Overview
- Budget deficit: $29.8 billion in 2014-15
- Unemployment forecast: 6.25% in 2014-15
- Economic growth: 2.5% in 2014-15
Health
- All Australians to pay at least $7 for GP visits, blood tests and X-rays
- General patients to pay $5 more and concessional patients 80c more for prescription drugs
- Billions slashed from hospitals, which will be free to charge for emergency departments
Education
- Complete deregulation of university fees
- Commonwealth funding extended to students at TAFEs, private colleges and sub-bachelor degrees at a cost of $820 million over three years
- Labor's "Gonski" school funding commitments scrapped from 2017-18 with school funding indexed to inflation from 2018
- School chaplaincy program continued at a cost of $243.5 million over five years
Welfare
- Enforced six-month waiting period for under-30s signing on for the dole. After first six months on dole they will again be cut off for a six-month period
- Tightened eligibility criteria for disability support pensioners under 35
- Newstart recipients aged between 22 and 25 will be pushed back onto the lower-value Youth Allowance (other) payment
Retirees
- Age pension age to reach 70 by July 1, 2035
- Pension means test thresholds to be frozen for three years
- Tougher income test for self-funded retirees to receive Commonwealth Seniors Health Card
Communications
- ABC-operated Australia Network to close, saving $198 million over four years
- Combined cuts to ABC and SBS of $43.5 million over four years
- $10 million for children's safety online including a "Children's e-Safety Commissioner"
- $100 million for mobile blackspot and wireless coverage in regional areas
Public service
- 16,500 full-time jobs gone in three years
- Tax Office suffers biggest hit; Department of Human Services one of few winners
- Razor gang to target the bureaucracy's spin doctors
Federal Budget 2014
Budget signals end of Australia as we know it
TOM ALLARD As Joe Hockey was delivering his budget speech on Tuesday night, Taylor Clarke-Pepper was settling down to dinner: two-minute noodles and a glass of cordial.
How Joe Hockey ended the age of entitlement
PETER HARTCHER As Joe Hockey set about deciding how to cut welfare payments, he asked for a comprehensive list of all entitlement programs. He couldn’t find one.
Budget will hit demand, but not too badly
ROSS GITTINS This week's macro-economic question is: how will the budget affect the economy?
If PM goes to the polls I will win, says Palmer
Heath Aston, Lisa Cox Clive Palmer on Friday made the bold prediction he could become prime minister if Tony Abbott called a double dissolution election.
New $7 GP fee no 'windfall', say doctors
DAN HARRISON Doctors have rubbished claims by Health Minister Peter Dutton that a $7 fee for GP visits will improve health outcomes by allowing doctors to spend more time with patients and make it easier for people to get an appointment with their doctor when they need one.
Labor throws Hockey budget into chaos
MARK KENNY Key elements of the Abbott government’s economic strategy have been thrown into chaos after Bill Shorten declared its first budget a document based on lies.
Shorten to be negative as Abbott
MICHAEL GORDON Opinion Bill Shorten’s blunt message for Tony Abbott in his budget reply is that he intends to be every bit as negative.
Less than two middies: Hockey defends GP fee
MATTHEW KNOTT Forget inflation; forget the government bond rate. Treasurer Joe Hockey this morning injected a new price measure into the political lexicon: the Middy Exchange Rate (MER).
Lower growth, more unemployment
MICHAEL PASCOE While everyone's been off chasing weasel words, the centrepiece of Joe Hockey's first budget has been largely overlooked.
Shorten dismisses Abbott's election threats
LISA COX Opposition Leader Bill Shorten says Prime Minister Tony Abbott will not be brave enough to call a double dissolution election if the Senate refuses to pass the government's budget bills.
Joe Hockey avoids question of a higher GST
PETER MARTIN Opinion Don't think for a moment that Joe Hockey doesn't get the case for a higher GST.
Public service counts cost of budget
NOEL TOWELL Canberra was confronted on Wednesday by the full impact of the federal budget on the jobs, careers and families of tens of thousands of local public servants and other government workers.
Abbott in denial over broken promises
MICHAEL GORDON Opinion Phase one of Tony Abbott's strategy to sell the budget is to deny, point blank, that it is based on the deceit of broken promises made before last year's election.
Graduate debts up to $120,000, HECS architect warns
Matthew Knott, Heath Gilmore University degrees will cost up to three times as much under a deregulated fee system, leaving graduates with $120,000-plus debts, according to the architect of the HECS student loan scheme.
