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Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda

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Speaker 1: Bungelung Cargoton woman from Gadigl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges

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Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the

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Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres

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Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the

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Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.

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Speaker 2: A stronger, more resilient Australia, with more opportunities for more

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Speaker 2: people in more parts of our amazing country. I commend

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Speaker 2: the budget and the bill to the House.

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Speaker 3: Hello, it is Wednesday, the twenty sixth of October and

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Speaker 3: you're listening to The Daily Oz the day after the

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Speaker 3: Federal Budget. I'm Tom Crowley, political journalist at the Daily Os.

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Speaker 3: I'm coming to you from Parliament House. In fact, it's

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Speaker 3: actually budget night as I record this and spect to you.

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Speaker 3: I'm sitting here with our editor, Belle fitz Simon's and

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Speaker 3: we here to give you a bit of a download

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Speaker 3: on what's been a pretty busy day for us here

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Speaker 3: in Canberra. Billy. We've been pouring over the budget documents

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Speaker 3: getting to have a I guess a sneak preview at

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Speaker 3: the budget a few hours before the rest of the

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Speaker 3: country along with the other journalists here in camera. Maybe

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Speaker 3: to get started, Billy, before we get into some of

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Speaker 3: the nitty gritty, do you want to just sort of

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Speaker 3: paint the picture a little bit, take people behind the

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Speaker 3: curtain of the Daily House today what we've been up to.

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Speaker 4: Honestly, I'll be surprised if I can even string a

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Speaker 4: sentence together at this point. We are currently recording this

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Speaker 4: at nine point thirty pm, and we've been basically locked

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Speaker 4: in this tiny room since one thirty pm with what

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Speaker 4: feels like thousands of pages on what is in the budget.

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Speaker 4: It's been an interesting day, but I'm super excited to

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Speaker 4: debrief with you now.

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Speaker 5: Tom.

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Speaker 4: I want you to set the backdrop for this budget.

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Speaker 4: What context is the government delivering this budget in.

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Speaker 3: Well, Billy To the surprise of nobody, it's in a

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Speaker 3: context of bad news, bad news, bad news all the

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Speaker 3: time when it comes to the economy this year, and

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Speaker 3: it's not anything it will take us particularly by surprise.

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Speaker 3: Of course, We've been hearing a lot and talking a

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Speaker 3: lot in the news this year about all of the

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Speaker 3: things that are going wrong in the world, and I

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Speaker 3: think the key message in the budget today was that

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Speaker 3: Australia is not immune. That was language that the treasure

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Speaker 3: was using a whole lot to describe the situation that

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Speaker 3: we find ourselves in. We've seen rising prices here in

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Speaker 3: Australia and we were warned to expect that they would

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Speaker 3: go on for longer than we may originally have thought.

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Speaker 3: For example, gas prices, the Treasurer said he was really

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Speaker 3: worried about sharp increases over the next couple of years,

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Speaker 3: even in gas prices, food prices affected by the floods.

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Speaker 3: There's sort of price pressures in construction, a whole bunch

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Speaker 3: of different areas of our life. But that's expected to continue.

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Speaker 3: It's expected to lead to some job losses, to higher

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Speaker 3: interest rates which flows through into people's mortgages, to all

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Speaker 3: of these sorts of problems that we've been hearing about

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Speaker 3: in the world and here at home. And I think

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Speaker 3: in general the news today was that those things are

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Speaker 3: a little worse perhaps than was thought maybe a few

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Speaker 3: months ago, the last time we had a budget. And

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Speaker 3: so I guess in that context the government was really

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Speaker 3: keen to emphasize that, you know, in the words that

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Speaker 3: they will use of course these are sort of political words,

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Speaker 3: but you know, words like being responsible and all that

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Speaker 3: sort of thing. And so I think that you know

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Speaker 3: that they were keen to not spend too much additional money,

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Speaker 3: they said, because they didn't want to make the price

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Speaker 3: problem worse by spending more money. And I guess contributing

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Speaker 3: to contributing further if you liked to the economic pressure.

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Speaker 3: So so that was the context. I suppose that that

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Speaker 3: set the scene for the budget.

