10 years to break the budget, 10 years to fix it

The budget has been marred by a decade of fiscal incompetence. Cleaning up the mess should be Tony Abbott's first point of order -- and the deficit levy is a step in the right direction.

The deficit levy, the one that seems to have become an accepted certainty in three days of leaking while remaining coyly unconfirmed, should become a permanent tax increase.

As I wrote last year (No crisis, but taxes still need to rise, December 18; Income tax has to go up, December 16), Australia’s tax revenue is too low for the level of government spending that’s locked in, largely as a result of the ageing of the population as well as the extra spending agreed for education and disability.

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Alan Kohler

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