What the Australian Treasurer Jim Chalmers tabled on Oct. 25 was not a budget in the traditional sense but a mini-budget or update. Unlike a regular annual budget there were few announcements of new policies or fiscal strategies.
But it suited Chalmers to elevate it to the status of a budget for dramatic effect—to emphasise his point that the budget numbers will worsen in the medium to longer term.
Politically, a new treasurer can afford to do this because he can lay the blame on the previous government. But Chalmers offered no new fiscal strategy to deal with fundamental problems.
The budget essentially re-calibrates the fiscal outlook by doing two things….