So where are we at this point on Friday afternoon?
- the government has crossed off the final item on its pre election to do list;
- its economic statement revealed the budget is not in great shape with a bigger deficit and higher unemployment forecasts;
- this leaves the way clear for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to call an election as early as this weekend (which would make the big day September 7);
- the opposition has attacked the economic state saying it shows Labor cannot be trusted to run the economy; and
- it announced a back flip on its education policy (there is now a "unity ticket" on schools funding).
As usual a big thank you to Alex Ellinghausen (Andrew Meares is having a few days off) and to you for reading, commenting and making this such a fun gig.
We will be back the day the election is called. Maybe tomorrow, maybe Sunday, maybe not for a few more days.
Until then, go well.
One last bit of reaction before we head towards wrapping up.
The chief executive of the Business Council of Australia, Jennifer Westacott, has not minced words when it comes to today's economic statement.
"Let's be clear, the government's fiscal strategy is not on track," Ms Westacott says.
"The economic statement has seen a continuation of the muddle through approach characterised by ad hoc and rushed proposals that simply hasn't worked in the past. The measures announced will do little to rebuild confidence."
Wondering what all this economic statement stuff is about?
Fortunately, economics correspondent Peter Martin and chief political correspondent Mark Kenny have recorded this interview with online political editor Tim Lester in which they analyse all the numbers.
Crunching the numbers
As the election looms, on what economic footing will Labor and the Coalition go head to head? Mark Kenny & Peter Martin analyse the Treasurer's economic statement.
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Mr Hockey says the Coalition would accept the challenges of government and face up to them: "We will climb that mountain because we have to....We are prepared to do it."
Mr Hockey says he "does not believe these numbers".
(I should apologise for the slightly haphazard nature of the coverage of this press conference. The feed keeps breaking up.)
"There is a better way and a better way comes with a change of government," Mr Hockey assures people.
"If you lift the tide all boats will rise."
(No, that was not a comment about asylum seekers but something about making it easier for people to get ahead. I think.)
Mr Hockey is - as you might have been expecting - is stressing that the government is unable to manage the economy and that its only plan for economic management is to slug people.
Mr Hockey demands that Parliament be recalled (unless an election is called this weekend) so the debt cap can be debated.
Opposition treasury spokesman Joe Hockey is now responding to the government's economic statement.
Labor has "lost control of the budget and is losing control of the economy", Mr Hockey says.
"It is the same old Labor and the same old Kevin Rudd.....The budget is in free fall."
Mr Hockey said the statement contained "four new tax hikes".
"If this is the state of the budget before the election imagine what it will look like if Labor is re elected."
Waiting for Joe.....
Meanwhile, the head of Asia Pacific research at TD Securities, Annette Beacher, says the changes in the budget position do not present a threat to Australia's triple A credit rating.
"Credit ratings agencies can tolerate near term deficits as long as there is tangible medium term consolidation," Ms Beacher said.
While we wait for the opposition's treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, allow me to point you in the direction of a story The Age's education editor, Jewel Topsfield, has filed about the opposition's change of heart on schools funding (see 12.53pm post).
Treasurer Chris Bowen speaks to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Here's one Alex Ellinghausen took earlier. Too good not to share.
In which Treasurer Chris Bowen either mimes or vogues the economic statement, take your pick.
Greens leader Christine Milne says today's economic statement "was in no way socially just".
Instead, Senator Milne says, the government should have reversed the cuts to university funding, the changes to the single parent parent and increased the Newstart allowance (see 2.13pm post).
Senator Milne says it is a statement based on "cruelty and cowardice" because of the cost of the asylum seeker policy.
Instead of looking at winding back subsidies to fossil fuel companies Senator Milne says the government went for the "easy money" of further public service cuts".
So we're no closer to knowing the election date (not that we were going to be). Sigh.
But Andrew Meares, Alex Ellinghausen and I are looking forward to being with you for the duration of the campaign.
The former editor of The Sunday Age, Gay Alcorn, has written what I think is a really interesting piece about what the coverage of the campaign will be like.
Gay is now a Fairfax columnist and will be running a fact checking website during the election.