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Speaker 4: And so, as I said, we went through literally thousands

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Speaker 4: of pages, what were the big standouts for you?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, so it is I mean, it is hundreds thousands

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Speaker 3: of pages. And I think that's maybe the first thing

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Speaker 3: to say is that we and everyone in the media

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Speaker 3: did our best to read as much, you know, through

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Speaker 3: these pages as we could in the six or so

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Speaker 3: hours that we had. It was like an exam really,

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Speaker 3: But I'm sure you know, there'll be more things buried

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Speaker 3: in those papers that will notice and that others will

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Speaker 3: notice over the next few days. There are hundreds of

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Speaker 3: little bits and pieces of spending, spending cuts, new spending,

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Speaker 3: tax changes, all these sorts of things. The quickest way

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Speaker 3: to sum it up is that it was really mostly

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Speaker 3: an exercise for this new government in putting together all

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Speaker 3: of the things that had talked about in the election,

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Speaker 3: So the labor policies that we heard about when it

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Speaker 3: came to climate, aged care, health, all of these kind

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Speaker 3: of things, childcare found their way into this budget, and

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Speaker 3: this was the budget to kind of get you get

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Speaker 3: all of those things done, if you like. There weren't

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Speaker 3: too many surprises. There were a couple of announcements we

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Speaker 3: heard in the last week or two about expanded parental

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Speaker 3: leave and a couple of others they found their way

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Speaker 3: in there. But it's fair to say there wasn't anything

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Speaker 3: when we got into the room and started looking at

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Speaker 3: the budget that we didn't see coming. It was a

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Speaker 3: lot of these kind of a new government, you know,

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Speaker 3: I guess pushing its new priorities and taking the first

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Speaker 3: opportunity to make some of those changes.

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Speaker 4: One of the big things I've been hearing in the

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Speaker 4: lead up to this budget is the fact that Australia

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Speaker 4: is in one trillion dollars of debt, which just feels

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Speaker 4: like this insurmountable number. What does that actually mean and

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Speaker 4: how have they dealt with that in this budget?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, So I guess if you like the debt story

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Speaker 3: is that each year we've been spending more than we

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Speaker 3: take in tax. It's called a deficit. And the way

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Speaker 3: that you kind of make up for that deficit is

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Speaker 3: you take on more and more debt. You know, under

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Speaker 3: the Coalition, the last budget that we had, we're expecting

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Speaker 3: to be in deficits and to be taking on more

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Speaker 3: debt for the next decade. That hasn't changed certainly, and

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Speaker 3: under Labor. Labor spent a bit of time talking about

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Speaker 3: how it thinks this sort of you know, approaching a

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Speaker 3: trillion dollars of debt is a bit of a problem.

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Speaker 3: The global economic concerns that we've got at the moment

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Speaker 3: is one reason that it's actually getting more expensive this debt.

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Speaker 3: It's more expensive for the government and for everyone around

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Speaker 3: the world really to borrow money in a tough time

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Speaker 3: like this, and so certainly that debt is starting to

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Speaker 3: kind of hurt the budget. And so that's definitely part

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Speaker 3: of the context here. And so when we look out

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Speaker 3: over the next ten years, we do see compared to

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Speaker 3: the last budget that the deficit is getting kind of

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Speaker 3: a lot worse than we thought it was going to.

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Speaker 4: We're going to take a quick break. But first here

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Speaker 4: is a message from our sponsors. We've all had time

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Speaker 4: to digest the budget. What have been some of their

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Speaker 4: responses to the budget.

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Speaker 3: We were lucky enough to be joined a short time

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Speaker 3: ago by Jane Hume. She's the shadow Finance Minister, so

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Speaker 3: a Liberal government kind of shadow minister, and at a

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Speaker 3: band the leader of the Greens, so a couple of

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Speaker 3: different political perspectives there. We ask them for their points

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Speaker 3: and their thoughts, both positive and negative on the budget,

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Speaker 3: and so we'll give you a little bit of a

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Speaker 3: snippet of what each of those two said, starting with

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Speaker 3: Shadow Finance Minister, the Coalition's Jane Hume.

