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Original poster

So what do we think of our $10billion economy boost Aussies??

31 replies

diditthen · 14/10/2008 12:55

I was pretty interested to see on TV tonights announcement that the government is spending half of the budget surplass to boost the economy and ward off a reccession.

They are giving families $1000 for each child they have - as long as they are currently receiving family tax benefits for. This is a one off payment which will be given on 8th Dec.

They are also increasing the first time home buyer grant from $7k to $14k if you are buying and excisting home or $21k if you buy/build a new home.

What do you think??? Discuss...

OP posts:
needmorecoffee · 14/10/2008 12:56

Does Oz get news of the global recession and the bank bailout etc? I ask cos my brother lives in Sydney and would not believe this and all the job losses was actually happening. Is it not in Aussies papers?

Original poster
diditthen · 14/10/2008 12:57

Oh yes!! It is BIG news here! Huge!

OP posts:
superloopy · 14/10/2008 13:01

Oops forgot namechange...

I wasn't up to mischief I promise!

needmorecoffee · 14/10/2008 13:18

I guess my brother doesn't read the news! He got quite shirty over it.

superloopy · 14/10/2008 14:11

I also forgot that the government is also giving OAPs a lump sum payment of $1400 for singles and $2100 for couples. They are also increasing that state pension from next July.

The government is now going to guarantee all bank deposits and loans taken by Australian banks from international financial institutions.

ninedragons · 14/10/2008 15:24

I am delighted, for purely selfish reasons. Our mortgage is in Swiss francs, which were almost 1:1 with the AUD when we bought, but the AUD has slipped 25% against the CHF so we owe more than the original mortgage. Anything that strengthens the AUD is great for us. What would be absolutely perfect would be for one of the large Swiss banks to fail. But only one of them - I work for the other one

Bubbaluv · 14/10/2008 15:53

Needmorecoffee, we just had rels from os staying with us and they could talk of NOTHING else. It is just as much front page news there as it is here, but has had less direct impact so far. Your brother def has head in sand.
My sister will be happy re first home buyers grant - that's huge!
I would rather the A$ weakened though as we send money back to aussie bank account. We can't all win!

MarshaBrady · 14/10/2008 15:58

That's great. Especially that you have a budget surplus.

Iirc from the news UK didn't save in the boom time, makes bailouts more difficult.

eidsvold · 15/10/2008 09:04

OH yes it is big here.

DH finds it interesting that we are going to spend our way out of recession.

It is a nice windfall for us - we will spend a little on a couple of things that need doing around the house probably and the rest will save. It simply means we will be able to do those jobs sooner rather than later.

I also get an extra $1000 as I am a carer.

I don't understand much of it and so dh gives me the financial situation for dummies!!

superloopy · 15/10/2008 12:12

I don't really understand too much about finance/stock market either but my ears pricked up when they started giving money away!

phdlife · 15/10/2008 12:18

we are just about to move back to Oz (6 weeks - eep!) so good to hear about the first-time buyers' boost.

of course our savings is being flattened by stronger dollar (sigh) and our chances of getting good work appear to be diminishing (sigh)

but from all I've heard Oz isn't having nearly so bad a time as everywhere else - protected by selling coal/copper to China.

chloeb2002 · 16/10/2008 00:58

I do think however taht apart from Ruddy the press are doing a a great job of denying that there is or will be a recession. We are currently wanting to buy a house. a great time to buy if you allready have cash in big quantities to put down. in two weeks our income is unchanged and our borrowing capacity has gone down by 50k!and that is with interest rate drops.. One mother at school was postively gloating about the interest rate drop to me i tried to explain to her did she understand what would happen when recession bit? once the banks have no more money to lend... the housing market is static prices of houses people have to sell fall.. people start to acrew negative equity...and then how did she think the banks are going to re coup there loses? i think she will not be gloating in 18 months time when the rate soars again.
I agree australia is sheltered in many mays but a global recseeion is just that...a GLOBAL one it will not exclude australia and those hatches need to be battened down.
RRRAAHHHHHHHH had my little rant now i will step off the soap box

mymama · 16/10/2008 04:45

Loving the economy boost. I have 3 children so it is a big boost for us. Depends what you do with it though. We will NOT be doing what K-Rudd says and spend, spend, spend - we will be save, save, save!! (apart from the dyson vacuum cleaner that I covet ).

