NO NEW TAXATION

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 September 1943, Page 3

NO NEW TAXATION

IMPOSED BY FEDERAL BUDGET EXPENDITURE AT RECORD LEVEL BIG CALL ON LOANS & TREASURY BILLS (By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) CANBERRA, September 29. No new direct or indirect taxation is proposed in a record-breaking Budget of £715,000,000 which was introduced in the House of Representatives by the Treasurer, Mr Chifley. Taxation will provide £273,000.000 and other receipts £39,000,000, leaving a deficiency of £403,000,000. This will be met by loans and Treasury bills. The treasurer admitted that he did not expect to obtain more than £300,000,0'00 in loans, and would have to find £103,000,000 by Treasury bills, of which £259,000,000 are already in existence. ' The war expenditure for 1943-44 will amount to £570,000,000—an increase of £ B,ooo,ooo—ancl the other expenditure to £145,000,000—an increase of £37,000,000. To the end of June last Australia’s war debt amounted to £731,000,000, with interest at the rate of £20,000,000 a year. The total cost of the war had reached £llO7 million. The reciprocal aid to the United States last year was £59.000,000, and this year it is expected to reach about £100,000,000. The main increase in the Budget is not for war but for other expenditure, which is up by £37,000,000. The first payment to the Government’s National Welfare Fund, established as part of the plan for social security, is due this year and is estimated at £29,750,000. War and widows’ pensions will cost more than last year.

Mr Chifley said that Australia’s total working population was now 3,370,000, of which 1,370,000, or over 40 per cent, were engaged in the fighting services or defence construction and the manufacture of munitions. Including those producing food, clothing and other essential supplies and services, more than 50 per cent of the population was engaged in the war effort. i The great diversion of the working population from civil requirements to war needs had about reached its limit. The two main impediments to the expansion of production—transport and manpower—were both now receiving special attention. Mr Chifley said there would be no relaxation of the controls over civilian spending and consumption, and neither would the restrictions be suddenly relaxed in the immediate post-war period.