C-130, Tanks Among Other Targets in Australia Budget Cuts

[Sandgroper]

Yeah, especially as up till now your economy is in rude health. I can see why EU and US are cutting, OZ not so much. You guys expecting an economic nosedive or something?

The government wants to return the budget to surplus, so they can carry on like they saved Australia and hopefully steady their incredibly low approval rating

The desperate acts of a government teetering on the edge of oblivion.

[grendel]

They will retire the C-130H models, since they have had a hard life.

Yes some of the Hercs are getting old and they have just bought a number of C-17s.

The only reason why the Labour Govt is cutting the Defence budget, is so they will not get a backlash from the Public Service Unions. The Defence Dept is an easy target to help them get back into surplus.

The Labor Govt wants a surplus because they unwittingly made a promise to have a surplus as soon as possible and Defence's budget has always been the easiest to cut without political ramifications (unless we get invaded in the near future). The budget deficit is something that the Opposition has been using as ammo for some time (and is working and this govt is afraid), it has nothing to do with the Unions. There are Australian economists who are stating that it's OK to have a deficit and not to rush for a surplus - Australia after all has one of the smallest deficits in the developed/western world, one of the biggest economies in the world and it's economy continues to grow. There's some facts and figures here:
http://www.economywatch.com/world_ec...lia/?page=full

A surplus the previous Conservative Govt gifted to the Country. And the current Labour Govt, blew on feel good spending. Like a "family bonus" with which people used to buy the latest flat screen TV's.

The Baby Bonus was introduced by the Howard Govt to help raise kids. There was also a one-off Household Stimulus Package in 2009 (under Labor) for "some Centrelink customers, including families, students and farmers". The govt encouraged people to continue spending (eg. economic stimulus package) during the GFC to avert a recession - if people limit spending and save most of their money, small businesses will go broke and people will lose jobs, this could snowball and the country will go into recession - just like some countries during the GFC. It's better for the govt to spend money and go into deficit than for individuals to lose jobs and their families to suffer, etc.

Look at it this way, during the Global Financial Crisis:

The govt spends billions to prevent a recession, the budget goes into deficit and the Opposition will blame them for doing a bad job and wasting money;
or
The govt doesn't spend money, the country gets hammered by the GFC and companies go bankrupt and the Opposition will accuse the gov't of doing a bad job and not protecting people's jobs.

also see:
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/interne...ts_feb2009.htm
http://www.familyassist.gov.au/payme...ts/baby-bonus/
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/n...0203-7w9g.html

Or the House Insulation Scheme, where the insulation product used was so bad, that it caused house fires. Then you have the "Green Jobs'' program.

It wasn't the materials that was causing fires (and some accidents and deaths). The problem was that most of the installation companies were hiring untrained installers. They saw a chance to make a quick buck so they just jumped on it without screening or training the right people. You couldn't just start using nail guns in a roof cavity where electrical wires are and not risk getting electrocuted or start fires.

One of it's great legacies, is a ocean wave power generation system which sits abandoned and rusting off a Port Kembela Beach. But the Labour Govt has given this group even more money.

The Port Kembla wave generator was just a prototype:

...Port Kembla was the site of Oceanlinx's most recent wave energy converter design – the Mk3 Pre-Commercial. The Mk3 Pre-Commercial, or Mk3PC for short, was a demonstration scale device that is identifiably similar to the fully commercial blueWAVE design, but was designed to be limited in its life, operations, and scale to suit both the environment at Port Kembla and its purpose as a demonstration of the technology.

...The MK3PC served the very important and specific function of verifying the performance of the Oceanlinx blueWAVE product in open ocean conditions, as well as its ability to provide acceptable grid-quality power to an established electricity retailer. The MK3PC immediately proved successful in achieving these aims, and validated the ability of the full scale blueWAVE design to be rated at 2.5 MW.

Results from the one-third scale model of the Oceanlinx floating wave energy technology, dubbed the MK3PC, have exceeded expectations in regard to performance. The unit was deployed for three months, from February to May, 2010, and operated successfully during that time as one of the world’s first grid-connected generators of electricity from ocean waves.[citation needed] Then it broke free from its mooring in a storm and crashed into the breakwater/sank.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanlinx#Past_Projects
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-1...nerator/829282

People in Australia can't wait for the next Federal election to throw the Labour Party and it's Green allies out of power.

The Labor govt will probably not survive this coming election but the Greens will probably increase in numbers.

I'm not a fan of either Gillard or Abbott. One is a backstabber who only cares about saving her skin, the other one is only using slogans to attack the govt but doesn't even provide alternative policies - I prefer Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull

[Bleifuss]

.............................
The Labor govt will probably not survive this coming election but the Greens will probably increase in numbers.

I'm not a fan of either Gillard or Abbott. One is a backstabber who only cares about saving her skin, the other one is only using slogans to attack the govt but doesn't even provide alternative policies - I prefer Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull

That is exactly right .

I think the cuts aren't too bad , no immediate need for the tanks and the Hercs are more than replaced by the C`-17s.

[Reichswehr]

Yes some of the Hercs are getting old and they have just bought a number of C-17s.



