Australian Treasurer: Government Budget To Focus On Lowering Unemployment

The upcoming Australian federal budget will focus on driving unemployment lower to under five percent, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Thursday

CANBERRA, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 29th Apr, 2021 ) :-- The upcoming Australian Federal budget will focus on driving unemployment lower to under five percent, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg said on Thursday.

Frydenberg said this in a speech to the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) to frame objectives in the lead-up to handing down the budget for 2021-22 on May 11, rejecting austerity in favour of pursuing economic recovery in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Frydenberg said in October that the government would not begin its budget repair plan until unemployment was "comfortably" below six percent, but with the figure for March at 5.6 percent he said on Thursday that the new goal was below five percent.

He said in the speech that the last time Australia had a sustained period of unemployment below five percent was between 2006 and 2008, before the global financial crisis.

"We need to continue working hard to drive the unemployment rate lower," said Frydenberg. "That is what next week's budget will do. We will not move to the second phase of our fiscal strategy until we are confident that we have secured the economic recovery.

" According to a report published by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO), it will take until 2055 until Australia's debt is paid down to its pre-pandemic level of 30 percent of gross domestic product (GDP).

"The level of debt is likely to remain high for a generation," it said.

"Reducing the government debt-to-GDP ratio to pre-pandemic levels will take decades, even under relatively optimistic scenarios. However, debt servicing costs should remain subdued as the existing debt was borrowed at historically low interest rates," it noted.

In response, Frydenberg on Thursday said that the government had not changed its economically conservative values.

"We remain committed to lower taxes, containing the size of government, budget discipline and guaranteeing the delivery of essential services," he said.

"By growing our economy, we can maintain a steady and declining ratio of debt to GDP over the medium term as we continue to move towards balancing the budget."