chloeb2002 I guess it all depends on your personal circumstances how hard it will all hit. We bought our house back in 2003. Not the biggest and nowhere near the best but we don't have a big mortgage and have masses of equity even if the value drops by 100k. We also locked into our interest rate for 5 years in Jan 2007 at 6.99%. We both work in government jobs so job security is good too. I was brought up very conservatively and have stayed that way so hopefully we should be able to ride it through.

mymama · 16/10/2008 04:47

needmorecoffee - your brother must be on his own planet. The papers, news and internet is full of economic news. You can't get away from it even if you want to!!

eidsvold · 16/10/2008 05:22

yes us too mymamma - we are going to save save save - except for the fridge that we need. The rest is save save save.

phdlife · 16/10/2008 22:12

what are they saying about jobs down there?

I must say I am disappointed with ABC website which seems to be saying precious little about the matter.

we'll be bringing savings down and I would hate to eat them all before we get work.

1dilemma · 16/10/2008 22:20

Didn't the Americans give people a lump sum a short while ago to stave off recession?

ninedragons · 17/10/2008 06:34

Yes, they did. I can't remember the amount, I think it was in the region of $1000-2000 but I might be wrong.

There were (are) much bigger structural problems in the US economy, though, so it would never have worked. Bush has spent eight years screwing the US economy up the arse, so $1000 per taxpayer was never going to fix it.

ninedragons · 17/10/2008 06:38

What fields are you in, phdlife, and where are you moving? I think my DH is going to need to take someone on for a school-hours job almost as soon as we arrive next month, but your name suggests you might be overqualified!

Bubbaluv · 17/10/2008 11:15

PHD, I think at the mo it's not TOO bad, so long as you're not looking for a banking job.
Obviously will get worse as market slows down though.

phdlife · 17/10/2008 12:20

we're moving back to brisvegas, arriving mid-december.

ninedragons - I probably am over-qualified, but don't let that fool you - I want a job more than I want to follow my brilliant career!

scully · 17/10/2008 12:32

I'm with the saving theory, we may buy a dishwasher which we've put off for the last year but otherwise the rest is being saved. Sound much like you mymama, small house, small mortgage, govt jobs and so far not feeling too stressed about it all. We cancelled our credit card 12mths ago, so the only debt we have is our mortgage, which is fixed for another 3yrs. Not sure if I agree what Rudd is doing is the right thing long term, but happy for it to sit my bank account than be handed out to someone else

janinlondon · 17/10/2008 12:43

This is interesting to me as I have left some money in my Oz accounts and until early this week was worrying that it wasn't guaranteed - though it now seems that ALL deposits are guaranteed? No limit? I may move my UK money back there too! But I think all the assurances that Australia will be okay because of the China connection may be a bit shaky. China is going to have to cut back massively? No matter how many mates Kev made while he was in the service.....?

phdlife · 17/10/2008 20:43

from what I understand, jan, the China connection has protected Oz from the worst of it until now. Not so much in the future. But Oz still has a budget surplus, unlike nearly everywhere else, and also unlike other places (eg the UK) their economy is still largely based on primary resources, both of which should help.

then again I'm an arts graduate, you maybe don't want to listen to me

ninedragons · 18/10/2008 04:38

My personal feeling is that demand from China may slow, but it won't stop.

Domestic demand here is still huge - salaries are rising and people are pulling themselves out of poverty by the day. Export demand (i.e. all those chips for phones and Nintendos) will certainly fall but domestic demand is strong.

The stock markets have fallen, but they were at completely unsustainable levels anyway (P/Es of over 100x were not unusual). Day-to-day spending remains utterly unaffected as far as I can see. I was in Tiffany the other day (just taking DD for a walk and was looking for somewhere air-conditioned ) and it was heaving.

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