Then and now: budget's broken promises
On the eve of the 2013 federal election Tony Abbott promised no cuts to education, health, or the ABC and SBS, and no changes to pensions. Fairfax Media looks at how those promises fared in the Abbott government's first budget.
ABC, SBS bosses blast broken promise
MATTHEW KNOTT The managing directors of ABC and SBS have blasted the Abbott government for breaking a pre-election promise not to cut funding to the broadcasters.
Governments on GST collision course
JAMES MASSOLA The federal and state governments are on a collision course over $80 billion in cuts to health and education.
Ross Gittins answers your budget questions
ROSS GITTINS The Sydney Morning Herald's Economics Editor, Ross Gittins, will be answering reader questions about the 2014 Federal Budget from midday.
John Howard predicts pain for battlers
CAMERON ATFIELD Former Prime Minister John Howard has backed the first Coalition federal budget since he left politics, but has warned its impact on the vulnerable should not be underestimated.
Economy
Budget to hit consumer confidence
Bianca Hartge-Hazelman and Sally Rose Economists say that the government's tough budget could drive confidence to recession levels and delay future interest rate hikes until late next year.
Energy sector left obsolete by agency's demise
PETER HANNAM The head of Australia's flagship clean energy development agency says the organisation's planned axing is a broken promise that will leave the country's energy sector obsolete.
Abbott berated over age pension changes
JESSICA WRIGHT Prime Minister Tony Abbott and Treasurer Joe Hockey are defending accusations of untrustworthiness, saying their first budget was “fundamentally honest” and drafted in good faith.
Hockey 'daring' states to ask for GST rise
JESSICA WRIGHT Labor has accused the Abbott government of daring the states to push for an increase in the GST after Treasurer Joe Hockey revealed in the budget that the states would be stripped of billions of dollars of funding for health and education.
Hockey grilled by ABC's Sarah Ferguson
Alexandra Back Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey has sweated his way through his first post-Budget interview.
Joe Hockey's budget 2014 speech in words
Alexandra Back We’ve bundled the more than 3500 of the Treasurer’s words on budget night into this word cloud.
Federal budget 2014: Young to wait until 25 to get dole
JACQUELINE MALEY Young people wishing to sign onto the dole will be forced to wait six months before they receive a cent of government money, after which they will have to work for the dole for another six months before either getting a job, or getting cut off again for another six months.
SMH
Editorial: Joe Hockey puts credibility at risk
Rarely has a federal Treasurer laid out so quickly and clearly such stark reforms to the Australian way of life. Rarely have voters been left wondering about the justification and asking, ''Why the rush?''
No wallets spared in hunt for savings
MATT WADE It's hard to find a hip pocket spared by the Abbott government's first budget.
Pension whittled away, but super untouched
JOHN COLLETT Many people will be going back to their drawing boards when it comes to planning retirement.
Uni now means more pain before gain
NATASHA BODDY Students to be hit in the hip pocket after the government announced it would reduce contributions towards their course fees.
High earners will pay more tax until 2017
JAMES MASSOLA About 400,000 taxpayers earning more than $180,000 will pay an extra 2 per cent tax as the government breaks a pre-election promise not to raise taxes.
Armed forces get $1.5b shot in combat arm
DAVID WROE Defence has emerged strongly as the winner out of Tuesday's budget, with spending on the military set to grow about 6 per cent above inflation in coming years.
Greatest sting in threshold for part B
JACQUELINE MALEY Family tax payments will be tightened from 2015, with families on sole incomes - those who currently receive family tax benefit part B - to be hit hardest.
Christmas Island to be 48-hour transfer hub
SARAH WHYTE The Christmas Island detention centre is set to become a ''rapid transfer'' base where asylum seekers are held for just 48 hours before being sent for processing on Nauru or PNG's Manus Island.
Double the funding in rare win
AMY CORDEROY A $20 billion medical research future fund for cutting-edge research will be the largest of its kind in the world, the government says.
'Affordable' plan dumps promises
DAVID WROE Foreign aid has taken another budget hit, with spending frozen at $5 billion a year for the next two years, meaning it will not keep pace with inflation.
Joe Hockey hurts his way into history
MARK KENNY An unprecedented $80 billion cut to health and education spending over the next decade leads a list of tough savings measures.
