country mile compared with all other major advanced economies. Furthermore, when you look at when our temporary debt will reach its height at 13.8 per cent of GDP, that will represent about one-seventh of the debt of the major advanced economies across the world. I would simply draw the attention of those opposite, as they try to score political capital out of this point and this necessary intervention in the economy at this stage, to what Standard and Poor’s have said overnight. They said: T...

Swine flu might have made way for sexual rampages by rugby league players as fodder for the tabloids but the   influenza A (H1N1) virus is not done with yet. A report in the latest issue of the journal  Science  looks at the pandemic potential of the virus and there is clearly still plenty to worry about.

For a more cheerful report on scientific research I refer you to an  article  in  Prospect  dealing with the very important subject of alcohol and the creative process. Good news for drinkers at last - or at least for some of them.

It is surely telling a government something when coverage of its annual budget does not make page one of the country's biggest selling daily. When the respectable broadsheet in the same city excludes budget coverage from the front as well, it really is certain that the Treasurer gave birth to a bore. What Wayne Swan delivered last night was virtually a "no new news" budget. Almost everything of general interest in the mass of budget documents had been carefully planted in the media over the previous couple of weeks. The only real surprise was the announcement of a gradual increase in the age at which people will qualify for the age pension. That was seized upon by a couple of the tabloids desperate not to waste the hard work of their staff artists who had prepared some wonderful work to go with a horror budget headline. In the absence of an increase in excise on beer and cigarettes that was predicted in some of the early budget previews, the words in the Treasurer's s...

The massive process that is conducting an election in the world's biggest democracy has reached its final stage with counting of votes due to begin on Saturday. There has been little change since voting began almost a month ago in the Crikey Indian Election Indicator with the Congress Party still seen as the most likely party to provide the new Prime Minister.

With unemployment on the rise it was not exactly a wise time to cut funding to the Australian Bureau of Statistics to the point where the Australian Statistician Brian Pink found it necessary to reduce the sample size in the Bureau's Labour Force Survey. Fortunately last night's budget saw an additional $15 million a year added to the ABS budget and the sample size   will be restored during 2009-10. Details of other changes to the work program were  posted  this morning on the ABS website.