Labor will gain a $30 billion tax windfall from the oil crisis, a leading economist has predicted – but it came with a warning for the government.<\/p>\n
The global fuel crisis has sent energy and commodity prices soaring, boosting Australia\u2019s tax take in a boon for Treasurer Jim Chalmers.<\/p>\n
Chris Richardson, a renowned budget analyst and independent economist, said the budget was a rare winner from the fuel crisis.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s an uncomfortable fact \u2026 families are worse off when energy prices go up, but some Australian businesses selling to the world – selling gas (and) different types of coal \u2013 are better off and the government gets a slice of that,\u201d Mr Richardson told Sky News.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat combination is the world giving us a pay rise for what we sell them and (with) higher inflation, both of those deliver dollars to the tax man.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tax revenues were already beating expectations prior to the oil crisis as net migration exceeded prior forecasts and inflation was elevated.<\/p>\n
The uptick in fuel prices will help Mr Chalmers as the nation battles a sea of red ink across its budget forecasts and about $1 trillion in debt.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think we’re looking at about $30b better off over the current four-year period,\u201d Mr Richardson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cMost of that (is) in the financial year we start in a couple of months – $20b out of the $30b overall because it is a spike and much of this gain is temporary.\u201d<\/p>\n
The leading budget analyser also urged for spending restraint from the government as it enjoys the additional tax take.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe need to be careful,\u201d Mr Richardson said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe politics are always tricky in a phase where families are worse off and government is better off, but the government needs to be pretty careful around what it does with that windfall.\u201d<\/p>\n
Labor has halved the fuel excise, reducing the price by 26 cents per litre, while the states have announced their own excise cuts and some have introduced free public transport.<\/p>\n
The cost-of-living efforts come as average diesel prices in NSW have grown from 182 cents per litre in February to 302 cents per litre since the beginning of April.<\/p>\n
Unleaded 91 prices are up from 168 cents per litre in February to 219 cents per litre in April.<\/p>\n
Fuel prices could jump further if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n
Economists from AMP warned oil could lift to above US$150 per barrel, a significant jump from the current price of about US$102 per barrel.<\/p>\n
This could force inflation above 6.6 per cent and mean more than 950,000 Australians are unemployed, according to Deloitte.<\/p>\n
Australians are also dealing with price pains through back-to-back interest rate hikes in February and March, while more are anticipated throughout the year.<\/p>\n
Westpac is forecasting three more interest rate increases this year, while NAB, Commonwealth Bank and ANZ are each predicting another hike in May.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Labor will gain a $30 billion tax windfall from the oil crisis, a leading economist has predicted –…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603685,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[64,63,99,16168,294018,164,88374,42086,1788,50850],"class_list":{"0":"post-603684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-chris-richardson","12":"tag-economist-chris-richardson","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-federal-budget","15":"tag-jim-chalmers","16":"tag-labor","17":"tag-treasurer-jim-chalmers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603684\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}