The government may be able to put off increasing spending on defence in the budget, but boosting spending on social security could be more difficult to dodge — partly because of his vocal backbench, writes David Speers.
As for the 37 recommendations of the Economic Inclusion Advisory Committee report, Chalmers on Wednesday confirmed some will be adopted.
Lifting the rate of JobSeeker to 90 per cent of the Age Pension is one recommendation that won't be adopted immediately. It would cost $24 billion over four years and the government is worried about the impact on inflation, which yesterday's figures confirmed is now mercifully edging down.with a child over the age of 8. The Howard government shifted the cut-off age from 16 down to 8 for new recipients.
Restoring the old rules would help at least 80,000 single parents. By contrast, more than a million would benefit from any increase in JobSeeker and Youth Allowance. It's easy to see why the bean counters might favour the former over the latter. The backbench agitators, however, want action on JobSeeker.Whatever is decided in the final meetings of the ERC, there will be some movement on support payments. That's clearer now than it was a week ago.
The decision to find savings by cutting projects deemed unnecessary was widely expected. The decision not to increase overall defence spending was not.Defence Minister Richard Marles insists spending will eventually rise over the medium term to meet Australia's needs, including the cost of nuclear submarines, but if budgets are about priorities, it's clear the immediate priorities for new spending lie elsewhere.
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