We’re a day late, four MPs have just resigned, our democracy is crumbling, let’s do drunk budget. We watched it so you don’t have to. Prepare for some stream of consciousness drunk takes.
Drinking rules! Drink every time they say:
- Working class, everyday Australians
- Growth
- Strong economy
- Talk shit about Labor despite being in power for five years
- Economic growth
- Leigh Sales
- Fiscal responsibility
- Living within our means
Finish your drink if they say
- Lifters not leaners
- Trickle down
- Youth
- John Howard (at Cormac’s insistence)
We are watching the ABC coverage because Leigh Sales is a god.
Drink to Leigh Sales!
LS: Final budget before election time so it’s gonna be good, know there is some income tax.
Leigh calls them the fuck out for blaming Labor for the deficit
Tyler keeps adding DUN DUN Law and Order noises. It’s thrilling.
We’re in Parliament now.
CORMAC: call that fucking CLERK lets go!
PARLIAMENT IS BORING. WHY ARE THERE SO MANY WORDS.
Quick debate over who the treasurer is? It is Scomo.
SCOMO: starting strong with some scolding rhetorical questions.
Scomo, this isn’t our parents asking us what we’ve achieved please stop. He’s been to a public speaking class…
A woman just waved at the camera, this is her five minutes of fame, we will call her scarf lady!
SCOMO: STRONGER ECONOMY MORE JOBS LIVING WITHIN ITS MEANS. Australia is now pulling out of a really tough place. The GFC was bad. DRINKING.
TYLER: it was also 10 years ago and barely hit us mate.
SCOMO: GFC took 80 billion dollars from us. The government worked hard during this time. One million jobs were created, 1000 jobs a day in the last year.
ALL: That sounds fake.
We have paused to do math. 1,000,000/5 = 200,000 divided by 365 = 547 jobs/per day? Someone correct our math we are drunk.
SCOMO: businesses are responding to CONFIDENCE! TAX CUTS AND INVESTMENTS! INFRASTRUCTURE! Some export stuff is helping the farmers and the miners. We aren’t borrowing money for welfare.
SCOMO: AAA credit rating which is why we need to stick to the plan for the STRONGER ECONOMY.
TYLER: you can boil down this speech to the 2016 election ‘JOBS AND GROWTH’ wankery.
SCOMO: lots to gain but lots to lose. There are five THINGS WE MUST DO.
OH BOY WE HAVE ANOTHER 5 POINT PLAN
SCOMO: strong economy reduces cost pressures on households.
We have decided that counts as trickle down so we’re finishing our drinks because this won’t be funny if we don’t get very drunk.
SCOMO: ESSENTIAL SERVICES LIKE MEDICARE< HOSPITALS AND SCHOOLS. SECURE THE BORDERS.
Even the borders get a mention in the speech! How did we go from Medicare to borders that fast…
SCOMO: in 2017/18 we will reduce the deficit to a level that we haven’t seen since the HOWARD GOVERNMENT
THE HOWARD GOVERNMENT GOT A MENTION CORMAC HAS STRUCK GOLD. TEN YEARS OF NOT BEING A POLITICIAN WONT STOP HIM FROM GETTING A MENTION. WE ARE FINISHING OUR DRINKS FOR THE SECOND TIME IN one MINUTE!
SCOMO: numbers, numbers and “modest balance”
TYLER: that means “not a great surplus, but an ok surplus”
SCOMO: there will be an increase in surplus to reach our tax speed limit
CORMAC: I’ve decided to only scream instead of laugh because it takes less effort. What the fuck is a tax speedlimit?
TYLER: I think it means bracket creep?
Tyler is still saying intelligent things about what she thinks the tax speed limit is. If you know please tell us!
SCOMO: Responsible spending and tax. More restraining than anyone in 50 years.
CORMAC: what are we restraining?
TYLER: real expenditure
CORMAC: who was there 50 years ago?
Google: It was Harold Holt!
