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Federal Budget 2015: What you didn’t know about the Budget

Azal Khan

Impress your colleagues at the proverbial water cooler today with these little-known details about the Federal Budget.

Budget lock-up

It’s described as the adult NAPLAN – the government locks up the media with the embargoed budget papers from 1.30pm on budget day.

Journos are forced to hand over their phones and will go without internet access for six hours while they pore over the budget papers.

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Only when the budget is announced do the lockup doors open and the media is allowed share the details with the outside world what they think.

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Over 1000 people were in the budget lock up this year and had a chance to grill Hockey on the budget and how the government planned to sell it to Aussies.

 

 

Some Federal Budget fun facts courtesy of the Treasury:

* At least six kilos of M&Ms are consumed by staff in the budget division at the Australian treasury in the weeks leading up the budget

* Don’t try this at home, but the 2015 budget papers would take 98 hours to print on a standard printer

* If all the budget papers were stacked on top of each other they would be 500m high

 Origins of ‘Budget’

The word ‘budget’ comes from the French word for bag, bougette. Budget papers would arrive at the UK Parliament in a leather pouch and the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the UK Treasurer) would “open the budget”.

 

 Then and now

Our nation’s first budget was written on shaving paper to save money. It was handed down in 1901 by our first elected treasurer, George Turner. The 1901-02 budget saw the government spending costing almost four million pounds, compared to the 2014 budget spending of $415.3 billion.

The night of nights

Australia’s national budget comes out on the second Tuesday in May.

This has been tradition since 1994 with the only exception in 1996 when John Howard defeated then Prime Minister Paul Keating in the election, forcing the budget to be moved to August.

 Budget night is the final step in a very long process. Work has been going on – in secret – for almost a year. First, all government departments develop proposals.

These classified documents are sent to the Expenditure Review Committee which is chaired by the Treasurer or PM and its decisions shape the Federal Budget.

 

 

Know the basics

The budget shows the overall financial position of the government, being either a surplus or deficit. This year the budget deficit is forecast to be close to $40 billion.

And according to the Treasurer’s Intergenerational report, the next Commonwealth budget surplus may be 40 years away.

The budget lists how the government will spend money in the next 12 months, including cuts and new spending. And it will show where this money will come from, such as changes to taxes.