I’ve just watched the Budget speech, and seen the immediate wrapups, but haven’t yet had time to read the Budget Papers (late night ahead, as I have to go on Life Matters tomorrow to discuss it). Here’s my instant reaction in three categories

h5. The Good

* Howard’s attempt to reinstate the cultural dominance of the single-income family has been dumped, with lots of assistance for families following the model preferred by most Australian households with dependent children, that if one full-time and one part-time job.

* The baby bonus has been dumped, and Labor’s idea for a replacement stolen.

h5. The Bad

* Nothing much for education, and nothing at all for health. Costello spent the entire health section of the speech on two initiatives that would barely get coverage if they were issued as a press release by the Minister for Health, one on equipment costs for people managing diabetes and the other on a cochlear implant for which there are currently 130 people on the waiting list. Of course, if you’re one of the people affected, this will be welcome use, but for the other 19.9 million of us, there’s nothing here. In particular, the obviously unsatisfactory measures taken so far to arrest the decline of Medicare were touted as if they were the answer to the problem

* Regressive changes to the tax scales, with significant benefits for those on high incomes and nothing for anyone below $50 000. The large segment of the population on below-average incomes, but without dependent children or ineligible for family tax benefit gets nothing at all from the Budget except another round of bracket creep.

h5. The Ugly

* Resort to vote-buying lump-sum handouts on a scale I can’t previously recall. Obviously this is a reaction to last year’s “sandwich and milkshake”, but it’s very dangerous stuff. The Fistful of Dollars rides again.

* The announcement in the 2004-05 Budget of a raid on the 2003-04 Budget, to finance the first instalment of the handouts mentioned above. As far as I know, this is absolutely unprecedented. Since the amount raided is almost exactly equal to the projected surplus for 2004-05, it would be more accurate to describe the Budget as being in balance rather than in surplus.