Statement 1: Budget Overview (Continued)
Budget priorities
The 2011‑12 Budget invests in Australia's workforce through better and more targeted skills and training, and new measures to boost participation and expand the economy's productive capacity. The Budget also makes important investments in mental health and regional health and hospitals, infrastructure, education, and support to families.
The key priorities in the 2011‑12 Budget are to:
- respond to Australia's future workforce needs through a comprehensive approach which includes better and more targeted skills and training and new measures to boost participation, particularly for disadvantaged groups;
- build on the Government's $36.2 billion Nation Building Program by improving private sector opportunities to invest in infrastructure and the way we identify and plan future infrastructure priorities;
- continue the Government's strong commitment to improving health services, through investments in mental health reform and critical regional health infrastructure under the regional priority round of the Health and Hospitals Fund;
- ensure all children have the best possible start, by improving the quality of our teachers and providing additional support that is needed for children with disability;
- provide extra support and more timely and flexible assistance for families and low‑ to middle‑income Australians to help them meet the costs that they face, when they arise;
- provide new additional support to small business through an expanded instant asset write‑off to include motor vehicles and a package of measures to help the manufacturing industry build on existing skills and identify new supply opportunities in the resources sector;
- support sustainable and liveable communities through investments in our inner cities and outer suburbs, and investments to improve the quality of life in regional Australia;
- improve the fairness and integrity of the tax system by building on the Government's Stronger, Fairer, Simpler package; and
- support the defence force presence in Afghanistan and continue the Government's strong approach to preventing, deterring and disrupting people smuggling.
The Budget delivers on these priorities while delivering on our election commitments, supporting communities affected by the recent natural disasters and returning the budget to surplus in 2012‑13.
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