Use the TT NEWS Dropdown (top nav bar) for breaking news/comment on tonight’s Budget. And, if the urge takes you, unleash in Comments …
• Andrew Wilkie: It’s disappointing “This budget is not good for Tasmania in particular. An urgently needed enhancement of the Bass Strait Freight Equalisation Scheme has not been delivered. Some of the 165 staff being shed by CSIRO nationally will come from Tasmania. And of course there is no mention of funding for the Hobart Northern Suburbs Light Rail because the State Government couldn’t get its act together and get its submission in on time.
• Christine Milne: A Weaker, Dumber, Meaner, Australia 2013 Budget Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said this is demonstrated by slashing funding to universities and renewable energy, failing to support single parents and the unemployed and delaying, for the second time, our commitment to increase foreign aid to 0.5 per cent of GNI until 2017. “All of this could have been avoided if Labor had the backbone to stand up to the big mining companies and abolish fossil fuel subsidies and fix the mining tax. This year the mining tax collected a shocking $200 million, down from the promised $3 billion,” Senator Milne said.
• Friends of the ABC: Budget funding increase for ABC “The concentration of Australia’s commercial media ownership into so few hands has become a danger to our democracy. Governments must do more to ensure the public broadcaster can thrive as a vital source of culture, independent information and ideas,” said Glenys Stradijot.
• CPSU: CPSU Tasmania welcomes budget announcement “Overall we are pleased that the integrity of the public service is maintained and it’s importance realised. This flies in the face of the coalition’s stated target of reducing the public sector by 20,000 jobs which would equate to 500 Tasmanian jobs disappearing,” Mr Blake said.
• Larissa Waters: Environment looses out in Budget with mining companies the big winners
• Kim Booth: Gambling research centre is no substitute for action on pokies
• Tim Morris: Federal Budget confirms: it’s all about state tax reform
• Rosalie Woodruff: Over $10 billion for big mining companies ahead of the people of Franklin
• Christine Milne: Disappointing Federal Budget Fails Tasmania
• Robin Halton, in Comments: #7 mike seabrook, dont be crazy its the last thing Hobart deserves more unsightly clutter around our waterfront, the CSIRO carpark in question doubles for public use out of hours and weekends as effectively a part time public space! The gross mass of new UTAS Marine Studies building (PW2 wharf shed) now completly overwhelms the site and spoils the general aesthetics of a project that could have allowed for improvements for open areas at the same time. What remains around the waterfront deserves to be some form of open space. Its a pity the Hobart City Council cannot establish a cooperative approach, obtain Federal funding and establish a walkway/cyclepath from the CSIRO car park around the Battery Point foreshore to Marieville Espl.
• Cosmos: Tasmanians with disability welcome funding for NDIS