CORMAC: sounds kinky
SCOMO: forward estimates are under our speed limit. (more fucking speed limit) Higher taxes to chase higher spending is bad.
SCOMO: net debt will return to 3.8% of GDP by 2028/2029. There is less debt. Reducing income tax! Our plan has 3 parts.
CORMAC: I thought the plan had 5 parts?
CHARLOTTE: this is a new plan. THE PLAN HAS SUB PARTS
CORMAC: this is how the revolution starts… When there is poor signposting for a speech.
SCOMO: Protect from bracket creep. Working Australians pay lower taxes. REWARD FOR EFFORT.
CHARLOTTE: FINISH YOUR DRINKS
SCOMO: This is what can be responsibly afforded.
CHARLOTTE: there is a lot of tax, we pay a lot. I mean I don’t, but other people do.
SCOMO: *vomits numbers at us* More money. Tax relief. “Step 1…”
CORMAC: THIS IS THE THIRD STEP ONE WE’VE HAD, WHY IS THERE NO STEP 2.
SCOMO: “Step 1: tax relief for the kitchen table”
CORMAC: god Labor looks so bored
TYLER: not even scarf lady looks interested.
We miss Step Two.
SCOMO: STEP 3. SIMPLER TAX. We are abolishing the 37% tax bracket. This is really good for people earning $41,000 a year. This is affordable and funded. There are some numbers. “You don’t have to tax some people more to do good things for other people.”
CORMAC: nah fuck them, tax the rich.
SCOMO: taxing the rich weakens the economy and costs jobs. Stop super funds from signing YOUNG PEOPLE up to life insurance and sucking money from them.
Tyler is interrupting this budget for sound financial advice:
TYLER: if you have the right super now you will save a lot of money in the future. Check your super, make sure they don’t charge you for life insurance.
CORMAC: I reckon the solution to over population is to kill all the baby boomers but that’s just me.
Cormac is justifying his wanky beer choice (Little Dove, judge him in the comments). We aren’t buying it.
SCOMO: Pension. Pension pension pension. Retired income. Giving money to old people. Pension. THIS ONES FOR YOU LIBERAL VOTERS.
SCOMO: Self-employed pensioners will get a benefit. We will oppose unfair tax grabs on some people. This will stop frank’s dividends…
CHARLOTTE: whose dividends?
TYLER: franked dividends isn’t a person Charlotte.
SCOMO: parental income will do something to youth allowance. Energy security estimates that something will happen because we did a thing. This will be better. We will not introduce the 50% renewable energy target because it will increase power prices!
CHARLOTTE: and kill the world while doing so
TYLER: scarf lady is my spirit animal, every look she gives is just “ok?” The lady above scarf lady gives me strong real-estate agent vibes.
SCOMO: all energy sources should support themselves without subsidies. We will pressure them to give you a better deal.
TYLER: FUCK THE ENVIRONMENT
SCOMO: jobs. Jobs jobs. Something something jobs. Small businesses and international competition and some tax cuts. Also anti-phoenixing meausres.
CORMAC: “god I just…LOVE small businesses” *wipes tear from eye*
SCOMO: medical industry plan for more jobs.
CORMAC: you can talk about small businesses the same way you talk about small penises hey
CHARLOTTE: they are the backbone of our economy!
SCOMO: clinical drug trials. Plan for medical stuff. Australia will become a world leader in genomic research.
CHARLOTTE: weirdly specific.
SCOMO: lab coats and workers in factories. We are supporting public technology infrastructure. Money for BOM.
CHARLOTTE: BOM!!!
CORMAC: all I want is the NBN please give some decent fucking internet
SCOMO: something something
TYLER: trickle down research?
SCOMO: FARMERS. More funding to protect against pests and weeds and biosecurity. INFRASTRUCTURE. Infrastructure project, PERTH METRONET, infrastructure project!
CORMAC: goes on a NUMTOT rant. Tl;dr: too little too late.
