where does it come from??

[Sadaussiemum]

ok so when it comes to voting so on I've never paid attention If I find a party that has strong points that I agree with I vote for them but my question is with all these "promises" were does the money come from it seems to get throw around alot at election time. a girl at work said I'm voting labour because there going to hand out money in family direction that's all well in good but with the amount of people in oz and familys were does it come from?? that plus the school help plus the paid parental leave plus plus plus someone with noble knowledge help me understand better i can just see the contry in red so want to know how it works and can keep the promises with us in the green

[lulu 2]

The money comes from taxes.

[gizmoduckus]

There is only a limited amount of money so if they put more into one thing then they have to pull it out of another.

So if they put more money into health care than maybe they will take it out of education. If they give it to old age pensioners then they might give less to the upkeep of roads. If they give everyone a tax break then they might not put more into border security. Of course these are just random examples....

This is why you vote for the party who will concentrate more on the things that you agree with.

[lulu 2]

To make things a bit more complicated there is also the number of seats in the house and who gets them thanks to votes. You have the 2 main partys taking the majority of seats then the rest is made up of other partys who have preferences to the major parties like for example the greens members could have preference for labour because they agree on issues and so they will vote with labour giving the major party more of a majority of votes.
Hope that makes sence so even when voting for minor parties their vote may still be just as important as the major parties.

[KatiesMum]

as previous posters have mentioned, the money for government spending comes from the people of Australia.

Federal
- Personal income tax
- company income tax
- GST
- excise tax on alcohol, cigarettes, fuel
- Petroleum resource tax for mining

States
- payroll tax
- stamp duty
- mining royalties
- various other small taxes

The Labor government wants to introduce a new tax (the Mining Resource Rent Tax) on mining companies who mine coal and iron ore, and extend the current petroleum tax on fuel to include natural gas at the mine stage. this would significantly increase the amount they can spend .... and they plan to mainly give it to business via a 2% reduction in company tax, so that companies can contribute more to superannuation for employees (compulsory super would increase from 9 - 12%)

The Liberals want to reduce company tax by 1.5% ... not increase super ... but want to charge a levy of 1.7% on big companies in order to pay for their maternity leave scheme.

The rest of the spending promises being made by each party is basically just a difference in how they will spend the current 'General Consolidated Revenue' being received as per above.

there is a limited pot - and a great many things to spend it on.

[Sadaussiemum]

thanks ladys. just seems with the throwing around like it's endless and I think to myself well it has to stop some were like my spending