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Speaker 6: When we delivered our budget earlier in the year, there

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Speaker 6: was eighteen billion dollars less in spending in our budget

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Speaker 6: than there was in the labor election commitments. We could

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Speaker 6: see that in the inflationary pressures were growing and if

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Speaker 6: governments spend more well, that pushes inflation further and further up,

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Speaker 6: and that means that the RBA then has to do

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Speaker 6: all the heavy lifting and push up interest rates in

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Speaker 6: order to contain inflation in that two to three percent band.

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Speaker 6: And it really doesn't work if you've got government with

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Speaker 6: its foot on the accelerator and the RBA with its

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Speaker 6: foot on the brake. You have to make sure your

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Speaker 6: fiscal policy and your monetary policy work well together. Debt

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Speaker 6: and deficit are both up, and energy prices are skyrocketing,

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Speaker 6: and inflation's forecast to go over seven percent this year.

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Speaker 6: So our concent I suppose is that a typical Australian

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Speaker 6: family is probably going to find themselves about two thousand

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Speaker 6: dollars worse off by Christmas this year.

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Speaker 3: So that was Jane Hume Billy. You could hear some

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Speaker 3: of the government's approaches to spending. Certainly we're emphasis points

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Speaker 3: for her there. Now for a different perspective here is

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Speaker 3: Green's leader, Adam Bant.

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Speaker 5: We're really pleased to see six million dollars in there

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Speaker 5: for progress on agreement making and truth telling. So that's

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Speaker 5: truth and treaty in the budget. That's something that Green's

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Speaker 5: and Lydia Thorpe have been pushing for for a while.

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Speaker 5: It is good to see some investment in renewables and

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Speaker 5: that makes a pleasant difference from the previous government. But

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Speaker 5: this government still continuing forty billion dollars in subsidies for

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Speaker 5: fossil fuels and there's money the budget thirty million dollars

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Speaker 5: for drilling the Beaterloo gas fields and also two billion

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Speaker 5: dollars for a big new gas related project in the

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Speaker 5: Northern territories. So whilst on the one hand it's good

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Speaker 5: to see a growth in renewables, on the other hand,

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Speaker 5: we shouldn't be putting public money into new gas projects.

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Speaker 5: We're pretty pleased when we saw the headlines about one

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Speaker 5: million homes, because the Greens went to the election with

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Speaker 5: a plan for one million homes. But it turns out

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Speaker 5: that they've pinched the headline but not the policy. It's

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Speaker 5: not a plan for a million new homes. It's a

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Speaker 5: house of cards. The big new announcement in the budget

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Speaker 5: was actually only for ten thousand homes and a hope

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Speaker 5: that private developers would step in and build the remainder.

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Speaker 5: We're going to have a really close look at the

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Speaker 5: housing package because one of the failings of the budget

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Speaker 5: is it's nothing in it for renters, nothing in it

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Speaker 5: to deal with the immediate crisis that people are facing.

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Speaker 5: We've been pushing for a rent freeze, we've been pushing

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Speaker 5: for the government to bring forward. It's built of some

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Speaker 5: of these affordable homes and not just hope that developers

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Speaker 5: do it, but actually do it itself. So we'll be

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Speaker 5: having some more discussions with the government about that housing bill, and.

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Speaker 3: So yeah, I guess as you hear there, Billy, a

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Speaker 3: different set of emphasis of course for the Greens compared

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Speaker 3: to the Liberal Party. A lot of talk there about,

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Speaker 3: you know, particularly kind of fossil fuel and the top

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Speaker 3: end of town and tax a big focus for the Greens,

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Speaker 3: and also some of those policies around housing and climate change.

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Speaker 3: We'll have plenty more to hear from politicians over the

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Speaker 3: next couple of days. We'll be speaking to the Treasurer

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Speaker 3: himself later in the week and also the Shadow Treasurer

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Speaker 3: from the Liberals, so keep an ear out for that.

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Speaker 3: But for now, maybe time for some sleep, Billy, or

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Speaker 3: maybe some food. Thank you very much for tuning in

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Speaker 3: once again to the Daily Oz podcast. It makes a

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Speaker 3: big difference to us when you like and subscribe. Your

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Speaker 3: support certainly helps us to make things like going to

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Speaker 3: Canberra in budget week and bringing you this coverage possible.

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Speaker 3: So we really do appreciate all the support we get

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Speaker 3: from our audience and we hope that you stay tuned