What in America they call the State of the Union, in Australia we call the federal budget.
As surprising as it may seem, Australian budgets aren’t really about money — they’re about values.
As a case in point, a key part of next week’s budget will be an announcement about childcare, but the childcare measures won’t start until 2022-23.
It’s not clear that they’ll need to be in the 2021-22 budget in order to get approved.
Indeed, the budget’s formal title is Appropriation bill (No. 1) 2021-22. The budget bill will deal only with appropriations for 2021-22.