Pre-Budget speculation gets fairly tiresome after a while – mostly just scene setting leaks and people writing and saying things to fill the space before they have something substantial to write and talk about.  Budget night provides the relief of actually getting into the real thing after a lot of mostly empty shadow-boxing.

This will be the eleventh Budget I’ve examined since being in the Senate (and another eight prior to that as a policy advisor). In this era where governments engage in permanent campaigning, Budgets are probably less politically significant than they used to be, having become just one more weapon – albeit a big one - in the endless spin wars. But they are still very important as far as overall economic settings go, and even more so in regards to have they affect the day to day lives of every Australian.

I’ve written a few times in the past about what Budget nights can be like in Canberra – you can read those posts here, here and here.  This Budget has a different feel for me, as I won’t be around in the Senate after June to deal with any of the legislation out of it or examine how the various programs and promises are implemented.

For the first time in six years, I won’t be going into the pre-Budget lock-up. I’ll just look through all the piles of paper like everyone else when it appears at 7.30 pm.  There’s something for almost everyone in Budget papers, depending on what you’re interested in – the easiest place to find it all is through this link.

There will be one area I’ll be looking at above all else, and that’s Indigenous Affairs. Kevin Rudd’s first Parliamentary speech as Prime Minister included some explicit and major commitments in this area. The goals he set will be tough to reach.  For there to be any chance of achieving those goals, then in amongst all the talk of surpluses and inflation and tax cuts, there will need to be statements showing continuing political commitment and prioritisation for these goals, and the extra funding to back it up.

A reminder of some of what Mr Rudd said back on 13 February this year:

Today’s apology, however inadequate, is aimed at righting past wrongs. It is also aimed at building a bridge between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—a bridge based on a real respect rather than a thinly veiled contempt. Our challenge for the future is to now cross that bridge and, in so doing, to embrace a new partnership between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians—embracing, as part of that partnership, expanded Link-Up and other critical services to help the stolen generations to trace their families if at all possible and to provide dignity to their lives. But the core of this partnership for the future is the closing of the gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians on life expectancy, educational achievement and employment opportunities.

This new partnership on closing the gap will set concrete targets for the future: within a decade to halve the widening gap in literacy, numeracy and employment outcomes and opportunities for Indigenous Australians, within a decade to halve the appalling gap in infant mortality rates between Indigenous and non-Indigenous children and, within a generation, to close the equally appalling 17-year life gap between Indigenous and non-Indigenous in overall life expectancy.

…….

Let us resolve today to begin with the little children—a fitting place to start on this day of apology for the stolen generations. Let us resolve over the next five years to have every Indigenous four-year-old in a remote Aboriginal community enrolled in and attending a proper early childhood education centre or opportunity and engaged in proper preliteracy and prenumeracy programs.

(emphasis added)