By Peter Annear
A faint sigh of relief conditioned by continued anxiety about the future best sums up the response of welfare and environmental organisation to the 1992 budget. The temporary retreat from economic rationalism into mild Keynesian pump priming has slightly lowered the pain threshold in some areas, but overall the budget did little to overcome the jobs problem, support those in need or protect the environment from further devastation.
Brotherhood of St Laurence director Michael Challen welcomed the budget's job creation measures as a means of "tackling the serious economic and social problems created by present levels of unemployment", but said it was essential that the government's programs are developed and implemented quickly.
One concern was the failure to provide immediate assistance to single unemployed people. There was a growing and unfair gap between payments to single unemployment beneficiaries and single pensioners, which would widen.
The environmental aspects of the budget were "mixed" according to the director of the World Wide Fund for Nature . The increase in the foreign aid budget was welcome, said John Sherlock, but was short of the Earth Summit target of achieving 0.7% of GNP by the year 2000.
Reduction in the amount allocated to the Endangered Species Program from last year was a "retrograde step" at a time when Australia's species are facing increasing threats.
"A major disappointment is the failure ... to clearly identify funding for the implementation of the ecologically sustainable development process recommendations. This, coupled with the failure to flag expenditure on initiatives arising out of the Earth Summit, reveals a failure to anticipate action on these pressing issues", said Sherlock.
Noting the 14% increase in budget allocations to the environment portfolio, the Australian Conservation Foundation was concerned the budget for the environment was still minimal and was marginal to the big picture and economic planning, attracting only 0.15% of the total budget.
The commitment to integrating environment and economic imperatives in a coordinated way appeared to have been dropped, and many of the programs labelled "ecologically sustainable development", while welcome, appear to be simply old initiatives in new clothes.
Former Democrat, Senator Janet Powell said the budget was in many ways realistic in the circumstances, providing increased spending in some needed areas. Powell said the current bad economic situation "was y the adherence over the past decade by both major parties to the heartless doctrine of economic rationalism".
The difference between the major parties "is only a matter of degree. The Liberals will simply be much worse the Labor." Independents could fill the role of initiating real action to address problems that the major parties are unwilling to do. "Real change will be achieved by breaking up the two-party monopoly", she said.
Independent Victorian parliamentarian Phil Cleary said the decision to allocate more than $14 million to job creation in certain of Melbourne's northern suburbs was a direct result of the Wills by-election, which Cleary recently won.
"The treasurer's statement that the budget was fundamentally about jobs now and more jobs in the years ahead does no more than echo what the people of Wills said should be the aim of government when they ... voted independent on April 11."
Cleary welcomed the increased budget spending but expressed doubts about the budget's ability to stimulate economic recovery.
"In the absence of an industry policy designed to foster a strong manufacturing base, unemployment in electorates such as Wills will decrease only marginally. Unfortunately, life would be worse under the coalition."
The government had provided too little too late according to Democrat leader John Coulter. Coulter accused the government of not funding its massive job creation effort and of timing social security benefits and proposed taxes with an eye on elections next year.
The Democrats would have paid for the creation of jobs in local government areas with a 1.25% levy on the employed. The lack of commitment to ecologically sustainable development and the failure to tackle overall health reform were among the Democrats' concerns.
"Economic rationalism, while reeling, is still ruling", said Coulter.