SCOMO: infrastructure project in x, another one in y, one in z, you get the idea.
CORMAC: listing projects in electorates they are worried about
SCOMO: road project, road upgrades, STRONG ECONOMY. ACCOUNTABLE GOVERNMENT. Punishments for the banking sector. Businesses and households. Old people need dignity and choice.
TYLER: older people have been mentioned a lot and young people have been mentioned once
SCOMO: increase to mental health services in aged care services. Comabtting aged discrimination in the workforce. Support aged workers. Help people plan for a longer life. Fund projects on local sporting groups for older Australians. Needs based funding for schools. Schools will have some more money to help people succeed.
SCOMO: increasing the number of chaplains in schools with a specific anti-bullying focus.
CHARLOTTE: * SCREAMS *
CORMAC: * SCREAMS IN IRISH *
CHARLOTTE: BECAUSE QUEER CHILDREN AND CHILDREN FROM DIVERSE RELIGIOUS BACKGROUNDS HAVE GREAT RELATIONSHIPS WITH CHAPLAINS YOU FUCKS
Note: the captioning is shit and the ABC needs to up its game
SCOMO: national partnership agreement on early childhood something. PBS is guaranteed. MS, breast cancer, HIV. All the things.
SCOMO: Lifeline will get more money. Parents and infants will get more money for testing for diseases. Active and healthy living will get money for sports and stuff.
SCOMO: regions get more doctors and nurses and dentists. More money for royal flying doctors. Remote housing needs in the NT. Veteran-centric reform package. NDIS money will remain in place. The LNP will always be committed to STOPPING THE BOATS
CORMAC: dear god I didn’t realise that stopping the boats would get a mention. How are we still on that?
SCOMO: Stop the THREAT OF TERRORISM, PROTECT AUSTRALIA FROM THOSE WHO WANT TO HURT US. We will harden up security at airports, money for security at airports. More police and border force at airports. More money for cracking down on criminals with warrants by withholding welfares. Get aussies off welfare and into work. Less people are on welfare. Taking action on behalf of tax payers to crack down on welfare recipients.
CHARLOTTE: because fuck the poor
SCOMO: crack down on multinationals. Cracking down on tax loopholes made by KEVIN RUDD *DUN DUN*
CHARLOTTE: we have two minutes left, thank fuck it’s almost over.
TYLER: scarf lady is SO done
SCOMO: in the next few weeks I will release a discussion paper on how to make tech companies pay tax.
CORMAC: telling us about a paper he’ll reduce in a couple of weeks is like blue balling us. is this how he talks dirty?
CHARLOTTE: in a couple of weeks he might make you cum
SCOMO: businesses and tax payers are ripped off by those who think they are above paying tax. Outlaw cash payments above 10,000. This is bad for criminal gangs, terrorists and tax frauds.
CORMAC: do terrorists not pay tax?
SCOMO: we must stick to the plan and we can’t wreck the alternative. We have a plan for jobs and businesses, services and safety and government living WITHIN ITS MEANS.
We googled scarf lady, failed, reverse image searched it and got a stock photo of a senior citizen. Make of that what you will.
Student take-aways
- The budget is characterised by what is not in it. If you’re a young person who is not from an actively wealthy family this budget doesn’t really do anything for you.
- If you are like most students and rely on welfare – you’re fucked.
- If you are like most UWA students and rely on your parents to pay your way – you’ll get a nice tax reduction so well done you.
- Check your super!
- If you do science, good for you but please study genomics.
- Leigh sales nailed it when she said this budget is for people who vote for the liberals.
- FUCK CHAPLAINS – HIRE ACTUAL MENTAL HEALTH PROFESSIONALS TO WORK IN SCHOOLS
- Remember bracket creep only affects the middle class
- There are a lot of cuts that weren’t in this speech that you should look at.
- Leigh Sales is god
Charlotte Glance, Cormac Power & Tyler Reysenbach
Drunk Budgeters 2018