She - like me - is an optimist about this year's campaign coverage. I hope we are not disappointed. But please remember that you, the readers, have a lot of power in this area. I urge you to tell my bosses what you'd like to see. Bombard them with letters, emails, tweets and posts with your thoughts.
For the super keen here is the link to the economic statement papers.
They are quite excited so please excuse their fevered use of capitals (and punctuation):
As ordinary Aussies are made to pay for Labor's Deficit blowout to $30.1billion remember Every Labor Government is doing you damage #auspol
— Alex Hawke MP (@AlexHawkeMP) August 2, 2013
Opposition MPs have had a bit of time to go through the economic statement.
They are tweeting their thoughts:
Rudd/Bowen combo delivers a bigger deficit, higher debt, lower growth, higher taxes and higher unemployment and we thought Swanny was bad
— Jamie Briggs (@BriggsJamie) August 2, 2013
In the 1.33pm post I did a quick summary of the figures relating to the cost of the government's asylum seeker policy.
Immigration correspondent Bianca Hall has now filed this story which has a look at the numbers in a bit more detail.
I don't know about you but I don't think the calls for a $50 a week rise in the Newstart allowance (unemployment payment) are going all that well - not when you consider the number of people without jobs has just been predicted to rise and the general state of the budget.
The chief executive officer of Mission Australia, Toby Hall, has had a look at the statement and says the revised figure hides the true picture of unemployment.
"When you think about the level of underemployment out there, the number of people who want to work more hours but just can't find them, we're talking about a real level of unemployment that's easily double that figure [6.25 per cent]," Mr Hall says.
Mr Hall says the government must looking at boosting employment services for people looking for work.
"We know there's not a bottomless pit of money the government can call on....But we can't leave all the heavy lifting to the most vulnerable. The burden has to be shared," Mr Hall says.
The Greens will provide their response in a little over half an hour.
The opposition's treasury spokesman, Joe Hockey, will provide his view at 3pm.
And that's a wrap for the press conference.
What do you think? Given the state of the books should the government ditch its commitment to a surplus in 2016/17? Have your say in our online poll which you can find here.
I've got to hand it to my press gallery colleagues. No one has tried to winkle out the election date. Yet.
Economics correspondent Peter Martin has filed this analysis of the statement.
"Since May the budget's been bleeding red ink," Peter writes.
Hai hai.
Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong speak to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Let me take a second to pull out the figures about the cost of the Papua New Guinea asylum seeker policy.
The cost will be $1.1 billion over four years including $174 million this financial year. This includes $236 million over the next four years to support people who have arrived by boat to live in the community (which is being offset by the slow down in growth to the aid budget).
Some of the $1.1 billion will be offset by a $423 million reduction in operating costs of immigration detention in Australia.
(The government had previously said it would give Papua New Guinea an extra $420 million over the next four years as part of the asylum seeker deal.)
Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong speak to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
"We're about to head into an election campaign...." one reporter begins.
"So I hear," Treasurer Chris Bowen dryly agrees.
(It was not the preface to a question about the date but a question about whether today's economic statement is the set of figures the government will take into the campaign. Mr Bowen says it is.)
Slowly but surely Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's hand gestures are being adopted government wide.
Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong speak to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Finance Minister Penny Wong says the government decided against cutting health and education services.
"That's the Liberal way," Senator Wong says.
Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Senator Penny Wong speak to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
So, heading into an election campaign, this graph shows on the right hand side how Labor looks compares with the Coalition on the left hand side. (Just kidding - it's a graph highlighting a very important economic statistic.)
Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Senator Penny Wong speak to the media after releasing the government's economic statement at Parliament House on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Mr Bowen does not deny that things are serious but, he says, the cuts the government have made are "sensible measures".
He did not want "harsh and swinging cuts that would make our economy smaller and lead to higher unemployment".
There is talk of "difficult decisions" such as the increase in the tobacco excise, the slowing of the growth in the aid budget (to help offset the cost of the PNG asylum seeker policy) and another efficiency dividend for the public service.
Mr Bowen says there will be no changes to the family tax benefit arrangements or the age pension and the school kids bonus will remain in place.
Treasurer Chris Bowen says Australia economy is in "transition - not crisis, transition".
And yes - there are graphs.
The economic statement has now been released.
I brought you some of the main figures in the 12.34 pm post.
