The Budget, the Senator and Great Non-Expectations. (April 28, 2010)

It's that time of year again and in what's come to be an annual event the Minister for Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, Kim Carr his pronounced publically telling The Australian's Guy Healy:

These are very difficult economic times, very difficult. We are now moving to a period of budget consolidation. It is unrealistic to expect that on top of the very significant gains we were able to secure [for the higher education sector] in last year's budget that there be another round of increases in funding, given that last year's money is still flowing through the system.

I don't want to raise expectations that we can have the sorts of increases we had last year every year. All I can say is the full cost of research projects, the workforce strategy, the changes to our strategic arrangements, and the hubs-and-spokes programs in universities are all very much on track.

As matters stands Mr Healy reports that the science and education portfolios are to increase $274 million in 2010-11, with additional increases of $154 million and $198 earmarked in forward estimates for 2011-12 and 2012-13 respectively.

What is not addressed is the relative positioning and progress of Australia with respect to its first-world cohort as well as China and India.

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By OECD standards Australia is a low tax country — the eighth lowest.

Australia is also a low expenditure country — the third lowest in the OECD.

 a. Data for Mexico and Turkey not available.
 b. Revenue refers to receipts of tax and non tax revenue.
Source: OECD (2008).

The OECD Nations