From January 2019. The number of entrepreneurship facilitators (introduced as part of a 2016-17 budget measure) will be expanded to encourage entrepreneurship and self-employment among older Australians with an additional 20 facilitators, 10 of which will operate in regional locations. New facilitators will deliver services to all people in a region, however their primary focus will be on mature age people. The existing facilitators will have a focus on young people.

The budget also contained plans to expand the Rural Health Multidisciplinary Training program to include Curtin University and La Trobe University, providing further opportunities for medical students in rural areas.

The new medical schools were a major part of the government’s ‘Stronger Rural Health Strategy’, as reveled in the budget.

The strategy aims to “improve health access and services for people living in regional, rural and remote Australia” with “key initiatives are aimed at addressing health workforce shortages in the regions through a renewed focus

on teaching, training, recruitment and retention”.

The strategy will establish the ‘More Doctors for Rural Australia Program’, designed to “enable Australian trained doctors to undertake practice in rural and remote areas”.

A ‘ Workforce Incentive Program’ will “encourage a range of health professionals, including nurses and allied health professionals to deliver services in rural and remote areas that have experienced difficulty in attracting and retaining them in the past”.

The government will also “increase the capacity and flexibility” of existing bonded scholarship programs to for doctors committing to return to work in regional, rural and remote areas following their training.

The role of nurses in delivering health care will also be strengthened through training and support for nurses moving into general practice.

The government will also improve the delivery and availability of dental, mental health and emergency aeromedical services in rural and remote areas by providing additional funding to the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

The budget has allocated $4.6m over four years from 2018/19 to establish a National Rural Health Commissioner to provide advice on opportunities to remote and rural heal services; including the development of a National Rural Generalist Pathway for the training of rural doctors.

“The commissioner will work with regional, rural and remote communities, the health sectors, universities and specialist training colleges and across all levels of government to improve rural health policies and champion the cause of rural practice,” the budget stated.

In February 2018, the Commissioner landed a historic agreement between the Australian College of Rural and Remote Medicine and The Royal College of GPs to work together to develop a national framework for the a Rural Generalist medical specialty.

Fairfax Media understands that the Department of health intends for the Rural Generalist medical specialty program to allow doctors to complete as much of their training as possible at rural and regional hospitals.

“The rural health workforce and communities located in rural and remote areas will benefit from the introduction of the commissioner, who will place rural and remote issues at the forefront of government decision making,” the budget stated.

The budget will also provide approximately $4 billion over four years from 2017-18 in block funding contributions to states and territories to support services provided by small, rural and regional hospitals.

“This funding ensures rural and regional communities continue to have access to vital public hospital services,” the budget stated.

Tax

The budget’s ‘Personal Income Tax Plan’ will be good news to a lot of Riverina wage earners, with the both income tax cuts and measures to stop a large number of workers from reaching a higher tax bracket.

Treasury stated that that 94 per cent of all taxpayers are projected to pay no more than 32.5 cents in the dollar in 2024–25.

The budget aimed to “targets personal income tax cuts to low and middle-income taxpayers, helping to relieve cost of living pressures.”

A new, non-refundable tax offset will provide up to $530 to low and middle-income earners each year between 2018/19 and 2021/22

The offset will be received as a lump sum on assessment after individuals lodge their tax returns.

Treasurer Scott Morrison told journalists that he wanted workers to keep their own money if taxes approached his “tax speed limit” of 23.9 per cent of Gross Domestic Product, which has become an official government fiscal strategy.

“About 4.4 million taxpayers with incomes between $48,000 and $90,000 receiving the full $530 benefit for 2018/19,” the budget stated.

From July 2, the top threshold of the 32.5 per cent tax bracket will be increased from $87,000 to $90,000. “This will provide a tax cut of up to $135 per year to about three million taxpayers and will prevent about 200,000 people from facing a marginal tax rate of 37 per cent in 2018–19,” the budget stated.

“This is expected to prevent average full-time wage earners from facing a higher marginal tax rate of 37 per cent in 2019/20.”

The top threshold of the 32.5 per cent bracket will then be further increased from $90,000 to $120,000 from 1 July 2022, providing tax relief of up to $1,350 each year.

The benefits provided by the low and middle-income tax offset will be locked in by increasing the top threshold of the 19 per cent bracket from $37,000 to $41,000 and increasing the Low Income Tax Offset from $445 to $645.

The tax changes were deliberately targeted at fighting ‘bracket creep’, where inflation and wage rises push more of workers’ earnings into higher tax brackets.

The changes would “ensure Australians take home more of their wages, rather than being penalised through a higher marginal tax rate as their wages grow,” according to the budget.

The government has moved to “simplify and flatten” the tax system from July 2024 by reducing the number of income tax brackets from five to four.

By increasing the top threshold of the 32.5 per cent bracket, thereby removing the current 37 per cent bracket, working Australians will face the same marginal tax rate for incomes between $41,000 and $200,000,” the budget stated.

“The top marginal tax rate of 45 per cent will remain for incomes above $200,000.”

When asked why he was cutting taxes and abolishing tax brackets rather than a bigger emphasis on paying off national debt, Mr Morrison said it was because he “respects taxpayers”.

“When too much tax revenue is coming in, the tax system is actually overburdening them,” he said.

“I think it’s wrong to be punishing them for that.

“It’s their money; this isn’t costing us anything because taxpayers pay us money. It’s not ours.”

Though many families would see just $10.50 a week in tax savings to start with, Mr Morrison said that amount added up to a big difference over a year.

