Supporting the recovery

Overview

The main themes of Tuesday’s budget was job creation and continued support of economic growth – with an overall goal of reaching an unemployment rate of below 5%.

The Government plans to do this via a raft of infrastructure, business and individual spending packages, along with targeted spending on some specific demographics such as aged care, disability and women.

Funding has been provided for the aged care industry to start the management of matters arising from the Royal Commission. Of the almost $18 billion earmarked for aged care, a large proportion is expected to be spent on the workforce, including the number of aged care workers and increased training and support.

The NDIS has been additionally funded to the tune of approximately $13 billion. There was also a Women’s Budget Statement allocating $3.4 billion to improve the economic security and status of women in Australia.  There will also be significant funds directed to mental health.

The level of spending announced is expected to result in Australia staying in deficit for at least the next 5 years, with net debt approaching $1 trillion.

Importantly, it is expected that the international borders will remain closed until mid-2022, an assumption which underpins the estimates.  Other assumptions made in the budget estimates are widely thought to be conservative which may result in better than expected numbers in the future.

It is widely anticipated this will be the last budget before the next Federal election which puts some of the announced spending into context.  Many of the measures announced will not come into effect until after 1 July 2022 or 1 July 2023 – under the administration of the next government.

Continue Reading

Significant changes from Fair Work Australia came into effect from 27^th March 2021 in relation to casual employment which may impact your business.

The changes have been brought in to further clarify the term “casual” and to help protect both employees and employers. These changes were introduced due to a spark in recent cases where employers were left exposed in relation to the definition/entitlements for casual employees. Please click here for a detailed summary on the changes.

What you need to do will depend on the size of your business.  Following is a brief summary of the changes:

Continue Reading

$4 billion dollar stimulus spend and a focus to create and save jobs

On Tuesday 10 November, the Treasurer of South Australia, Rob Lucas, handed down the 2020-21 SA State Budget.  As expected, the focus of the budget is targeted spending to create and save jobs.  There has been a record spend announced on infrastructure of $16.7 billion along with a $4 billion stimulus spend.  Spending in health, SA Police, education and training, tourism and hospitality and responses to COVID-19 and the bushfire recovery has also been announced.

The budget deficit for last year was $1.49 billion. This year it will increase to $2.59 billion and $1.42 billion next year.  The State Government is hoping to get back to into surplus in 2023-24 financial year.  However, even though the debt will increase significantly, interest costs will be less than previous estimates due to record low interest rates.

For South Australian businesses, announcements were made with regards to payroll tax, Small Business Grants and land tax relief.

Continue Reading

Since the Australian economy was hit by the impact of Covid-19 in March, relief for businesses has been provided in many different forms, not just the JobKeeper program.

This relief included specific state based measures in the way of payroll tax waivers and deferrals, land tax relief and cash grants (now closed).  The Federal government also announced other relief measures including temporary changes to insolvency laws and the National Cabinet Mandatory Code of Conduct – SME Commercial Leasing Principles During COVID-19.

The timing and expiration of many of these measures were linked to the timing of the JobKeeper program.  Once JobKeeper was extended, many of these relief measures were also extended but not in a uniform way.

See below for further detail.

Continue Reading

The message was clear from the Federal Government. They want taxpayers to spend and they want that spending to create jobs.  Underlying that, they are hoping the tax cuts, business investment breaks and cash payments will create the confidence required to bring the spending.

There were a number of measures announced in the Federal Budget – following is a summary of the measures that will impact individuals and businesses.

Continue Reading