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The 2017 Federal Budget is make or break for Turnbull and Morrison as the vestiges of the Abbott-Hockey era and accusations of dysfunctional politics continue to undermine efforts to reboot economic confidence.
by Professor Anne Tiernan, Griffith Business School
Overview
The 2014-15 Federal Budget continues to haunt the Turnbull government like Banquo’s ghost. It has been a debilitating drain on the Prime Minister’s ability and willingness to present a coherent agenda to reboot confidence and economic growth.
Approaching its fourth year in office, the histrionic slogans that proved lethal in Opposition and that formed the core of the Abbott government’s platform – ‘debt and deficit disaster’ – have limited the Coalition’s options in many domains of policy. Turnbull government ministers (often heroic) attempts to pivot in new directions have been thwarted by the need to avoid being seen to contradict current commitments.
Nation building
Witness Treasurer Scott Morrison’s efforts over recent weeks to distinguish ‘good’ from

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By Associate Professor Robert Bianchi, Griffith Business School
Owning your own home may become a ‘great Australian pipe dream’ for some first home buyers. The Federal Government can employ a number of policies to improve housing affordability. The crucial question remains how does the government address housing affordability without fueling higher demand?
Overview

The 2017 Federal Budget proposes an initiative to allow first home buyers to accumulate their housing deposit in their superannuation fund. The announcement proposes that potential first-home buyers who make additional deposits above the compulsory 9.5% contribution rate, can accumulate these savings in their super fund. These additional contributions are subject to a lower 15% tax rate (rather than earnings being taxed at their personal marginal tax rate).  This initiative attempts to address housing affordability in Australia’s capital cities, especially in Sydney and Melbourne.  At face value, this Budget announcement is a novel concept that seeks to address the challenges

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By Professor Fabrizio Carmignani, Griffith Business School
The Treasurer falls short of what Australia needs to sustain growth in the long-term. Moreover, in spite of a somewhat popular view that this was a “labour budget”, the artificial distinction between good and bad debt and several of the provisions around social welfare provide fertile grounds for Australia’s hidden disease, inequality, to blossom.
Overview
The macroeconomic environment faced by the government remains challenging, albeit moderately improving. At a global level, economic growth and trade are picking up. The outlook is however weakened by significant risks, including the emergence of new protectionist sentiments, uncertainties about the policy agenda of some major economies (e.g. the US), persistent fiscal imbalances in a number of advanced economies, and increasing financial and balance-sheet vulnerabilities in emerging countries.
Home front
Domestically, economic growth in the last 12 months has gone down to 1.75% from 2.6% in 2015-16. At the same time, the unemployment

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By Professor Andrew O’Neil, Griffith Business School
While the 2017 Defence budget confirms a commitment to large-scale projects currently in play, an emphasis on job creation in the Defence arena also moves to reaffirm the government’s ‘Australia first’ agenda.
Difficult to plan ahead
By far the most complicated dimension of defence budgets is aligning the timing of key acquisitions with the strategic guidance laid out in successive Defence White Papers. Historically, very few governments have been able to do this largely because major acquisitions are, by their very nature, devilishly difficult to control. Aircraft and naval acquisitions in particular are difficult affairs, often characterised by cost overruns, equipment delays, and changing geopolitical circumstances that sometimes throw the logic of the initial purchasing decision into question. Australia’s single most celebrated acquisition – the F-111 fighter-bomber – was ordered in 1963 because it was the only aircraft on the market that could fly non-stop to

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By Dr Liam Wagner, Griffith Business School
The 2017 Federal Budget includes incentives for development of more gas supplies via pipeline construction. However, a focus on LNG exports only diverts the energy policy debate away from the transmission infrastructure crisis highlighted by the summer blackouts.
Overview
Australia has a gas crisis like no other point in its history, one of inaction. Natural gas has become the fool’s gold of 21st century Australia. The prospect of becoming one of the largest exporters in the world of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) was all too great a temptation for the state and federal governments.  
The national interest tests placed on the foreign export of any resource are simply not effective at lowering the price of natural gas once international linkage has been achieved.
The only strategy available to the federal government is to increase supply, hoping this will ease domestic constraints. However, natural gas contract prices won’t be

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Graduates from Griffith Film School have dominated a competition to find the state’s most promising young horror auteurs.
Three teams of GFS grads have won entry into Los Angeles’ famed Screamfest movie festival – beating out nearly 100 entries from around the state.
Supporting local filmmakers
As part of the Screen Queensland SCREAM! Queensland competition, the filmmakers will develop and produce 8-10 minute horror films, each with a budget of up to $40,000.
The completed films will premiere in October at Screamfest, the largest and longest running horror film festival in the United States.
The filmmakers will workshop their concepts next month with local horror gurus Shane Krause and Shayne Armstrong (Bait, Acolytes).
Griffith grads sweep competition
Acting Head of Griffith Film School Professor Trish FitzSimons said it was gratifying to see GFS graduates sweep the pool of entries.
“It is a huge honour for our graduates to win entry into Screamfest, one of the most prestigious genre film

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Griffith Business School (GBS) continues to be at the forefront of responsible leadership with a Griffith academic appointed to the Federal Government’s new Financial Adviser Standards and Ethics Authority (FASEA).
Professor Mark Brimble, the Discipline Head of Finance and Financial Planning at GBS, is the only academic appointed to the Authority which was established in March by Federal Minister for Financial Services Kelly O’Dwyer.
FASEA will oversee the conduct of professionals in the financial advice sector, by setting mandatory educational and training requirements, developing and setting an industry exam, and creating a Code of Ethics that all advisers must adhere to.
Proud appointment
Professor Brimble said he was proud and privileged to be considered for a directorship and wasted little time in accepting.
“There is no better way to teach the financial planners of tomorrow about responsibility and ethics than by having a say over the standards-making procedures.
“Being on the FASEA Board allows me the scope to

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