In presenting the state budget on May 6, Premier John Brumby announced that "doing business in Victoria will become even easier". The ALP government's pro-corporate measures will cut almost $1.5 billion from taxes and costs for the big end of town.
There will be cuts of $422 million to stamp duty, $490 million to land tax and $170 million to payroll tax. Some $352 million will be cut from Work Cover premiums, which now sit at an historic low of 1.4% of employers' payrolls.
Treasurer John Lenders boasted that in the "next financial year Victoria's businesses will pay the lowest Work Cover premiums in the state's history". Not surprisingly, the Victorian Employers' Chamber of Commerce and Industry applauded the government's corporate welfare policy.
A record $1.75 billion has been allocated to the police, with an extra 350 cops to underscore the law-and-order push. Despite Victoria's crime rate having dropped by 23.5% since 1999, $657 million has been designated for "community protection", of which $591 million is earmarked for a 350-bed upgrade at the Ararat Prison site and an additional 244 prison beds across the system.
Hugh de Kretsner, executive officer of the Victorian Federation of Community Legal Centres, told Green Left Weekly that the government should have focused on "tackling the causes of crime" if it was serious about reducing it.
"We need far greater resources devoted to addressing disadvantage and, in particular, mental health, drug addiction, unemployment and housing", he said. "Only $4.7 million was earmarked for early intervention and prevention of problem drinking compared with $591 million for more prisons."
The budget also shows up Brumby's head-in-the-sand approach to the problem of climate change. Having already committed to the unsustainable Wonthaggi desalination plant and the northern pipeline, which will steal water from the drought-stricken Goulburn-Murray irrigation area, the government allocated $110 million towards a large-scale "clean coal" (or carbon capture and storage) demonstration program.
Cam Walker from Friends of the Earth welcomed some of the smaller environmental initiatives, but he told GLW that an important opportunity to build up a job-rich and urgently needed renewable energy-intensive industry had been lost.
"It is disappointing that $117 million will go towards the construction of the highly unpopular desalination plant in Wonthaggi, even though the community group Your Water Your Say has provided robust research that shows the proposed plant to be environmentally unsustainable and, frankly, not needed."
While public transport will receive some infrastructure upgrades, the government is refusing to increase rolling stock and expand the system to meet the burgeoning demand and make the essential big cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
Of an overall transport budget of $1.8 billion, approximately half has been allocated to roads: $794 million will go into the public transport network, rail freight and port projects and $769.7 million is designated for roads, perpetuating an unsustainable dependency on motor vehicles.
A $1 billion social justice package, "Fairer Victoria", for disability services and "at risk" groups, such as Aborigines and new migrants, is Brumby's effort to sugar-coat his pro-business budget. However, this is not enough to alleviate the state's chronic underfunding of health, education and housing.
Doug Travis, president of the Victorian branch of the Australian Medical Association, commented in the May 7 Melbourne Age that the budget missed increasing the capacity of hospitals and that Victoria is increasingly falling behind in meeting the demand for beds.
With large-scale homelessness, thousands of people on public housing waiting lists for up to 10 years, plus a surge in rents, the $86 million allocated for housing infrastructure is completely inadequate.
Cath Smith, from the Victorian Council of Social Services, criticised the government for "hoarding money and boosting its surplus" while workers face mounting cost-of-living pressures. VCOSS had hoped the budget would deliver "long-term investment in social and economic infrastructure to take pressure off struggling households".
Meanwhile, the state government continues to rely heavily on its $1.6 billion take from the gaming industry, which gouges money from desperate people hoping to change their luck.