Our reportersLachlan AbbottandNicole Precelhave spoken to a number of Victorians from different walks of life to gauge how they feel about today’s state budget.
Here are just some of their stories.
The family
Abdullah Altintop and Zeyneb Gokler are raising two kids in Melbourne’s outer north. The Wollert couple took advantage of the government’s last year and their four-year-old daughter,Safiye,now attends for free two days a week. But they say it’s not enough to help Zeyneb return to work as a midwife at the Northern Hospital.
With six-month-old Salih now part of the family,Abdullah says he also still wanted to see more invested into education to help his children in the future,and suggested direct payments to parents could help squeezed family budgets.
“Anything that ... takes pressures off mums and dads is very helpful,” he says.
After the budget was released,the couple were disappointed,particularly with cuts to public servants,and thought there was limited further childcare help.
“It could’ve been better,” Abdullah says. “I don’t think they have balanced the right areas.”
However,they said it was “fantastic” to see $50 million spent on greater access to public fertility care,having used IVF themselves and incurring significant out-of-pocket costs.
Abdullah says it was good that nine new public schools for Melbourne’s fast-growing suburbs included one in Wollert,but he wouldn’t be sending his kids there because he was concerned with the broader public education system.
The second property owner
Leigh Powell,a small business mentor and strategist from East Brighton,says his holiday home on Phillip Island would be hit by the broadening of the tax on multiple properties.
“The state government’s raised considerable debt for its COVID-related support programs. That has to be repaid. I don’t have any doubt about that,” he says.
The 69-year-old says “it would be silly” to expect things would go on as normal after the pandemic without a change to how people contribute to tax.
“Is it reasonable for one of the things to focus on people who have some capacity to pay? And is it likely to be the case if someone has a second,third or fourth home? I don’t think it’s an unreasonable cohort to seek from,” he says.
He says if the change resulted in additional charges in the thousands it would hurt,but “that’s the way it is”.
Powell says if it was a substantial increase in tax,then it may have people questioning whether they want to keep the property and pay the luxury tax of having a holiday home.
“I’m sympathetic to the fact that there’s a lot of people who are doing it very tough,” he says.
Powell had hoped large building projects would be trimmed temporarily to pay off pandemic debt and wanted more funding for domestic violence support and mental health services.