The Australian budget later this month will involve “tough decisions” to put the economy back on track, a senior minister said yesterday as a poll revealed a voter backlash against any new tax to cut debt.
Australia has enjoyed more than 20 years of annual growth, sidestepping the worst of the global financial crisis due to a mining boom fuelled by Asian demand.
However, the government elected in September last year has said it is facing a deficit of A$47 billion (US$43.6 billion) this fiscal year due to the previous Labor administration, and that the debt will only mount in coming years.
Photo: Bloomberg
House Leader Christopher Pyne refused to comment on whether a new tax reportedly under consideration to plug the deficit — on workers earning more than A$80,000 a year — would be unveiled as part of the budget on May 13.
“I think they [Australians] fully understand we have to make the tough decisions necessary... to get the economy back on track again,” he told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.
“They know it won’t be easy and it is important that everyone shares in that burden of repairing the damage Labor did to the economy and to the budget,” Pyne added.
A Galaxy Poll in the Sunday Telegraph found that 72 percent of voters felt that introducing the levy would amount to a broken promise by Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, who before the election had pledged no new taxes.
The poll of the 1,391 voters also found support for Abbott’s coalition had dropped significantly since the election, from 53.5 to 48 percent, meaning it would lose an election to Labor if a poll were held now.
Pyne dismissed the poll, saying the government had been elected to fix the budget and Australians understood this was a priority.
“There’s no easy way out from the debt and deficit disaster left for us by the Labor government,” he said.
“We don’t want to end up in the situation that Europe and the United States are in — and we don’t have to, as long as we have a government that is prepared to take responsibility and make the decisions now that will set up the economy and our society in the years ahead,” he added.
In a statement, Abbott said the nation must live within its means and try to reduce debt.
“Beyond a certain point, you don’t control debt; debt controls you,” he said.
Opposition Labor leader Bill Shorten said his party would oppose any deficit levy.
“Increasing taxes on working class and middle-class Australians is a terrible mistake, and people will not forgive Mr Abbott for breaking this very big promise,” he said.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the
Malaysia’s leader yesterday announced plans to build a massive semiconductor design park, aiming to boost the Southeast Asian nation’s role in the global chip industry. A prominent player in the semiconductor industry for decades, Malaysia accounts for an estimated 13 percent of global back-end manufacturing, according to German tech giant Bosch. Now it wants to go beyond production and emerge as a chip design powerhouse too, Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said. “I am pleased to announce the largest IC (integrated circuit) Design Park in Southeast Asia, that will house world-class anchor tenants and collaborate with global companies such as Arm [Holdings PLC],”