Timor-Leste started 2018 in political chaos and ended the year with a return to the confrontational politics of the past. What appeared to be the cooperation between key parties CNRT and Fretilin in the ‘government of national unity’ between 2015-17 was shattered following the 2017 elections. The political stalemate that arose under the 2017 minority […]
Tag Archives: Budget
For a year that started so well in Timor-Leste, it has ended badly. The country in a constitutional crisis, its minority government refusing to reconvene parliament, and there is the prospect of new elections in 2018 looming. 2017 saw Presidential and Parliamentary elections, both of which were peaceful and which indicated that the country’s […]
Australia’s 2017-18 budget is expected to announce further cuts to Australian foreign aid to help fund an expansion of the country’s counter-terrorism activities. There is no doubt that counter-terrorism is both necessary and expensive, but it is a failure of logic – as well as Australia’s commitment to international welfare – to conflate foreign aid […]
In the recently released Victorian government budget and in the accompanying Treasurer’s speech, the government made much of a fall in GST and stamp duty revenue, claiming ‘significant revenue write downs’ and a reduction of $7.6 billion over the forthcoming four year period 2012-13 to 2015-16. This would suggest an actual expected decline in the […]