‘It’s only fair’ says Swan, as he empties the tills- All registered businesses to empty their tills at the end of each day and send half of it straight to the Tax Office.

ROWAN DEAN

The Treasurer, Wayne Swan, this morning unveiled his highly anticipated updated Update of the Mid Mid-Year Mid-week Mid-morning Economical and Fiscal Outlook, which reveals a dramatic downturn in the forward estimates since yesterday morning’s MMYMWMMEFO update.

“This micro-mini-budget is firmly in line with Labor values and yet again shows that we have world-beating public finances,” Mr Swan said.

The Treasurer proudly announced that the government is still on target to deliver a surplus of $346.73 (slightly down from yesterday’s $12,786.94), despite an unexpected collapse in government revenue, thanks to the deteriorating global economic outlook. The chief pillar of the update, designed to free up billions of dollars of dormant revenue, requires all registered businesses to empty their tills at the end of each day and send half of it straight to the Tax Office.

“It’s simply ridiculous that all this money is left lying around in cash registers overnight,” the Treasurer said. “This way, businesses pay their fair share as they go along.”

Other budget savings announced in the update require bus stations, department stores, schools, cafes and kindergartens to return any lost property to the government the same day they find it.

“It’s simply unacceptable that thousands of perfectly productive mobile phones, iPads, umbrellas, lunch boxes, hats and bits of shopping are left lying around contributing nothing whatsoever to our economic outlook. This way we can maintain a healthy surplus by taking the lot straight down to Cash Converters,” he said.

Mr Swan reiterated that Australia’s public finances are the envy of the developed world.

Citing documented evidence, the Treasurer maintained other nations were doing it far tougher: “I’m reliably informed that in New Jersey, for instance – and I’m quoting directly from a highly respected social economics commentator known as ‘the Boss’ – they’re closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks. The foreman says ‘these jobs are going boys, and they ain’t coming back’.”

Mr Swan announced a raft of measures designed to maintain a healthy surplus in line with Labor values.

“Our new North Shore Private Health Insurance rebate requires anyone paying an amount of money to a private health insurance fund, depending on specific postcode variables, to pay exactly the same amount again to the government. What could be fairer?”

Other savings include scrapping the controversial “baby bonus”.

“This was a sexist, misogynistic scheme introduced by Tony Abbott and Peter Costello, among others, in order to reflect their hatred of unmarried, childless women in the workforce. From now on, the baby bonus will only be given to people who don’t have any babies,” he said.

Mr Swan declared that the budget’s deteriorating bottom line was due entirely to global imperatives. “It’s imperative that each boatload of boat people gets about $12 million each, and it’s imperative that Bob Carr gets a quarter of a million dollars every year to fly his missus around the globe.

“With Australia’s strong set of economic fundamentals, you wouldn’t want to live anywhere else in the world,” Mr Swan declared.

“Take New Jersey, for instance, where I am reliably informed by the aforementioned respected analyst that, ‘there are cripples on the corner crying out “nickels for your pity”, and it’s hard to be a saint in the city’.”

Questioned as to why there were no tax cuts for business in order to help stimulate growth, the World’s Greatest Treasurer pointed out that the disbanded Business Working Group had decided there was no need. “We told them they could have as many tax cuts as they wanted so long as they paid for them out of their own pockets. What could be fairer than that?”  

Refuting the criticism that his mining tax was an abysmal failure and a laughing stock because none of the mining companies had paid a brass razoo of it, Mr Swan pointed out that both he and the Prime Minister Julia Gillard were personally involved in the complex negotiations with global mining corporations Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Xstrata that led to the unique revenue-raising design of the tax.

“The whole point of the mining tax, as Julia and I made clear to the mining companies, was to ‘spread the boom’. As all three of their accountants astutely pointed out to us, the best and fairest way to share the profits of the boom was if there weren’t any. That way, everyone got an equal slice. Of zero.”

Bruce Springsteen was unavailable for comment.

ROWAN DEAN

‘It’s only fair’ says Swan, as he empties the tills: