Archive for May 8th, 2007

The Budget Draws Near

And Greens leader Bob Brown claims to have been handed full costings for the budget’s environment spending. He calls the amounts being spent “a massive let down” and “a slap in the face for Australians hoping to see big spending on environmental issues.”

The figures he claims to have been handed and subsequently released, if true, do indeed fit his descriptions, but I think he has been handed a dud…a bit of Liberal trickery to get him all hot under the collar and jumping up and down on the one spot shrieking about how horrible it all is, only to be made look like a fool when the spending is much higher later on in the night…naturally, if that is the case, the environment spending will get an awful lot more coverage than it would otherwise have received, thanks to Senator Brown’s angry noises.

Samuel

May 8th, 2007 at 06:30pm

A few budget predictions

Tonight is federal budget night, and I feel like making a few predictions. Unfortunately these days almost the entire budget is leaked by the government ahead of budget night (possibly so that the public actually know the budget announcement is coming), so my predicting ability is limited.

Tax cuts: Minor changes to income tax, most likely the changing of tax brackets by a few thousand dollars here and there.

Infrastructure: I’m expecting a big spending spree on water infrastructure, probably something to do with recycling storm water and pumping it in to the river system.

Education: Given that the university student unions are still whinging about the (fantastic in my view) move to voluntary student unionism, I believe the federal government will throw money at both tertiary education, and some of the services which may be suffering a bit, on the condition that no money goes towards union coffers. Personally I can’t understand why the universities don’t just do what CIT did and turn the “union membership fees” in to “union service fees”, nobody has to join, but the unions still get the money…perhaps CIT are just smarter than the universities.

There you go, my three predictions. I’m aiming for at least 66% accuracy here. Anybody care to add their own predictions?

Samuel

May 8th, 2007 at 12:28pm

Samuel’s Footy Tips: Results

My target of more than two correct NRL tips was well and truly exceeded, however my target of at least six in the AFL wasn’t. At least the overall percentage is now above 50%.

Weekly Results
NRL Round 8: 5/8 (62.50%)
AFL Round 6: 5/8 (62.50%)

Total Scores
NRL: 29/62 (46.77%)
AFL: 27/48 (56.25%)
Total: 56/110 (50.91%)

Samuel

May 8th, 2007 at 12:07pm

Sydney Photos

I don’t really have time to go in to the story behind the delay right now, but the revised schedule for the Sydney photos is as follows:

Monday AM: Tonight or early tomorrow morning
Monday PM: Tomorrow
Tuesday AM: Thursday
Tuesday PM: Friday

Samuel

May 8th, 2007 at 06:51am


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