Fabrizio Carmignani comments on the Queensland budget (The Conversation 15.7.15), concluding:
‘On paper, this is a remarkable result, achieving the debt reduction without any form of austerity. In fact, the budget also contains some significant measures on the expenditure side to support health, education and innovation, and infrastructure development.
‘The fear of being seen as a “high-spender” has somewhat limited the government’s ability and willingness to provide a stronger demand stimulus. But overall this budget strikes a reasonable compromise between the need to support the recovery and the pressure to reduce debt.
‘And perhaps, in these economic conditions, we could have not asked for more from a debutante government.