Fast Lane: Waiting for the “broken promises” budget

Nobody is looking forward to tomorrow’s budget. The government has been relentless in warning us all that this is going to be a tough one.

There have been a series of leaks about just what might be contained in Joe Hockey’s speech when he gets to his feet at 7.30pm tomorrow night to deliver the budget.

These leaks are generally carefully controlled to ensure we are all “softened up” before budget night and prepared for the bad news.

Petrol tax hikes, an increase in the age at which the pension is accessed and a “deficit levy” on high income earners – it looks like most sectors of society are going to be hit.

Everything is the fault of the previous government, who in turn blamed the economy when they were actually in power.

The idea is that, come tomorrow evening, we will all be able to turn around to each other and breathe a sigh of relief, saying “it’s not as bad as we expected after all”.

One entrepreneur I spoke to told me she didn’t want to talk about the budget as it was just “too depressing”.

Of course, SMEs are a savvy bunch and our SmartCompany pre Budget poll shows a degree of cynicism about this deluge of bad news.

“Less talk of doom and gloom,” one reader said. “The government is scaring people for no good reason”.

Perhaps the lead up to this year’s budget has just been too dire?

A level of fatigue has set in where the government’s message about tightening the belt is just not getting through.

When asked what they were worried about in the budget, one SmartCompany reader said “broken promises”.

It feels all too predictable that we heard only good news, like “no new taxes” prior to the election and now we are told to expect the worst.