The Labor Govt wants a surplus because they unwittingly made a promise to have a surplus as soon as possible and Defence's budget has always been the easiest to cut without political ramifications (unless we get invaded in the near future). The budget deficit is something that the Opposition has been using as ammo for some time (and is working and this govt is afraid), it has nothing to do with the Unions. There are Australian economists who are stating that it's OK to have a deficit and not to rush for a surplus - Australia after all has one of the smallest deficits in the developed/western world, one of the biggest economies in the world and it's economy continues to grow. There's some facts and figures here:
http://www.economywatch.com/world_ec...lia/?page=full



The Baby Bonus was introduced by the Howard Govt to help raise kids. There was also a one-off Household Stimulus Package in 2009 (under Labor) for "some Centrelink customers, including families, students and farmers". The govt encouraged people to continue spending (eg. economic stimulus package) during the GFC to avert a recession - if people limit spending and save most of their money, small businesses will go broke and people will lose jobs, this could snowball and the country will go into recession - just like some countries during the GFC. It's better for the govt to spend money and go into deficit than for individuals to lose jobs and their families to suffer, etc.

Look at it this way, during the Global Financial Crisis:

The govt spends billions to prevent a recession, the budget goes into deficit and the Opposition will blame them for doing a bad job and wasting money;
or
The govt doesn't spend money, the country gets hammered by the GFC and companies go bankrupt and the Opposition will accuse the gov't of doing a bad job and not protecting people's jobs.

also see:
http://www.centrelink.gov.au/interne...ts_feb2009.htm
http://www.familyassist.gov.au/payme...ts/baby-bonus/
http://www.watoday.com.au/national/n...0203-7w9g.html



It wasn't the materials that was causing fires (and some accidents and deaths). The problem was that most of the installation companies were hiring untrained installers. They saw a chance to make a quick buck so they just jumped on it without screening or training the right people. You couldn't just start using nail guns in a roof cavity where electrical wires are and not risk getting electrocuted or start fires.



The Port Kembla wave generator was just a prototype:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oceanlinx#Past_Projects
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-05-1...nerator/829282


The Labor govt will probably not survive this coming election but the Greens will probably increase in numbers.

I'm not a fan of either Gillard or Abbott. One is a backstabber who only cares about saving her skin, the other one is only using slogans to attack the govt but doesn't even provide alternative policies - I prefer Rudd or Malcolm Turnbull

Are you on the ALP's payroll? And Malcolm Turnbull should be in the Labour Party.

[grendel]

Those in the ALP don't know how to spruik their policies - and they shot their foot by putting a cap on govt advertising

It's just a matter of time before the two major parties are as irrelevant as the Democrats. Turnbull is going to be the first Australian President

[Reichswehr]

So you are on the ALP's payroll. And a Republican as well, and Turnbull is a blowhard.

So are you going to sell the Carbon Tax to me as well??

[DasVivo]

If memory serves me correctly, instead of the Carbon Tax, Tony Abbott intended to fight climate change via a Direct Action Plan which would install Solar Panels, Trees etc.. This DAP was a less ambitious plan and would reduce Emissions by 5% by 2020
The Carbon Tax/Price has a cost of $23 there abouts per Tonne for the top 500 Companies for 3Years before becoming an Emission Trading Scheme which would be basically a market based thing (no longer a fixed Tax), while Tony Abbotts DAP would come to roughly $400 per Tonne in simple costs (whom foots the bill entirely is not what I remember)....

The idea that the Carbon Tax is just a Labor imposed burden on Australia I think loses sight of what the opposition may have possibly tried to implement in its place...
On the other side of things though, Labor increased Tax Free threshhold I think from 6000 up to 18000 per Year, so you could argue that was just a quick vote grab there and is another loss of possible Government Money...


As for the issue at hand....

I think there is some truth that Australia does not have an immediate need for the Abrams in full strength so perhaps some costs can be cut there
The SPG Program though, was there actually a confirmed winner on that? I cannot remember...
In the end though some of these Cost Cuts while maybe some of think of them as not needed now... Could have bad consequences further down the track so put simply, what is needed now is never entirely certain....

If I am correct though certain pieces of Equipment certainly could have been kept going far longer (and not unsafely) but the Australian government usually always seems to blunder the decisions anyway
So it certainly makes me wonder about the C-130 cuts

[Zorro C9]

I'm sure we'll take those H models for parts.

[CatpainSlackbladder]

5.5 billion is a shit load to cut. This fucking sucks.

Hold on, didn't I read somewhere today you guys were one of the few countries to run a surplus? What gives?

[Sandgroper]

Hold on, didn't I read somewhere today you guys were one of the few countries to run a surplus? What gives?

There's only a surplus because of the budget cuts

[grendel]

So you are on the ALP's payroll. And a Republican as well, and Turnbull is a blowhard.

So are you going to sell the Carbon Tax to me as well??

Do you work for the Liberals? I was just presenting facts

I don't work for Labor, or any political parties - I didn't even vote Labor (or Liberal or the Greens) in the last elections.

Just like the GST once was, the impact of the Carbon Tax remains to be seen.

Carbon Tax or no Carbon Tax, there needs to be more funding from the Govt for renewable energy companies. Fossil fuels will eventually run out and the price of oil is controlled by a few Sheiks in the Middle East. It's the future, other countries are going renewable. There was an Australian wind power generating company that had to go to the Chinese because the Australian govt wouldn't provide the funds. The technology and jobs associated with energy generation developed by Australian companies needs to remain here.

Let's not derail this thread.