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Speaker 1: As we know the federal budget yesterday lots of money

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Speaker 1: in different areas, not a lot coming to South Australia.

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Speaker 1: Big spend on the future made policy the government's been

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Speaker 1: talking about over the last few weeks. Billions of dollars

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Speaker 1: for renewable energy, extra funding to fast track planning approvals

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Speaker 1: for developments like solar and wind farms, more spending on

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Speaker 1: rooftop solar. There's a hair bit on climate hydrogen critical

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Speaker 1: minerals exploration as well. Millions of dollars training more people

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Speaker 1: at Union TAFE, particularly in industries like clean energy, construction,

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Speaker 1: manufacturing new homes. Twenty thousand dollar instant asset right off

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Speaker 1: to be extended until the middle of next year. For

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Speaker 1: small business, there's the three hundred dollar energy bill rebate

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Speaker 1: to all households, a little extra to small businesses, a

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Speaker 1: total cost of three and a half billion. There rent

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Speaker 1: assistance for low incomes. The government, though, is hoping inflation

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Speaker 1: is going to come down faster as a result of

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Speaker 1: all that spending. That's not usually how it works. Maybe

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Speaker 1: they know something differently, But doctor Susan Stein, economists Credit

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Speaker 1: Union is Economics Chair uned SA on the line. Susan,

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Speaker 1: good morning.

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Speaker 2: Good morning, Matthew.

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Speaker 1: Is the treasurer right, will inflation come down faster?

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Speaker 2: Well, that's a matter of how you measure it. If

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Speaker 2: you look at there's the total CPI consumer price index

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Speaker 2: that has a whole as we know, a whole basket

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Speaker 2: of goods in it. Then there's the core rate of inflation,

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Speaker 2: which takes out items that are super volatile like energy

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Speaker 2: and food. And then there's the trend rate, which takes

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Speaker 2: out like really high and lows kind of cuts off

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Speaker 2: the extremes. And those are the three rates that are

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Speaker 2: looked at. So technically speaking, if you lower energy costs

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Speaker 2: or rental costs through these subsidies, that will lower the CPI,

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Speaker 2: the costs involved in the seat, and the kind of

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Speaker 2: headline regular CPI. But considering lots of those items are

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Speaker 2: taken out, energy costs aren't included in the core inflation rate,

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Speaker 2: and the core inflation rate is what the RBA looks

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Speaker 2: at when they make their decisions, then you'd have to

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Speaker 2: stay probably not going to have a big impact.

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Speaker 1: Okay, the money coming in for things like energy, then

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Speaker 1: is that going to free up money for people to

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Speaker 1: spend or just get people over the line.

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Speaker 2: It's not a lot of money.

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Speaker 1: Seventy five quarter.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, so I don't think I

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Speaker 2: think it'll help people, you know, manage their electricity bills.

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Speaker 2: We know, especially in South Australia, electricity has been one

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Speaker 2: of the highest increases in costs that people have been facing.

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Speaker 2: So I think it's just going to kind of take

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Speaker 2: the edge off that. I don't see people being able

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Speaker 2: to go out and spend extra money based on this rebate.

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Speaker 1: Okay, so we're too for South's Australia in this there

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Speaker 1: wasn't a lot of money singled out. There's a bit

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Speaker 1: of road funding up in the Adelaide Hills and I

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Speaker 1: know the communities up there very keen to see that happen.

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Speaker 1: There's there's not a lot of obviously defenses are winner

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Speaker 1: here in terms of orcus and there's money for that,

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Speaker 1: but we don't get to see money on the table

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Speaker 1: as it were.

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Speaker 2: You're right, there's not a lot of new money coming

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Speaker 2: to Australia in this budget. But South Australia, you're right,

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Speaker 2: but you do see money coming into sectors which are

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Speaker 2: important in South Australia. So the health sector we see,

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Speaker 2: we see some some practical people who are doing their

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Speaker 2: practicum get some money back. We see the we see

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Speaker 2: some other money coming into hopefully we see some some

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Speaker 2: of the case places for PREUNI coming in down the line.

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Speaker 2: All of this potential investment money for renewables could be

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Speaker 2: something South Australia can take advantage of. We see business

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Speaker 2: investment increasing in mining, which should help some sectors in

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Speaker 2: South Australia, drought relief which should help farmers in South Australia.

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Speaker 2: So while there aren't earmarks particular programs coming into South Australia,

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Speaker 2: especially under the infrastructure spending, there are broader Australia wide

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Speaker 2: programs which will help South Australian businesses or consumers.

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Speaker 1: We hope, yep, winners all loses as you see them.

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Speaker 1: Susan Well, I.

