Deficit decade: Tony Abbott’s $100 billion black hole

Australia faces more than decade of uninterrupted deficits according to an updated assessment by the independent Parliamentary Budget Office that shows Senate intransigence will carve a $100 billion black hole out of revenue between now and 2025-26.
Savings not realised as a result of parliamentary gridlock suggest the budget prediction of a near fiscal balance by 2018-19 is overly optimistic because it is based on budget repair initiatives that have not been legislated and, in many cases, are unlikely to ever pass the Parliament.
The PBO’s assessment lists out the proposals such as welfare cuts and major higher education reforms already factored into the current budget projections as savings but which are not yet approved, in a table entitled “unlegislated measures carried forward from the 2014-15 budget”.