Some of the others are:
- the size is the deficit in 2013/14 is expected to be $30.1 billion;
- the deficit in 2014/15 is expected to be $24 billion; and
- the budget is expected to return to a surplus of $4 billion in 2016/17.
In total the statement contains savings of $17 billion (including things we already know about like the change to fringe benefit tax arrangements for cars, the levy on banks and the increased tax on cigarettes).
This is the scene from the "blue room", officially known as the ministerial press conference room where Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong will shortly release the government's economic statement.
I think we can all agree it bodes well for those of us hoping for slides, graphs and pie charts.
Cameramen get ready for Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Senator Penny Wong to speak to the media on Friday. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
Meanwhile, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott is in Melbourne. He has been visiting schools with his education spokesman Christopher Pyne.
Earlier today Mr Abbott announced a significant policy change - some might even call it a back flip - by committing the opposition to keeping the government's school funding changes. (The changes were one of the signature reforms of former prime minister Julia Gillard.)
Mr Abbott promised a Coalition government would match the Commonwealth funding for schools for the four years from 2014. Only yesterday Mr Pyne was saying the best the Coalition could do was commit to a year of the new funding arrangement.
We will be updating this story throughout the day but you can read the first take on it here.
Presumably the terms "Gonski" and "Conski" had now been banished from the lexicons of opposition MPs.
Two things worth noting about the announcement:
- the timing (it will - of course - be overshadowed by the government's economic statement); and
- the opposition must be very keen to neutralise education as an election issue.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is not in Canberra today (which means he won't be popping in to see the Governor-General, Quentin Bryce, at Yarralumla).
Mr Rudd is in sunny Queensland where he will dine with independent MP Bob Katter tonight.
Breaking news reporter Jonathan Swan has confirmed the following headline figures from the economic statement with a government source:
- a revenue shortfall of $33 billion across the forward estimates;
- the budget to be back in surplus in 2016/17 but at only about half the size of the $6.6 billion figure predicted back in the May budget;
- unemployment will be higher than thought at 6.25 per cent in 2013/14 (up from 5.75 per cent); and
- the economic growth figure has been revised down to 2.5 per cent (from 2.75 per cent).
So what do we know about the possible date?
As soon as Kevin Rudd returned as prime minister he made it clear he was not going to keep the date chosen by Julia Gillard (September 14).
Since then we've returned to the days of endless speculation about dates. At the moment the odds favour September 7 which would mean the election would be called some time in the next few days.
This would mean Prime Minister Kevin Rudd would not attend a meeting of the United Nations in New York scheduled for that same weekend. It also means he would save voters from the conundrum that had been posed by a possible September 21 election - that is Mr Rudd's birthday. Could you vote a man out on his birthday?
But it leaves the issue of the referendum on local government recognition which cannot be held before September 14. The government is not obliged to go ahead with the referendum on that date. In fact it would be relatively easy to argue it needs to be delayed because it fears the Coalition's division on the issue would lead to defeat.
I know many of us are keen to find out the election date. No doubt Ministers Bowen and Wong will be asked about it in just over an hour's time and they will find all kinds of ways to say they don't know.
Mr Bowen was asked about the date on Channel Seven earlier today.
Here's what he had to say: "Oh you're going to see all this speculation around this time of year. It's going to be fever pitch. Has Kevin Rudd scratched his ear, which city is he in, is he going to call an election today? Election's getting closer, of course it is."
Online political editor Tim Lester recorded this interview with economics correspondent Peter Martin earlier today about the economic statement.
Mini budget, major headache
The government reveals its economic statement, including a new bank tax. With Peter Martin and James Massola.
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At 1pm Treasurer Chris Bowen and Finance Minister Penny Wong will announce the details of the changes to the government's budget position.
The statement has been made necessarily by a few things - the changes to the carbon price announced last month and additional expenditure on immigration policy as a result of the PNG solution.
Chief political correspondent Mark Kenny has written this piece about what we know will be in the economic update.
Finance Minister Penny Wong during a doorstop interview at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday 1 August 2013. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen
A mini budget, a pre election economic statement, rearranging the books, clearing the decks.
Whatever you want to call it please join Alex Ellinghausen and I for a mini blog on the government's economic statement - the last set piece before an election is called.
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