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Australian Treasurer unveils budget for year 2015-16

Xinhua, May 12, 2015 Adjust font size:

Australian federal Treasurer Joe Hockey unveiled on Tuesday evening the government's budget for year 2015-16, predicting a budget deficit of 35 billion AU dollars (27 billion U.S. dollars) this year.

The government had given up its rhetoric of bringing the budget back to surplus soon thanks to the further diving of the price of iron ore, the country's major revenue earner.

Hockey said the government expects to lower the deficit to 25.8 billion AU dollars (20 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016-17 and all the way to 6.9 billion (5.45 billion U.S. dollars) in 2018-19.

The latest budget highlights a 5.5 billion AU dollar (4.34 billion U.S. dollar) package to help more than 2 million small businesses in the country.

From Tuesday night, small businesses will be able to immediately deduct any asset costing less than 20,000 AU dollars ( 15,800 U.S. dollars), a massive increase from the current 1,000 dollar (790 U.S. dollar) value threshold.

Another winner is national security, which receives 450 million dollars (355 million U.S. dollars) from the budget.

Of that, 296 million (233.8 million U.S. dollars) will go boosting the technological capabilities of the country's intelligence gathering agencies, while the new border protection service the Australian Border Force will get 50 million (39.5 million U.S. dollars) to train its officers.

The government will also give 131 million (103 million U.S. dollars) to the telecommunications industry to help it comply with the new metadata collections laws, which forces telecommunications companies to store the metadata of their customers for two years.

There will also be 22 million dollars (17.4 million U.S. dollars) for social media monitoring that will help counter the online extremist dogma of groups like Islamic State.

Australia's military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and the Middle East will get a 750 million dollars (592.5 million U.S. dollars) boost in this budget.

Hockey also announced in his budget speech a 5 billion dollar ( 3.9 billion U.S. dollar) initiative to develop Northern Australia, which including Northern Territory and parts of Queenland and Western Australia.

The budget also includes a 3.5 billion AU dollars (2.8 billion US dollars) childcare package over four years. However, its funding relies on a cut to the families tax benefit once children reach primary school - a move unpopular with the most of the Senate crossbench.

The last budget by the Coalition government was hugely unpopular, which nearly costs Prime Minister Tony Abbott's job as some backbenchers from his own Liberal party called for a leadership voting in February. Abbott won the vote but subsequently switched positions on some budget issues to win back votes both from backbenchers and the public.

To ensure the budget passes the Senate, the Coalition has a lot of negotiations to do with the Opposition, the Greens and also the crossbenches. Endi