{"id":1408691,"date":"2022-03-29T22:15:15","date_gmt":"2022-03-30T02:15:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1408691"},"modified":"2022-03-29T22:15:23","modified_gmt":"2022-03-30T02:15:23","slug":"australia-pm-morrison-seeks-to-sell-voters-on-budget-breaks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/australia-pm-morrison-seeks-to-sell-voters-on-budget-breaks\/","title":{"rendered":"Australia PM Morrison seeks to sell voters on Budget breaks"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Faustralia-pm-morrison-seeks-to-sell-voters-on-budget-breaks%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1408691&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/2022-03-30T005229Z_2_LYNXNPEI2T01E_RTROPTP_0_UKRAINE-CRISIS-AUSTRALIA_1.jpg\" alt=\"Australia&#039;s PM Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Kirribilli House in Sydney\" \/><br \/>FILE PHOTO: Australia&#8217;s Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Australia, February 24, 2022. AAP Image\/Bianca De Marchi via REUTERS<\/div>\n<p>March 30, 2022<\/p>\n<p>By Wayne Cole<\/p>\n<p>SYDNEY (Reuters) \u2013     Trailing in the polls, Australia\u2019s Liberal National government on Wednesday sought to sell A$8.6 billion ($6.46 billion) of budget giveaways as necessary to meet a cost of living emergency and not a transparent attempt to buy votes.<\/p>\n<p>Prime Minster Scott Morrison, facing a tough election in May, led the marketing blitz with a barrage of media interviews saying relief was needed to meet rising fuel prices.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s responsible because it\u2019s targeted and it\u2019s for a temporary period as these cost of living impacts are real and they\u2019re there right now,\u201d Morrison told one radio interviewer.<\/p>\n<p>Other countries including New Zealand, Japan and South Korea have announced measures to counter soaring energy prices in the wake of the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p>Some were sceptical, however, with one interviewer asking: \u201cwith this Budget, are you addressing the cost of living or is it just the cost of winning?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Opinion polls show the opposition Labor Party ahead by anywhere from 4 to 16 points, while bookmakers on Wednesday announced odds had just widened sharply against Morrison returning to power.   <\/p>\n<p>The government\u2019s careful messaging campaign was also blindsided by claims from one of Morrison\u2019s own Liberal senators that he was a \u201cbully\u201d with \u201cno moral compass\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Morrison rejected the accusation from Concetta Fierravanti-Wells, saying she was \u201cdisappointed\u201d at losing selection for her seat.<\/p>\n<p>Also vying for media attention was fresh flooding on the east coast in areas already washed out by the wettest March on records.<\/p>\n<p>Television coverage of cars floating down main streets sucked up much of the air time Morrison had hoped would be devoted to his tax cuts and upgraded economic forecasts.<\/p>\n<p>The economy has recovered faster than anyone expected last year, with unemployment hitting 13-year lows of 4% and projected to soon reach levels last seen in the 1970s at 3.75%.<\/p>\n<p>Wage growth was also forecast to accelerate but not by enough to outpace inflation, meaning real incomes were set the shrink this year.<\/p>\n<p>The strong labour market combined with sky-high prices from many of Australia\u2019s resource exports has been a huge boon for tax receipts and allowed the government to project much smaller  deficits than predicted just a few months ago.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the budget is still seen in the red to the tune of A$79.8 billion for the year to end June, with another A$78.0 billion pencilled in for 2022\/23.<\/p>\n<p>For now, all this borrowing is considered manageable by analysts as debt is still low relative to the rest of the developed world. <\/p>\n<p>Ratings agency Fitch said the budget did not immediately threaten Australia\u2019s coveted triple-A credit rating, but did sound a warning for the long term.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt does leave fiscal metrics and debt stabilization vulnerable to a potential underperformance in economic growth, especially as the budget does not expect a return to fiscal balance in the next 10 years,\u201d said Jeremy Zook, a director of sovereign ratings at Fitch.<\/p>\n<p>($1 = 1.3312 Australian dollars)<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Wayne Cole; Editing by Lincoln Feast.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>FILE PHOTO: Australia&#8217;s Prime Minister Scott Morrison speaks to the media during a press conference at Kirribilli House in Sydney, Australia, February 24, 2022. AAP Image\/Bianca De Marchi via REUTERS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":287,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1408691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/287"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1408691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1408691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1408691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1408691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1408691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}