Joe Hockey reveals latest budget figures – as it happened
This article is more than 8 years old
Malcolm Turnbull is under pressure on policy, Scott Morrison is under pressure from the right, but the polls show a bounce as Abbott declares he will stay. As it happened.
On his way out the treasury portfolio, Joe Hockey announced the first budget was $3bn better off than expected. He gave that little bit of good news in what is likely to be his last question time as treasurer. Scott Morrison is tipped to take over.
The recriminations are still swirling over the leadership coup that did in Tony Abbott. The right are very antsy and a leak appeared in Fairfax regarding Turnbull’s poor record appointing women on boards in the communications portfolio. In question time, Turnbull said Australian government boards report 2014/15 shows that women held 40% of communications portfolio board appointments. The right are also blaming social services minister Scott Morrison for not swinging his supporters, even though Morrison voted for Abbott.
Turnbull, Morrison and Concetta Fierravanti-Wells met with the refugee resettlement advisory council to determine the details of settling 12,000 Syrian refugees.
Tony Abbott did not turn up to the parliament today though the Daily Telegraph had pictures of his wife Margie moving out of the PM’s residence at Kirribilli House.
The house and the senate did very little today as the Turnbull government scrambled to complete their transition from the Abbott regime to the new regime. Like water torture, we were subjected to 22 speakers in the house on the omnibus repeal bill from last March. It still hasn’t passed, even though the government has the numbers.
The senate started at 9.30am and has only dealt with one piece of government business, being the fair work bill. But senator Ricky Muir has just moved a motion to note “the economic, social and other benefits of motorsport in Australia”.
Turnbull’s new cabinet is expected to be unveiled on Sunday, one day after the Canning byelection.
I am signing off now, at the end of a very long sitting week. Live publishing is a dangerous thing with sleep deprivation.
Thanks to my brains trust: Lenore Taylor, Daniel Hurst, Shalailah Medhora and Melissa Davey. Thanks also to Mike Bowers wonderful pictures. And thanks to you, dear readers, for your company and comments. We wouldn’t be here without you.
I will leave you with #putyouronionsout for the former PM Tony Abbott.
It is understood Malcolm Turnbull has had a number of congratulatory phone calls from world leaders, including Barack Obama, Israel’s prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and the secretary general of the United Nations, Ban Ki-moon. UK prime minister David Cameron is expected to call later today.
Joe Hockey has declared that the bottom line of his widely criticised first budget turned out to be $3bn better than expected in a piece of good news for the treasurer as he braces for the likely loss of the key economic portfolio in Malcolm Turnbull’s looming cabinet reshuffle.
The new prime minister is due to announce ministerial changes in coming days ahead of an expected swearing-in ceremony on Monday. Scott Morrison is widely tipped to be named as the new treasurer following Turnbull’s criticism of the Abbott-led government’s economic leadership.
The Labor MP Ed Husic taunted Hockey about his future during question time on Thursday, asking what he had planned for his third budget, due in May next year.
Hockey replied that “whatever’s planned for the third budget is a hell of a lot better than Labor’s last budget” and that the former government “was a fiscal disaster and an economic disaster for Australia”.
He then pre-empted a statement he was due to make at the end of question time about the final budget outcome for the 2014-15 financial year. The full details are due to be released on Monday.
“I have been informed by the Treasury of the final budget outcome for our first budget and that is that the budget bottom line is $3bn better than what we expected at budget time,” Hockey said.
“The government is spending nearly $3bn less than forecast and net government debt is reduced by $11.5bn more than we expected.”
Hockey’s wife, Melissa Babbage, was seen in the public gallery for question time.
In May 2015, Hockey estimated an underlying cash deficit of $41.1bn for the 2014-15 financial year. His office said on Thursday that the final outcome was $38bn.
Labor pointed out that the new deficit figure was still $14bn worse than the $24bn estimated for 2014-15 in the pre-election fiscal and economic outlook, which was was signed off by the secretaries of Treasury and the Department of Finance before the 2013 election.
Despite revealing the headline figures on Thursday, Hockey said in a statement that the final budget outcome document was some days off being published.
“The final budget outcome will be released in full on Monday morning,” he said, arguing the figures showed the government was heading in the right direction.
Hockey is widely expected to lose his treasury portfolio in the looming reshuffle. He had made a public pitch for his colleagues to maintain their support for Abbott before the Liberal party room met for the leadership showdown on Monday.
Data editor Nick Evershed has been doing the numbers in the parliament during Tony Abbott’s leadership. He’s got lots of cool graphs. Nick writes:
The Abbott government was the least productive government in passing legislation since 1971, according to a Guardian Australia analysis.
Following Malcolm Turnbull’s ousting of Tony Abbott, I’ve updated my previous analysis of the rate of acts passed per day.
This analysis looks at the ability of a government to pass legislation. Admittedly this is a quantity over quality approach, but it does offer us a quantitative measure of a government, political party or prime minister. It’s obviously not the only measure by which to judge the effectiveness of a government, and it’s worth considering in context with economic, health and other national figures.
Apparently Joe Hockey is only putting out his statement on the final budget outcome for 2014-15. These are the main points from the treasurer.
Budget deficit of $38bn, which is over $3bn better than expected.
Government spending is $2.9bn less than forecast. This is a real fall in government spending.
Net government debt is reduced by $11.5bn. “Every Australian now owes $500 less,” Hockey said.
The Budget I delivered in May will see the deficit reduced further, each and every year. This is the outcome of the first full year of the Abbott Coalition government. The final budget outcome will be released in full on Monday morning.
Shorten asks Turnbull: I refer to the prime minister’s earlier answer today, and I quote, “The government policies are sound. All of the government’s policies have my support.” Can the PM confirm his support for $100,000 university degrees, $8 billion of cuts to schools and hospitals and cuts to the pensions? Can the PM confirm he supports the same old broken promises and cuts?
Pyne tries to intervene but Speaker Smith sits him down, saying the PM will be able to deal with false assertions in the question.
Turnbull:
They are the government’s policies. Every policy of any rational, constructive government is always under review. Of course. Our cabinet will examine the challenges that we face, the policies that we have, we’ll develop new policies but really, if the opposition leader - I’d encourage the opposition leader over the next three weeks to think about changing his question time strategy. I mean, he should have pity on the people of Australia who are crying out for an opposition that is actually interested in the economy, that is actually interested in the details of the problems that Australians faced and wants to hold the government to account but just sort of shouting a political zinger or slogan across the dispatch box.
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