Politics – John Humphreys

Thoughts on the Israel-Iran war

It looks like the Israel-Iran war may be over. I hope that is the case. War is hell for the people, expensive for countries, and tend to create a ripple of unintended consequences that can be hard to unwind. If Trump has managed to bring that war to a permanent end, then he deserves credit… and perhaps a Nobel Peace Prize.

The war hawks and most political leaders have celebrated this mini-war, and some have mocked the anti-war side as being naïve appeasers, disloyal traitors, alarmist fearmongers, or antisemitic grifters. As one of those “naïve peaceniks”, please allow me to respond.

NSW budget 2024/25

_{Published in The Spectator Online on 21 June 2024 under the title “NSW’s smoke and mirror budget“.}

The NSW budget continued the nationwide theme of unimaginative big-spending budgets with large deficits. The economic story is not unique, but the budget does stand out for one reason – the masterful display of Machiavellian narrative control.

QLD budget 2024/25

_{Published in The Spectator Online on 15 June 2024 under the title “Queensland’s shock and awe Budget” and reported on by Epoch Times on 18 June 2024 under the title “$10.8 Billion in Debt: Analyst Explains How the State Election Has Affected the Queensland Budget“.}

The Queensland Budget released this Tuesday marks the beginning of the 2024 state election campaign.

The nine-year-old QLD Labor government is behind in the polls, and are attempting to buy back some support with $1,000 handouts to each household (for electricity), $200 for each child (for sport), $0.50 tickets on public transport, 20 per cent discount on car registration fees, and plenty more.

Australian budget 2024/25

_{Published in The Spectator Online on 18 May 2024 under the title “A budget about (nearly) nothing“, and discussed in my interview with Alexandra Marshall on ADH TV Friday news starting at the 29 minute mark.}

The Australian Federal Budget gave us a couple of big headlines, but most of them were fake news.

The Treasurer talked up the importance of the stage 3 tax cuts coming in July this year, but those tax cuts are old news – originally proposed over five years ago and amended earlier this year. These tax cuts are a good first step, but Australia desperately needs further rounds of income tax cuts, and the government had nothing new to say.

The second big headline was the budget surplus, but that surplus is for the last financial year. It is good that the previous budget was in surplus, and people can learn about that on the History Channel, but the 2024-25 budget year has a deficit of over $28 billion.

Victorian budget 2024/25

_{Published in The Spectator Online on 11 May 2024 under the title “Victorian budget blues“.}

The best thing that can be said about the 2024 Victorian Budget is that it’s not as bad as recent years, but that is damning with faint praise.

The sad truth is that the government continues to spend money that it doesn’t have, run up large debt and deficits, slug the public with ever-higher taxes, and avoid all difficult decisions.