Federal Budget 2014: The sketch
TONY WRIGHT It was an austerity budget and an austerity media conference by Joe Hockey.
$12m to investigate ASIC registry sale
GARETH HUTCHENS The Australian Securities and Investments Commission's $6 billion-plus registry business looks set to be privatised as part of the Abbott government's plans to ''reduce the footprint'' of the federal government.
Tighter rules placed on health card
JOHN COLLETT The budget targets well-off retirees by making it harder for them to access the Commonwealth seniors health card.
Australian Tax Office the biggest loser
MARKUS MANNHEIM The federal bureaucracy is poised for its greatest loss of staff since the early years of the Howard government.
Health
Fed govt to slash share of hospital funding
Amy Corderoy, Dan Harrison Billions of dollars will be slashed from already-strained public hospital budgets under plans that could lead to huge increases in waiting times for surgery and emergency treatment.
Federal budget 2014: Social media reactions
Sophia Phan People have taken to social media to express their emotions over Treasurer Joe Hockey's first budget.
Parliament
Federal budget 2014 – Full speech
Full text of the 2014 budget speech delivered by Federal Treasurer Joe Hockey.
ABC, SBS cut by $43.5 million
Jonathan Swan, Matthew Knott Prime Minister Tony Abbott has broken his election promise: ''No cuts to the ABC or SBS.''
More than 70 agencies scrapped
PHILLIP THOMSON Government to consolidate and scrap more than 70 government bodies.
The budget for women, parents and families
Marie Coleman “Staying at home should be a parent’s choice but there are limits on how much support the taxpayer can give,” Treasurer Hockey says.
Budget to cut 16,500 public service jobs
MARKUS MANNHEIM The federal bureaucracy is poised for its greatest loss of staff since the early years of the Howard government.
Reaction
Labor: Budget built on 'act of mass deceit'
James Massola, Marija Taflaga Labor has slammed Joe Hockey's first budget, labelling it a document of "broken promises, cruel cuts and unfair increases in the cost of living".
Highlights
Interactive data explorer
Explore the major data points of the 2014 federal budget and see how Joe Hockey’s first budget shapes up to his predecessors.
Winners and losers
Who gains and who feels the pain of Joe Hockey's first budget.
Budget at a glance
What you need to know about the 2014 federal budget.
Analysis
Tony, what a surprise!
Rocco Fazzari and Denis Carnahan present their musical analysis of the Budget. With apologies to Chicago.
Broken promises or building Australia?
As Treasurer Joe Hockey begins the task of selling his first budget, the political fallout ensues. Nine News.
Budget 2014: 'we've kept our promise'
Joe Hockey says the most significant pledge the Coalition made was to fix the Budget and they've kept that promise.
The populist is gone, meet Abbott the ideologue
Joe Hockey says this budget is not the last word in fixing the nation's finances but the first. And that first word is "surprise".
Tough and unfair, it's business as usual
I give Joe Hockey's first budgetary exam a distinction on management of the macro economy, a credit on micro-economic reform and a fail on fairness.
Crisis? What crisis? Budget bluff finally becomes clear
The sense of urgency that the government engineered going into this budget can now be seen in perspective. There was no crisis forcing savage spending cuts and revenue-raising measures.
Trust deficit spells death for a salesman
Treasurer Joe Hockey describes this as ''the budget that gets on with the job'' of repairing a budget which was otherwise headed towards the rocks.
Joe Hockey picks ancient charts above arts
Treasurer Joe Hockey presented his inaugural budget speech from a bespoke kangaroo skin document sleeve, a gift from his family on the eve of his big day.
An indexation trick without an asterisk
Honest Joe has delivered a stunning first instalment. It's stunning because he has harnessed the power of compound indexation to restrain spending by more and more as each year goes by. It's the first instalment because his second, due within two years, will deal with tax.
Will the pain be worth it for Tony Abbott?
Joe Hockey gets a 10 for courage, an eight for fiscal responsibility and a three for keeping commitments in a high-risk budget that will test the discipline, cohesion and salesmanship of the entire Abbott government.
Where some are more equal than others
Comment: Joe Hockey's chant that everyone must pucker up and ''contribute now'' smacks of George Orwell's Animal Farm.
Chance to kick props away from leaners
This is more the political version of a footy coach's three-quarter time motivation session than classic budget speech.
