Quick look over there it's Elvis!

Well done to Mr. Rudd and Mr. Swan on producing an election year budget disguised as a budget designed by fiscal conservatives. Those that think the stage managed show that is the federal Labor party has produced a sensible budget, designed as a plan for recovery, a plan to return to surplus, a budget that wasn't designed with the sole intention of laying the foundations to paint themselves as economically trustworthy, fiscal geniuses, should keep their heads buried in the sand so I can kick them up the backside!

Recently Mr. Rudd scrapped the plan to build 260 child care centres (when originally announced his plan got him plenty of positive press), but wait for it here is the best bit, this is actually genius. Our cities are in need of new child care centres in our population dense areas, canceling this plan, will lead to an increase in cost as demand is not met, under this budget Mr. Swan has then increased the cost of child care further by reducing the child care rebate. The effect of this double increase will cause thousands of families to be priced out of child care, it will lead to the cost vs. benefit of mothers/fathers returning to work tipping in the way of cost, which will reduce the amount of people looking for work, which reduces unemployment. Boom! Pure genius, it will reduce demand on child care and reduce unemployment.

Without diving deep into the numbers breakdown, Mr. Swan has introduced personal income tax cuts, YAY WE LOVE TAX CUTS, but are we really getting tax cuts? The budget papers show that revenue on income tax is forecast to rise from $120 billion this year to $174 billion in four years time, this is mainly due to the growth rate causing bracket creep, and no adjustment to the brackets other than the tax free threshold increase (which will be eaten by bracket creep)

There has been $1billion removed from our foreign aid budget, yet we are still committed to our target of 0.5% of national income committed to foreign aid/development by 2015/16. If we hit that target, the projected budget surplus won't be occurring.

The most interesting part of this budget is the figure which is not there at all. The $42billion National Broadband Network is not in the budget. Mr. Swan said in his speech last night "The Government has made appropriate provision in the Budget for the roll-out of NBN, subject to a final response to the implementation study". In my books that is false accounting, they plan on spending $42billion, but as they see it as an income producing investment, they have left it out of the books. But hold on a second, what happens if the $42billion blows out, what happens if the return on investment targets are not met? what if? what if?

THERE WILL BE NO BUDGET SURPLUS, saying so is misleading, in fact it is fraudulent! Mr. Swan and Mr. Rudd stop marketing yourselves as something you are not, you are not brilliant economic managers, you are not fiscal conservatives. You lie, you deceive, you are brilliant at using smoke and mirrors!