The Federal Government says our plan to secure Australia’s recovery will create more jobs, rebuild our economy, and set the country up for the future. Here are the highlights of this year’s budget.
NRI Affairs News Desk
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“Since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Morrison Government has provided $291 billion in direct economic support to keep businesses in business and Australians in jobs,” said a post-budget statement by the treasurer.
“Under our plan, the unemployment rate is forecast to fall below 5 per cent by late 2022 while the economy is forecast to grow by 5¼ per cent in 2021 and 2¾ per cent in 2022, having outperformed every major advanced economy in 2020,” reads the statement.
Here are the highlights of the Budget:
As part of the 2021-22 Budget, the Government is:
• Providing tax relief for more than 10 million hard-working Australians, to put more money in their pockets to spend in small businesses across the country helping to create jobs
• Incentivising business to invest, creating more economic activity and more jobs
• Investing in skills and training to fill skills shortages and to provide Australians with the skills they need to get a job
• Investing in more infrastructure to boost the nation’s productivity and to create more jobs
• Backing our manufacturing sector to diversify our economy and to create more jobs
• Boosting workforce participation by making child care more affordable
Tax relief
The Budget provides an additional tax cut to more than 10 million low and middle-income earners.
It will see low- and middle-income earners benefit by up to $1,080 for individuals or $2,160 for couples.
The Government will extend temporary full expensing and the loss carry-back measure announced in last year’s Budget for another year.
This will allow more than 99 per cent of businesses employing 11.5 million Australians to deduct the total cost of eligible depreciable assets of any value in the year they are installed until 30 June 2023.
It will also allow companies with turnover up to $5 billion to offset losses for the 2019-20, 2020-21, 2021-22 and now 2022-23 income years against previously taxed profits from 2018-19 or subsequent years to generate a refund.
Skills and training
The Government doubles its commitment to the JobTrainer Fund to support a different 163,000 new training places to upskill job seekers and meet skills shortages.
The Budget also funds more than 170,000 new apprenticeships and traineeships, 5,000 higher education short courses and 2,700 places in indigenous girls academies to help them finish school and get a job.
We will also accelerate digital skills training for job seekers with low reading, writing, maths and computer skills.
Women will also benefit from STEM scholarships and programs to help them to break into non‑traditional trades.
Infrastructure
The 2021-22 Budget provides $15.2 billion in additional infrastructure commitments, which is proposed to support an additional 30,000 jobs across the lives of those projects, including:
• $2.6 billion for the North-South Corridor in South Australia
• $2 billion for the Great Western Highway in New South Wales
• $2 billion initial investment for a new Melbourne Intermodal Terminal in Victoria
• $400 million for Bruce Highway Additional Funding in Queensland
• $379 million for METRONET in Western Australia
• $150 million for highway upgrades in the Northern Territory
• $132.5 million for Canberra Light Rail – Stage 2A in the Australian Capital Territory and
• $113.4 million for the Midland Highway Upgrades in Tasmania.
These commitments also include $1 billion for road safety upgrades and a further $1 billion for community infrastructure.
Building our capability
The 2021-22 Budget has offered a new ‘patent box’ starting on 1 July 2022.
Under the patent box, income earned from new patents that have been developed in Australia will be taxed at a concessional rate of 17 per cent.
The patent box will apply to the medical and biotech sectors, and we will consult on expanding it to the clean energy sector.
The 2021-22 Budget also invests in measures to help small businesses and farmers expand and diversify their export markets with an additional $87.7 million in funding for the Agri-Business Expansion Initiative.
To ensure our industries remain competitive, the 2021-22 Budget also makes critical investments to deliver more affordable and reliable energy.
“This includes helping unlock Australia’s vast gas reserves in the North Bowen and Galilee Basins and investing in hydrogen-ready gas plants,” said the treasurer
“To further shore up our fuel security, the Budget helps local refineries to keep operating in Australia.”
Child care
The Government is making an additional $1.7 billion investment in child care.
The investment will add up to 300,000 hours of work per week, allowing the equivalent of around 40,000 individuals to work an extra day per week and boost the level of GDP by up to $1.5 billion per year.
The changes target low- and middle-income earners, with around half the families set to benefit from having a household income under $130,000.
The Government will:
• Increase the child care subsidies available to families with more than one child aged five and under in child care, benefitting around 250,000 families
• Remove the $10,560 cap on the Child Care Subsidy, benefitting around 18,000 families
For those families with more than one child aged five and under in childcare, the level of subsidy received will increase by 30 percentage points to a maximum subsidy of 95 per cent for their second and subsequent children.