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Speaker 2: Hate to put things in the context of winners or

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Speaker 2: losers because a lot of this budget is continuation of

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Speaker 2: what's been happening. I think some of the good measures

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Speaker 2: that will help South Australians, as you pointed out, low

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Speaker 2: income rental assistance, those people on fixed income, especially pensioners,

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Speaker 2: having their PBS the prices they're frozen, will help. We

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Speaker 2: see that the deeming rates, so those pensioners, which which

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Speaker 2: are assumed to have a certain income based on interest rates,

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Speaker 2: so their interest income that's been frozen because rates have

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Speaker 2: been going up. The government assumes when it's figuring out

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Speaker 2: how much to give to people on fixed income, they

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Speaker 2: assume that your pension is going to have a certain

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Speaker 2: rate of return. So if that goes up, your your

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Speaker 2: rates go down. So if that's been frozen, that will

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Speaker 2: help pensioners, so those people will do better in the budget.

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Speaker 2: As you said, relatively speaking, some of the infrastructure spending

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Speaker 2: coming from the federal won't be as much as we

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Speaker 2: had hoped, but other areas should should be.

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Speaker 1: Okay, Okay, now I have left negative gearing alone, haven't they?

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Speaker 1: And that was there was talk about that in the

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Speaker 1: lead up. I suppose, not not so much in recent weeks,

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Speaker 1: but going back a while in terms of alleviating the

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Speaker 1: housing crisis, negative gearing did seem to be on the

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Speaker 1: table on the consideration it was your right.

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Speaker 2: Yes, it was discussed to a certain extent, but from

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Speaker 2: what I understand there the political will isn't there to

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Speaker 2: make that change at this stage. So the Stage three

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Speaker 2: tax cuts were put in place. Instead. There isn't a lot,

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Speaker 2: as you point out in this budget for first time

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Speaker 2: home buyers. There are some provisions to help increase the

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Speaker 2: housing fund, but we know the problems with housing have

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Speaker 2: much more to do with getting people to build the

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Speaker 2: houses yep, and also some red tape involved in making

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Speaker 2: those buildings possible. There's not a lot in the budget

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Speaker 2: that's going to alleviate those problems.

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Speaker 1: The whole housing plan of one point two million times

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Speaker 1: by the end of the decade, given that the earlier

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Speaker 1: plan was saying as being well unlikely to be met

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Speaker 1: the target. Is this too optimistic?

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Speaker 2: It is fairly optimistic. There's going to have to be

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Speaker 2: some significant increases in the number of people working into

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Speaker 2: construction industry. They do have those increase in fee free

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Speaker 2: take places, especially for construction workers, but a lot of

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Speaker 2: that's only two years, and some of the certificates take

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Speaker 2: three or four years, so people are going to have

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Speaker 2: to get through that whole process and get out before

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Speaker 2: they're on the market. There are plans to review some

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Speaker 2: of migrants skills and also people currently in Australia to

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Speaker 2: see if they might have skills that we could you know,

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Speaker 2: bring up to speed to enable them to work in

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Speaker 2: Australia and these are all really good efforts, but there

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Speaker 2: is going to be a significant delay before these people

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Speaker 2: get online, so being able to reach that target is

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Speaker 2: going to be challenging.

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Speaker 1: Is there a figure you've seen and I've been looking

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Speaker 1: for one. I haven't seen it in all the guff

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Speaker 1: that has come out in the last twelve hours all

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Speaker 1: side on migration levels. Is the government predicting similar numbers

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Speaker 1: to what we've seen in the last year or two now, from.

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Speaker 2: What I've seen, they're predicting they're going to put some

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Speaker 2: caps on immigration, especially if you look at the tertiary sector,

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Speaker 2: the university sector. They're going to start to tie allowing

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Speaker 2: student visas to ensuring that there's housing available for them,

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Speaker 2: so that will put a cap on they called a

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Speaker 2: soft cap on the numbers, because they're not putting a

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Speaker 2: hard numbers, they're just raising the bar for what for

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Speaker 2: what's going to make a student eligible to get a visa?

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Speaker 1: And just finally, Susan the state budget comes out in

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Speaker 1: a few weeks time, two or three. Does this help

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Speaker 1: Steven Mulligan? Does it hinder him at all? What do

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Speaker 1: you think in planning?

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Speaker 2: I'm not sure how much it's going to help him

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Speaker 2: as you As you pointed out, there's not a lot

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Speaker 2: of specific items in here for South Australia, but but

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Speaker 2: you know, South Australia has been doing fairly well in

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Speaker 2: terms of business investment and other indicators, so hopefully a

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Speaker 2: strong potential growth for South Australia will help. But then again,

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Speaker 2: the relief to renters with South Australia has been some

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Speaker 2: of the highest increases in rental should help the treasure

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Speaker 2: as well. As it's not a lot, but some alleviation

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Speaker 2: and electricity bills that will also help the treasure.

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Speaker 1: All Right, we'll see where that ends up for in

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Speaker 1: a few weeks. Susan, thank you so much for your

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Speaker 1: time today. Thank you doctor Susan Stone, who is SA

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Speaker 1: Economics Chair Uni SA