Joe Hockey's axe falls hardest on health, education and welfare
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Version 0 of 1. In unveiling $1.1bn in savings in the mid-year financial update, the treasurer, Joe Hockey, said that “difficult decisions” had to be made to get the nation’s finances back to surplus. Spending cuts have fallen largely upon health, education and welfare spending, while the environment portfolio has also been significantly whittled down. Here are some of the programs axed or shrunk in the budget update. Education and training Spending has been cut, or redirected, from a range of education and training programs. Savings include axing the schoolkids bonus, which is associated with the mining tax, and scrapping an expansion of before and after-school care. The latter measure is a $450m scheme that is part of the building stronger communities fund, which would have provided funds for out-of-hours care for 345,000 children. The trade training centres program will be dismantled, with the $987m in savings used for the school funding agreements struck with Queensland, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Australian Research Council grants worth $103m have been cut, with ARC centres of research excellence suffering a $10m reduction in funding. The education investment fund will lose its regional priorities round, saving $187.5m over the next three years. However, there will be a total of $7.6m for a new Australia-Indonesia research centre. Health Cuts in health spending look set to fall heaviest upon western Sydney, with the Westmead hospital losing $100m over three years, including a loss to its Children’s Medical Research Institute. Meanwhile, St George hospital will lose out on $22m for planned upgrades. Multicultural grants The building multicultural communities program, launched by Labor to provide one-off grants to aid social cohesion, will be scrapped. Initially, $5m was allocated to the program for 2013-14. A total of $11m will be cut from the scheme, which will be discontinued from next year. Meanwhile, the $6.6m migrant communities employment fund has been cut, a move labelled as “mean-spirited and dumb” by Greens senator Richard Di Natale. Environmental Defenders Office The network of Environmental Defenders Offices, which represent community groups in environmental law, have been stripped of the $10m in funding promised over four years by the previous Labor government. The network will also lose the $100,000-per office income from the government, forcing branches in Western Australia, Northern Territory and north Queensland to consider closure. Energy efficiency opportunities program Set up under the John Howard government in 2006, the energy efficiency opportunities program makes it mandatory for larger businesses to improve their efficiency. The scheme will now terminate from July, as part of the carbon tax repeal. Energy Efficiency Council chief executive Rob Murray-Leach said the decision has left people in the industry “confused and very, very angry”. Caring for Country program The Caring for our Country initiative, which provides conservation projects with funds, has been stripped of $6.7m. The money will be used to fund the upcoming royal commission into the home insulation scheme. Low-carbon energy This financial year will see a $40m cut to the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. A further $256m over four years will be taken from the carbon capture and storage flagships program, while the low carbon communities scheme will be abolished. Indigenous legal aid Indigenous legal aid will lose $13.4m over the next four years. The National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, which will bear the brunt of the cuts, said that more Indigenous people, who are already 18 times more likely to go to prison than other Australians, will end up behind bars as a result of the decision. As well as the funding cut, the government is dissolving the position of co-ordinator general for remote Indigenous services. Our editors' picks for the day's top news and commentary delivered to your inbox each morning. |