Jennifer interviews Mark Zirnsak from the Tax Justice Network Australia, about the federal budget just handed down.     

While there are some positives, such as extra refugee visas for Afghan people, and funding for the ATO to target multinationals avoiding tax, in the main it is a regressive budget.     

Tax breaks for the wealthy will be continued well into the future, despite some tax offsets for low and middle income earners in the short term.

The one-off payment of $250 for people on certain Centrelink payments will do little to help those on JobSeeker and Youth Allowance, who need an additional $483 per week just to survive.   

Beyond short term pre-election cash splashes, or even fiscal (low spending) conservatism, budgets need to be aligned with our values and the sort of society and environment we want to work toward.   

NB: Mark refers to 'doughnut economics', which we talked about in a previous program:

An economy for humans and for the planet (June 2019)

We also talked about the problem of economic growth in past programs:

Economic growth: when impotent daydreams meet noxious nightmares (August 2019)

Exploring de-growth (September 2019)