Budget Highlights
- Introducing a Temporary Budget Repair Levy on incomes over $180,000 for the three years from 2014‑15.
- Requiring young people to be earning, learning or participating in Work for the Dole
- Tightening the eligibility for Family Tax Benefit Part B (FTB-B). Low income single parents will be assisted with a new allowance of $750 per annum for each child aged 6 to 12.
- Indexing pensions to the CPI, rather than wages, from September 2017.
- Continuing the move by the former Government to increase the age pension age to 67 by 1 July 2023, by further increasing the Age Pension age to 70 by 1 July 2035.
- Indexation of many payments and programmes will be temporarily paused, including: eligibility thresholds for Family Tax Benefit and Newstart; thresholds for the Medicare Levy Surcharge, Private Health Insurance Rebate and most Medicare Benefits Schedule fees; Official Development Assistance funding; Local Government Financial Assistance Grants; and 112 government grant programmes.
- Making the States more accountable for spending and delivery of services by reducing the growth in public hospital and education funding and reducing some Commonwealth payments.
- Establishing a sustainable source of future productivity-enhancing road funding through the reintroduction of indexation of fuel excise from 1 August 2014.