Welcome to Off the Record: a new Australian blog combining Insight, Ideas and Influence

OTR is an exciting new contribution to the social media or the Web 2.0 phenomenon. We at P&P strongly embrace this new digital evolution for social interaction where ideas can be interactive. At OTR we strive to be open and honest in our contributions and encourage comments and feedback. We all have Insight, Ideas and Influence and we would like to share some of ours with you. As Web 2.0 is such a dynamic place, we welcome your feedback on our digital Off the Record blog to make it better and look forward to your comments and contributions. Finally, watch out for special high profile guest bloggers coming soon and please use the RSS feed on the bottom left of this page to keep on top of new blog postings. Regards the P&P team read more >

Swan sells ‘Morning After’ Message

Last night was an orgy of love for Working Families, today in the sober light of day, the Treasurer has moved to become the responsible father figure shepherding the economy through troubling times. Today was all about the clean up… look at how John and Peter left this place. read more >

General Business Impact

While this was clearly a budget for the almost mythological 'working families' - the impact on where they work hasn't had the same level of attention - despite some fairly significant changes for corporations. Our sympathy goes out to the accounting profession. read more >

Media

The consensus in today’s papers is a combination of acrobatics and plastic surgery with the major media outlets talking about “high wire acts” and “nips and tucks” in their coverage of last night’s announcements. Overall, a positive reaction but concern there may not have been sufficient depth to the cuts. read more >

Business:

The Government should be happy with the generally good responses from the business sector. In line with their consistent support in the lead up to the Budget, Australian Industry Group Chief Executive Heather Ridout maintained her positive stance characterising the Budget as taking a “hard-nosed approach” to cutting spending and welcomed many other measures such as skills and education initiatives and the Building Australia Fund. read more >

Climate change and the environment:

In the lead up to last night, the Budget was flagged as delivering for the environment. After the climate change election of last year, people were expecting big things for this year, but it’s going to be 2008-09 before we start to see the real money for climate change. read more >

Economists:

A ‘no real surprises’ reaction from most economists to this year’s Budget. Generally, they aren’t expecting this Budget to aggravate inflation but are unsure as to whether it will have the desired effect of halting the growing rate of inflation. read more >

A snapshot of reactions from the health sector and NGOs

The Budget has received mixed reactions from the Health and NGO sectors. The president of the Australian Medical Association, Dr Rosanna Capolingua, said the AMA was pleased to see the Budget had been reasonably protected from serious cuts. She said, “Our major concern is always to see that patient care is not undermined and that quality health care is at the forefront of any budget measures.” read more >