Australian Federal Budget 2016: What It Means For Your Family

Low income earners

Single people will now have to earn $21,335 before they have to pay the Medicare levy.

Health

Medicare rebates will be frozen at $37 for the next six years so the government can save nearly $1 billion. Experts are predicting this will force GPs to abandon bulk billing as their own costs will continue to rise, while the amount they get from Medicare doesn’t.

The price of prescription medicines will increase by $5 from January.

Dental

A $1.7 billion Child and Adult Public Dental Scheme is being established to prioritise dental spending to those most in nead.

Only children and adult concession card holders will be eligible for the scheme. This will replace the current dental scheme where children of parents who receive Family Tax Benefit are given $1000 per child every two years for dentistry.

Education

The government will increase its investment to education, training and child care will increase to more than $41.8 million in 2016-17. This includes an increase in early education and care by 9.6 per cent to $8.6 billion, an  8 per cent rise for schools to $17.6 billion, and increase by 0.9 per cent to $12.3 billion for higher education.

The controversial School Chaplains Program will be axed from 2018.

Unemployed young people

From next April, if you’re a job seeker under the age of 25 you will need to register for something called “intensive pre-employment skills training” that is supposed to give you skills such as teamwork, presentation and computer literacy.

The government will work with businesses to introduce an internship program, being dubbed as a “real work for the dole program”, where job seekers will work between 15 to 25 hours a week for between one and three months. This will allow jobseekers to top up their income support payments with an extra $200 a fortnight, and businesses will receive $1000 upfront for taking on the interns. If a business chooses to hire the intern, the government will chip in between $6500 to $1000 towards their wage.

Smokers

Bad news for smokers – cigarette prices are set to rise. The government plans four annual 12.5 percent increases to tobacco excise, the first one coming into effect next September. It is expected that packets of smokes will soon cost almost $40.

From July 1 2017 smokers will only be able to leave the airport with 25 cigarettes instead of the current 50.

First home buyers

No help in the Budget for those looking to buy their first home. The Treasurer confirmed that two thirds of people who use negative gearing earn less than $80,000 a year, so the government doesn’t want to tax them more on their investments by increasing their capital gains tax and undermining the value of their home. By removing or lifting the negative gearing that’s contributing to Australia’s record house prices, Mr Morrison said it would “increase the tax burden on Australians just trying to invest and provide a future for their families”.

Pre-schoolers

The opportunity to study foreign languages through “play-based learning using mobile devices” will be given to preschool kids with a $5.9 million expansion of the Early Languages Australia program. Grants of up to $500 will be available to assist up to 1000 low socio-economic preschools to purchase mobile devices.

MyGov

That bumbling, abominable software platform we’ve all been forced on to if we want to access Medicare, Centrelink or the Australian Tax Office online is getting $50.5 million over five years to support its operation, hopefully to work better and drive us less crazy whenever we need to use it.

Is the Budget good or bad for you?