“$530…means a quarterly electricity bill, the car rego, a new set of tyres, school books and uniforms for a year, half a dozen talk of petrol, two to three months of train tickets,” he said.

“Anyone who thinks that doesn’t matter clearly is not in touch because that stuff matters.

“Car rego matters, what you pay to get on the train matters, what you pay to put petrol in your car matters, and that comes all at once to help families pay those bills.”

Aged Care

The Government is expanding the aged care system to better support people’s choices in how and where they receive care.

The Government has committed $1.6b to provide about 14,000 additional high-level home care packages, enabling people to live in their own home for longer.

There are reportedly about 100,000 people in the waiting list for Commonwealth supported home care services.

Mr Morrison told journalists that it was a common problem and his on constituents had come to his electorate office about the issue.

“This package recognizes that if you get older and you live longer and you live healthier, that’s a good thing,” he said.

“Too often aging is taken about in the policy sense as some sort of curse on the nation.

“If you live longer and healthier, I think that’s a good thing and I think most Australians would too; it should be a goal, not a curse.”

Mr Morrison said aging could be a bad experience for Australian when they lose choices.

“They shouldn’t ever have to sacrifice their dignity, and we are doing everything from improving their economic means, their health and their lifestyle, to safeguarding their rights in residential care.

“There’s 14,000 additional home care places, that’s on top of the 6000 we announced in the Mid-Year Economic Update.

“People want to stay at home and we’ll support them in that choice. That’s where the demand is in the system, it actually isn’t on the residential aged care side.

“Staying at home can be difficult and expensive, and this package respects that.”

Total aged care spending will increase from almost $16.6b to more than $18b in 2018/19 and almost $22.1b  in 2021/22.

The government has kept Labor’s previous move to increase the pension age to 70.

Education

The budget stated the government “has endorsed the recommendations of the Review to Achieve Educational Excellence in Australian Schools led by David Gonski AC and is working with the States and Territories to deliver the blueprint for reform.”

Education spending across Australia will rise from $33.7b in the current financial year to $34.7b in 2018/19 and $39.3b in 202/22.

The Government will provide an additional $247.0m over four years from 2018/19 to renew and continue the National School Chaplaincy Programme, which has been subject to legal challenges over the separation of church and state.

The budget stated the school chaplaincy program would support the “wellbeing of students and school communities through the provision of pastoral care services and other support services”.

Jobs and business

Small businesses and farmers will bet a boost, with the budget extending the $20,000 instant asset write-off for businesses with a turnover of up to $10m to apply in 2018/19.

“It will be warmly received by small business across the country,” Mr Morrison said.

“If you back those who create jobs, jobs get created.

“And that has a positive effect, at the end of the day, on the government’s finances.”

$50m has been set aside to enhance security arrangements at 64 regional airports with new and upgraded screening technologies and associated infrastructure.

The Department of Home Affairs was not wiling to release a list of airports that will receive the upgrades but the funding will be allocated with a priority on airports without screening, those with incomplete screening or older screening technology.

The funding levels will also be tied to the size of the planes that service each of the 64 regional airports.

Businesses that rely on large cash transactions will have to change their procedures as the budget announced the government’s intention to outlaw cash payments of greater than $10,000.

The measure will be part of the government’s ‘Tackling the black economy’ program to reduce crime and tax avoidance associated with difficult-to-trace cash transactions.

“The Government will introduce a cash payment limit of $10,000 on payments made to businesses,” according to the government’s response to the Black Economy Taskforce’s report.

“This will not cover individual-to-individual transactions.

“The cash limit is aimed at reducing opportunities for criminals to launder the proceeds of crime into goods and services or for businesses to hide transactions to reduce their tax liabilities.”

Black Economy Taskforce heard from community members during its consultation ‘roadshow’ that there were entirely legitimate expenses that some people still needed to meet with large cash transactions.

“We have heard through consultation a number of legitimate payments people make in excess of $10,000 including payment of school fees, motor vehicles, final payment upon settlement of building works and purchases of jewellery,” the taskforce reported to the government.

“Regardless, it is our view that if the cost is $10,000 or more, transactions should no longer be allowed to be completed using physical currency but rather must be made via the banking system.”

Municipal government

The Government will make an early payment during the 2017-18 financial year of 50 per cent of the 2018-19 Financial Assistance Grant funding.

“This cash injection of more than $1.2b will give councils the opportunity to start work immediately on new projects and to benefit from additional interest on cash in the bank,” the budget stated.

The funding is untied and will be allocated to states and territories for distribution to municipalities based on population, with a component of the funding for local roads to be based on historical shares for each municipality.

The big numbers

Mr Morrison credited strong jobs growth and record-low numbers of people on welfare for helping to create a pathway to ‘modest’ surpluses in the next four years.

Net debt will increase from just over $341b in the current financial year to $349.9b in 2018/19 before declining to 319.2b in 2021/22.

The government plans to have net debt down to $118b by 2028-29, claiming “an improvement to the bottom line of $404m over the four years to 2021/22”.

Mr Morrison said the government was no longer borrowing money to meet its everyday recurrent expenses, which was a year ahead of projections.

The government’s operating and capital spending will increase by almost $15b to $348b in the next financial year and rising to $474b by 2021/22.

Tax receipts will increase from $445b to an estimated $473b next financial year.

The government has forecast a deficit of $14.5b in 2018/19, equal with a return to balance in 2019/20,  before increasing to a surplus in 2020/21 of $11b.

In 2021–22, the government has projected an underlying cash surplus of $16.6b.

The budget has assumed a slight decline in the national unemployment rate from 5.5 to 5.25 per cent, where it was forecast to remain for the next three years