PM Vows To Slash Government Spending, Still Not Clear If That Means Scomo's $400B Vanity Subs

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

Following the Reserve Bank's decision to raise the cash rate for the 5th time in a row yesterday - the government is now conceding that that their political opponents might have a point regarding government spending.

While attending the CHOGM conference with Prince Charles and other commonwealth leaders in the Caribbean this week, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has confirmed the government's decision to look for savings before the end of the year

But what to cut?

Australians have made it abundantly clear in the last ten elections that any cuts to medicare, education - and now the NDIS - will result in even the safest government getting turfed.

Do we start retrenching the public service? That feels like the logical move.

But then again, the public service isn't just isolated to Canberra in the work-from-home era. These people live all over the country, and their job losses are very visible in rural Australia. Even the mere mention of forcing them back to the Canberra bubble is why the Liberal Party have lost far north Queensland in 2025.

Plus, what do we replace the public service with? More consultants who can pass on insider policymaking information to their corporate clients?

Do we just try to keep this country operating without a public service? There are certain industry lobby groups that would be elated if the government decided to erase the CSIRO and their inconvenient scientific findings from public life.

We could certainly trim the fat by reducing the funding to air traffic control and our emergency services, but then again, we don't want to cut too much or we might end up seeing planes fall out of the sky like America has seen thanks to the DOGE experiment.

There is, of course, the possibility of exploring the privatisation of state services as a pathway to decreasing how much money the government spends. Would Woolworths be open to taking control of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry? They've already proven quite adept at making life harder than it needs to be for our farmers.

Or, you know, we could quietly backpedal out of this needlessly expensive underwater military pact that costs more than 20% of our GDP?

$400 billion dollar spent on nothing more than reminding former Prime Minister Scott Morrison about the time he got to hold a press conference with Donald Trump and Boris Johnson.

What is it? Seven submarines? The French were going to build them for us for 16 billion. Why has it ended up costing so much? Does it have something to do with Scotty's new job at an American defense-focused consulting firm?